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try again. (The relative safety of high-speed collisions,
moreover, turns most racing videogames further into
digital versions of the fairground dodgems.) So the
rollercoaster and the videogame both offer the
pleasurable, adrenaline-surging experience of danger,
with none of the risk.
Other technologies have enhanced (or at least changed)
games and sports, and videogames have enhanced (or at
least built upon) the basic concepts of board games and
fairground attractions. But though you can play chess
with bits of mud, or soccer with scrunched-up
newspaper and a few sweaters, you cannot play a
modern videogame except by means of a machine.
It can be argued that all art forms are dependent on
a certain level of technology. Writing in English, for
instance, cannot take place without an alphabet, which
is itself literally a technology (the word comes from the
Greek meaning “knowledge of a skill”). But in the
modern sense of technology as a physical device or
gadget, videogames clearly belong in the lineage that
was started only relatively recently, with photography,
in which the execution of the artwork (or form of
entertainment) is impossible without certain complex
apparatus.
