''Game Over: How Nintendo Zapped an American Industry, Captured Your Dollars, and Enslaved Your Children'' is a

non-fiction Nonfiction, or non-fiction, is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to provide information (and sometimes opinions) grounded only in facts and real life, rather than in imagination. Nonfiction is often associated with b ...

book written by

David Sheff David Sheff (born December 23, 1955) is an American author of the books '' Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction'', ''Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America's Greatest Tragedy'',Sussman, Mick (April 19, 2013)"A Di ...

and published by

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Ger ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

in 1993. Based on many extensive interviews of high level historical figures, it has provided a research foundation for subsequent works, with a positive critical reception.

Overview

The book details the modern history of Nintendo and its rise to become the most powerful electronic gaming company in the world as of 1993. It provides a history of the worldwide electronic gaming industry as a whole from the 1960s to the 1990s. Beyond its very specific title, the book is fairly neutral; it mainly relates the history of the company to the positives and negatives of its business practices. Sheff attributes many of Nintendo's successes to what reviewer

James Fallows James Mackenzie Fallows (born August 2, 1949) is an American writer and journalist. He is a former national correspondent for ''The Atlantic.'' His work has also appeared in ''Slate'', ''The New York Times Magazine'', ''The New York Review of Book ...

termed "the Japanese system's tolerance for monopoly". Sheff defends the accuracy of the "enslaved your children" portion of the subtitle, stating that "kids will play the games compulsively and non-stop". The book provides a foundation for subsequent historical research because the author extensively interviewed numerous historical industry figures, such as

Howard Lincoln Howard Charles Lincoln (born February 14, 1940) is an American lawyer and businessman, known primarily for being the former Chairman of Nintendo of America and the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Seattle Mariners baseball team ...

Nolan Bushnell Nolan Kay Bushnell (born February 5, 1943) is an American businessman and electrical engineer. He established Atari, Inc. and the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre chain. He has been inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame and the Consum ...

Shigeru Miyamoto is a Japanese video game designer, producer and game director at Nintendo, where he serves as one of its representative directors. Widely regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential designers in the history of video games, he i ...

(misspelled as "Sigeru" if regarding Hepburn romanization as definitive),

Alexey Pajitnov Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov. (born 16 April 1955) is a Russian-born American computer engineer and video game designer. He is best-known for designing and developing ''Tetris'' in 1984 while working at the Dorodnitsyn Computing Centre under the ...

, and anonymous sources.

Revisions

''Game Over: How Nintendo Conquered the World'', an edition published by

Vintage Press Vintage Books is a trade paperback publishing imprint of Penguin Random House originally established by Alfred A. Knopf in 1954. The company was purchased by Random House in April 1960, and a British division was set up in 1990. After Random H ...

in 1994, contains a new foreword written by author David Sheff pertaining to the controversy over video game content in the early 1990s. In 1999, a revised edition of the book titled ''Game Over: Press Start to Continue – The Maturing of Mario'' (referencing Nintendo's flagship character

Mario is a character created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. He is the title character of the '' Mario'' franchise and the mascot of Japanese video game company Nintendo. Mario has appeared in over 200 video games since his c ...

) was released. It has error corrections, and photographs and new chapters written by

Andy Eddy Andy Eddy is an American video game journalist and critic. He resides in Redwood City, California. Biography Eddy was the executive editor (and de facto editor-in-chief) of ''VideoGames & Computer Entertainment'' in the late 1980s and early 1990 ...

. An edited version was printed by

Coronet Books Coronet Books was established in 1966 as the paperback imprint of Hodder & Stoughton. The imprint was closed in 2004 but then relaunched in 2010, publishing fiction and non-fiction in hardback and paperback, including works by Chris Ryan, Lorna ...

and given away free with the May 1999 issue of ''Arcade'' magazine.

Reception

The book had a mostly positive reception. Christopher Lehmann–Haupt of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' wrote that the book is "irresistible ... ''Game Over'' tells a remarkable series of stories ... And maybe that is its hidden message. Maybe that is what makes it, at its best, almost as hypnotic as a successful video game." Alex Kozinsky of ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' called it "the bible of the videogame industry" and "ultimately less absorbing than ''

Tetris ''Tetris'' (russian: link=no, Тетрис) is a puzzle video game created by Soviet Union, Soviet software engineer Alexey Pajitnov in 1984. It has been published by several companies for multiple platforms, most prominently during a dispute o ...

'', but not by much". Clarence Petersen of the ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...

'' called it "a cross between ''

Barbarians at the Gate ''Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco'' is a 1989 book about the leveraged buyout (LBO) of RJR Nabisco, written by investigative journalists Bryan Burrough and John Helyar. The book is based upon a series of articles written by the a ...

'' and ''

The Soul of a New Machine ''The Soul of a New Machine'' is a non-fiction book written by Tracy Kidder and published in 1981. It chronicles the experiences of a computer engineering team racing to design a next-generation computer at a blistering pace under tremendous ...

''". ''

People A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of proper ...

'' magazine said, "Writing with the playful pluck of

..Sheff unfolds an engrossing tale." Fellow technology historian

Steven Levy Steven Levy (born 1951) is an American journalist and Editor at Large for '' Wired'' who has written extensively for publications on computers, technology, cryptography, the internet, cybersecurity, and privacy. He is the author of the 1984 boo ...

said, "Mr. Sheff is comprehensive and instructive. ... Whoever those future billionaires are, they would do well to read this book." Alan Deutschman of '' Fortune'' said, "Finally, a book as provocative as its title, ''Game Over'' is a detailed, fascinating, and instructive case study". Deirdre McMurdy of ''

Maclean's ''Maclean's'', founded in 1905, is a Canadian news magazine reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events. Its founder, publisher John Bayne Maclean, established the magazine to provide a uniquely Canadian persp ...

'' said, "Sheff painstakingly documents the history of Nintendo and its relentless rise to dominance of the global toy industry." '' Next Generation'' gave a positive review for the breadth, quality of research, and easy readability. It remarked that the one flaw is that the frequent detours from the Nintendo story give the reader the feeling that the book is an overview of gaming history in general with an unbalanced focus on Nintendo. It concluded, "''Next Generation'' uses ''Game Over'' as a reference guide on a day-to-day basis, and we really can't give any higher recommendation than that."

Legacy

The high level of interview access to major historical figures, which ''

US Gamer Gamer Network Limited (formerly Eurogamer Network Limited) is a British mass media company based in Brighton. Founded in 1999 by Rupert and Nick Loman, it owns brands—primarily editorial websites—relating to video game journalism and ot ...

'' described as "unprecedented" and making it "the definitive work", has been referenced by nearly all other subsequent books and articles about Nintendo's history.

Overview

Revisions

Reception

Legacy

References

Further reading