This book is a history and overview of the video game industy. From there rise in popularity to the design and manufacture of the games, it tells the story of how they grew in popularity to becoming one of the biggest businesses in the world, dominating arcades and home televisions. In the first chapter it looks at the rise of games from chess to dice to games that are downloaded to the Atari Video Coomputer System (VCS), through a phone line. Then looks at the teaching possibilties of these electronic games. The second section of the book tells how they work and the invention of the microchip, to Processing and RAM. The third chapter looks at Ralph Baer's Odyssey, it's development and design and it's succesor the Odyssey 2. The fourth section details Nolan Bushnell's Computer Space, Pong, and the rise of his company Atari, until he left the company. The fifth section details the most popular games and annilizes their popularity. The sixth and seventh sections tell how hames are designed and from ideas and manufacturing of arcade and home cartridges to the illustrations on the sides of arcade machines. The eith section details laws passed preventing children from playing games during school hours, and looks at video game violence. The final section looks at the future of games, such as wireless controllers, console game/computer combinations, and even notes how games such as E.T. were "...not a big success." A Glossary, and Index are also provided at the end of the book. It has many black and white pictures of the people, places, and things mentioned in the text.