Format(ive) Wars: Formation of the British Videogames Industry in the 1980s

This paper, presented at the 1st International Joint Conference of DiGRA and FDG, examines how the British videogames industry took shape during the 1980s, arguing that the familiar "format wars" framing, which casts the rivalry between Commodore and Sinclair Spectrum machines as a defining moment, is an incomplete account. It contends that the linear, generational narratives favoured by videogame commentators privilege technological fetishism, and that existing scholarship, particularly the reliance on discourse analysis of magazines such as Zzap! and Crash, overlooks other influences on the industry's emergence.

The author reframes the period by treating all participants, including developers, publishers, distributors, high street retailers, and journalists, as interdependent actors whose relationships were shaped by business and media strategies that the paper claims established the paradigm for present-day marketing and public relations. Specific practices identified include the "chain of approval" linking gamers, retailers, publishers, software houses and developers; the publisher's role as an "Artist and Repertoire" agent for developers; the promotion of unreleased hardware such as the Spectrum QL as "vapourware"; the use of retouched promotional imagery known as "bullshots"; and the personal branding of industry figures including Alan Sugar and Robert Maxwell.

The study's methodology rests on primary interview data gathered from developers and publishers active in the 1980s, supplemented by contemporary literature of the period. Its analysis focuses on the affiliations among Sinclair and its company, Sensible Software, Hewson Consultants, Robert Maxwell's Mirrorsoft, high street chains, and the magazines of Newsfield Publications, which the paper describes as bound together through a combination of capital, consumption, repetition and innovation. The sample is therefore qualitative and centred on the UK, with a historical scope limited to the formative years of the decade.