Remediation: Understanding New Media
Jay David Bolter & Richard Grusin

Chapter 4. Computer Games

The term "computer game" covers a range of forms,
including violent action games, strategy games,
role-playing and narrative games, erotic and frankly
pornographic applications, card games, puzzles and
skill-testing exercises, and educational software.
Some of these forms are clear repurposings of early
games. Some computer games restage famous
boardgames from Monopoly to Trivial Pursuit; others
enact war games (including reenactments of World
War II, the Civil War, and so on), which were first
introduced and are still played as intricate board
games. There are digital versions of every popular
American sport from golf to football, which
remediate on at least two levels. Computer games
are delivered on a variety of platforms, which are
themselves multiply remediating artifacts: arcade
machines; video units that connect to a television
set; CD-ROM (or DVD) applications for desktop
computers; games sites and servers on the Internet
to be received by desktop computers or televisions
with settop boxes; and portable games units. In all
their forms and with all their modes of delivery,
digital games remediate earlier genres and media.