An Attempt to Analyze Video Game Articles in Non-Game Media

Children and Video Games as Seen from Shogakukan's Grade-specific Educational Magazines

Abstract

In this study, I collected articles on video games in Shogakukan's grade-specific educational magazines (GE- magazines) for six grades from 1975 to 1987 and constructed an article database. Furthermore, I examined the article contents, compared them with previous studies on the history of video games, and considered new research perspectives in considering the spread of video games in the early years of the game industry. As a result, a large amount of video game articles were found in GE-magazines, which are non-video game specialized media. In addition, analysis of the article contents showed that the articles were written before the Family Computer boom after 1985, and presented an important discussion point, especially regarding handheld electronic games.