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Renowned video game journalist and award-winning author Simon Parkin has just announced his latest book, which focuses on a significant moment in video game history.
Trial of the Space Invaders: The Case that Changed Video Games follows Parkin's previous best-selling works, which include A Game Of Birds And Wolves, The Forbidden Garden of Leningrad and The Island of Extraordinary Captives.
"In the autumn of 1988, in a New York City courtroom, two video game industry giants faced off," reads the book's synopsis. "Magnavox laid claim to gaming's past, with an iron grip on patents that encompassed the very concept of video games; Nintendo, a rising creative and commercial superpower, was determined to claim gaming's future."
This case, Parkin explains, investigated the foundations of the video game industry. "According to the patents, Ralph Baer, a refugee from Nazi Germany and subsequent employee of an American defence contractor, was the sole inventor of the 1966 'Television Gaming Display' from which an entire industry sprang. But in the early 1960s, on the other side of the country, brilliant young engineers at Stanford were caught up in galactic battle, fighting fierce bouts of a thrilling new game called Spacewar."
Nintendo, which was finding global success with its NES console, saw these patents as an obstacle that needed to be removed through legal means.
"They were crippling innovation in a rapidly expanding industry and costing them millions," adds Parkin. "They had evidence to suggest the patents had been fraudulently obtained. This is the case that defined modern gaming, but its outcome has remained swathed in mystery. In Trial of the Space Invaders, Simon Parkin takes us on a thrilling journey from the birth of a new artform to its turning point, exposing a deal that reshaped our culture."
The book launches on January 21st, 2027. You can pre-order a copy here.
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