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Feelie
A feelie is a physical item included to supplement a video game. Likely deriving their name from the fictional media in Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel Brave New World, feelies were popularized by the American video game company Infocom in the 1980s and subsequently adopted by such companies as Origin Systems and Sierra Entertainment in the United States and Namco and ASCII in Japan. Becoming less prevalent since the rise of digital distribution, feelies are now limited primarily to deluxe editions that are sold at a premium.
Feelies may take various forms, with common ones including reproductions of game objects, printed materials, cosmetics, and figurines. Historically, feelies allowed video game developers to implement copy protection and minimize the amount of digital space used for supplemental materials while simultaneously distinguishing their products from those of competitors. For players, feelies could provide assistance during gameplay, opportunities for continued play elsewhere, and improved immersion. Scholars have explored feelies as paratexts, while video game journalists have recalled them fondly.
The word "feelie" was used by the video game company Infocom to refer to the physical items packaged with its games. It had previously been used to describe a form of entertainment that also stimulates the senses of touch and smell by Aldous Huxley in his novel Brave New World (1932), which likely provides the etymology. In a 2013 interview, Infocom founder Dave Lebling recalled the team as having drawn inspiration from the board games of Dennis Wheatley, which had included dossiers, interviews, and even locks of hair.
Common feelies include reproductions of objects from games, printed materials (such as comic books and novels), and cosmetics for game controllers. Some feelies are integrated into game packaging; the packaging itself may also constitute a feelie. Figurines are common feelies in deluxe editions, and may assume a static pose or come with articulated joints that allow for play. Other recorded feelies have included tissues and dry pasta (Infogrames's Murders in Venice, 1989), as well as a cotton ball and a plastic bag said to contain a "microscopic space fleet" (Infocom's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 1984).
The video game scholar Ian Peters divides feelies into two categories, artefacts and collectibles. He defines artefacts as objects that "seem to have been yanked from the immaterial world into the material one", thereby providing players with a tangible link to the game world. Collectibles, meanwhile, are understood as generally scaled-down objects that represent elements of the game world without being offered as examples of items contained therein.
In many games, feelies were historically used as a means of copy protection. By associating puzzle solutions with physical items, game developers disincentivized the distribution of bootleg copies; without the accompanying feelies, players could not complete the game. Examples include Lucasfilm Games' The Secret of Monkey Island (1990), which locked solutions behind a "Dial-a-Pirate" wheel, and Infocom's Return to Zork (1993), which came with an Encyclopaedia Frobozzica answering in-game questions. Such an approach, according to Lebling, was attractive in the 1980s due to the difficulty of using on-disc protection.
Infocom developer Steve Meretzky notes that, in the early years of video gaming when limited space was available for interactive digital media, feelies benefitted the production team by freeing space for other content. Remembering the production of Deadline (1982), Lebling contrasted the game with detective stories. Where novels had space for pages of exposition, such space was not available in contemporary media, and thus the Infocom team had developed a dossier to provide players with the context and information necessary to play the game.
As marketing material, feelies create a sense of added value, giving the impression that games are luxury items. Such upselling has become particularly commonplace with the practice of issuing deluxe editions of video games that contain the games themselves as well as supplemental materials. These special editions, partly due to the size of the figurines and other merchandise contained therein, have distinctive packaging that distinguishes them from other games. After purchase, such packaging may be displayed as artwork.
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Feelie AI simulator
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Feelie
A feelie is a physical item included to supplement a video game. Likely deriving their name from the fictional media in Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel Brave New World, feelies were popularized by the American video game company Infocom in the 1980s and subsequently adopted by such companies as Origin Systems and Sierra Entertainment in the United States and Namco and ASCII in Japan. Becoming less prevalent since the rise of digital distribution, feelies are now limited primarily to deluxe editions that are sold at a premium.
Feelies may take various forms, with common ones including reproductions of game objects, printed materials, cosmetics, and figurines. Historically, feelies allowed video game developers to implement copy protection and minimize the amount of digital space used for supplemental materials while simultaneously distinguishing their products from those of competitors. For players, feelies could provide assistance during gameplay, opportunities for continued play elsewhere, and improved immersion. Scholars have explored feelies as paratexts, while video game journalists have recalled them fondly.
The word "feelie" was used by the video game company Infocom to refer to the physical items packaged with its games. It had previously been used to describe a form of entertainment that also stimulates the senses of touch and smell by Aldous Huxley in his novel Brave New World (1932), which likely provides the etymology. In a 2013 interview, Infocom founder Dave Lebling recalled the team as having drawn inspiration from the board games of Dennis Wheatley, which had included dossiers, interviews, and even locks of hair.
Common feelies include reproductions of objects from games, printed materials (such as comic books and novels), and cosmetics for game controllers. Some feelies are integrated into game packaging; the packaging itself may also constitute a feelie. Figurines are common feelies in deluxe editions, and may assume a static pose or come with articulated joints that allow for play. Other recorded feelies have included tissues and dry pasta (Infogrames's Murders in Venice, 1989), as well as a cotton ball and a plastic bag said to contain a "microscopic space fleet" (Infocom's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 1984).
The video game scholar Ian Peters divides feelies into two categories, artefacts and collectibles. He defines artefacts as objects that "seem to have been yanked from the immaterial world into the material one", thereby providing players with a tangible link to the game world. Collectibles, meanwhile, are understood as generally scaled-down objects that represent elements of the game world without being offered as examples of items contained therein.
In many games, feelies were historically used as a means of copy protection. By associating puzzle solutions with physical items, game developers disincentivized the distribution of bootleg copies; without the accompanying feelies, players could not complete the game. Examples include Lucasfilm Games' The Secret of Monkey Island (1990), which locked solutions behind a "Dial-a-Pirate" wheel, and Infocom's Return to Zork (1993), which came with an Encyclopaedia Frobozzica answering in-game questions. Such an approach, according to Lebling, was attractive in the 1980s due to the difficulty of using on-disc protection.
Infocom developer Steve Meretzky notes that, in the early years of video gaming when limited space was available for interactive digital media, feelies benefitted the production team by freeing space for other content. Remembering the production of Deadline (1982), Lebling contrasted the game with detective stories. Where novels had space for pages of exposition, such space was not available in contemporary media, and thus the Infocom team had developed a dossier to provide players with the context and information necessary to play the game.
As marketing material, feelies create a sense of added value, giving the impression that games are luxury items. Such upselling has become particularly commonplace with the practice of issuing deluxe editions of video games that contain the games themselves as well as supplemental materials. These special editions, partly due to the size of the figurines and other merchandise contained therein, have distinctive packaging that distinguishes them from other games. After purchase, such packaging may be displayed as artwork.