Anyone attempting to collect the literature of video gaming faces an enormous challenge. The history of the industry is a private library unto itself:
One needs to collect such histories as broadly as possible, since their focus varies considerably.
Some histories cover video gaming in considerable detail, examining everything from video game precursors -- e.g., Thomas Goldsmith's and Estle Mann's 1947 cathode-ray tube amusement device -- to the first home video game (proposed in the mid-1950s by Ralph Baer, though not realized until 1966).
Other histories frequently elect not to pick up the story until video games first come into commercial use in November 1971 (with Nutting Associates' release of Computer Space, created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney):
Of course, book collectors often choose instead to focus only on books that are specific to video games created for particular platforms...
...or focus on collecting only books that are specific to video games developed by particular hardware manufacturers and/or software developers:
Other book collectors choose to focus their collecting efforts on the vast literature that has been devoted to programming various types of video games...
...or they collect the equally vast literature that is devoted to how specific video games might best be played...
...or they search out volumes that explore how the narrative structure and other elements of video games differ from that of printed books and other forms of entertainment:
Some book collectors find the social impact of video gaming to be a topic more worthy of their time and money:
Other book collectors, because they collect video games themselves (as well as the equipment upon which such games are played), may devote at least a part of their private libraries to price and rarity guides....
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