THIS MONTH
THIS MONTH ON EDGE
Some of the other things on our minds when we weren’t doing everything else
BOOK
Press Start
bit.ly/cario-world
Erwan Cario’s tome promises “the complete history of videogaming”, just as the original edition did (but in French) in 2011. Given the speed at which the medium evolves, that makes the book itself practically a historical artefact by this point. This English translation is based on the 2023 update, and it’s fascinating to see which highlights Cario picks from the intervening period. VR, Fortnite, Switch, the rush of indies driven by Steam’s open doors and more each get a two-page section – which is fairly brisk, but we’re most interested by Cario’s overarching argument, breaking videogame history into discrete eras (Pong, Cartridge, Nintendo, Genres, and so on). Following on from 2004–12’s ‘Age Of Movement’, the period since is characterised as ‘The Age Of Excess’.