Arcade Mania, a book about Japanese video game culture

I hung out in Shibuya a lot during middle and high school. It was just the place to be—cheap food, Tower Records, sticker pictures, karaoke, and yes, before any of that stuff existed, there were the video game arcades. My favorite was a five-story little building in the middle of Center-Gai on the left side. I don't remember what it was called. It was tiny and narrow and smoky but that was where most of my friends and I met, so that if somebody was late you could just play games until they showed up.

Fellow Wired writer Brian Ashcraft and blogger Jean Snow have a new book out called Arcade Mania: The Turbo-charged World of Japan's Game Centers in which they neatly dissect the world of Japanese video gaming. It talks about rhythm games (BeatMania came way before DDR or Rock Band. I swear. I remember playing it every weekend when I was a kid); dating sims (dating in-game can be much more passionate than in real life); and UFO catchers (these days you can win everything from ice cream to blow fish). Gaming is a big part of Japanese mass culture—and was, even before the Wii—and I found this book to be a delightful peek back into that part of my history. You should check it out!