Toys, Video Games, Platforms, and

Mattel Electronics’s Intellivision

Tom Boellstorff
The University of California, Irvine
Department of Anthropology
3151 Social Science Plaza
Irvine, CA 92697-5100
949-824-9944
tboellst@[Link]

Braxton Soderman
University of California, Irvine
Department of Film and Media Studies
2000 Humanities Gateway
Irvine, California 92697-2435
949-824-3532
asoderma@[Link]

ABSTRACT

Keywords

Platform, Platform Studies, Intellivision, Toys, Toy Industry, Video Game History,
Mattel, Mattel Electronics

BODY TEXT

Intellivision was a home videogame system developed in the late 1970s by Mattel
Electronics, a division of Mattel, an innovative, US-based toy company best known for
Barbie and Hot Wheels. The history of toys is germane to the rise of videogames
generally, but for Intellivision the context of toy production at Mattel was pivotal
(Herman 1982). Why did a toy company famous for Barbie and Hot Wheels end up
making Intellivision? At first glance, toys and sophisticated computer technologies
might appear to be at odds. Yet from its beginnings Mattel—a company that
fundamentally transformed the toy industry—integrated technology into its products
(Kline 1993). Tracing Mattel’s path from toys to videogame technology illuminates
why, despite unprecedented challenges and expense, Mattel executives eventually
supported developing Intellivision. It also reveals underappreciated connections
between videogames, platforms, and toys.
While toys have been discussed in relation to the emergence of videogames
(Kline et. al 2003; Newman 2017) their precise influence on this emergence remains
understudied. Maaike Lauwaert (2009) has argued that game studies scholars typically
“do not focus on the long-term historical perspective of play as a cultural practice, the
role of technological innovations within this history and the changing dynamics
between players, toys and companies.” Moreover, recent work from Miguel Sicart
(2022) opens avenues for examining a history of “playthings,” a conceptualization that
allows for more nuanced ways of thinking about the historical relationship between
toys and videogames. Building on such scholarship, we examine Intellivision’s

Proceedings of DiGRA 2023

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relationship to the social, economic, and technological context of its development,
allowing us to analyze videogames in terms of toys, games, and play while exploring
how Mattel’s status as a dominant toy company fundamentally shaped Intellivision’s
history within the United States. A focused case study analyzing Mattel’s history of toy
production in relation to Intellivision thus contributes significant detail to platform
studies, game studies, and the history of videogames.
In this paper, we analyze the history of toy production at Mattel Toys in terms
of its technological innovations, arguing that Mattel engineers approached toy
production in ways that align conceptually with the later development of videogame
platforms, thus preparing Mattel to pursue similar developments in electronic game
technology. From its beginnings in the 1940s, Mattel developed what toy designers
came to call “principles,” akin to platforms for toy production. These principles were
patented mechanisms that were extended and elaborated through numerous iterations
in different toys (Handler 1994). For instance, Mattel engineers created a music box
mechanism that was rethemed and embedded in various toys. Another example was
miniature vinyl records inserted into mechanisms which produced numerous “talking
toys” such as Mattel’s Chatty dolls, Instant Replay toy radio, and board games such as
Talking Football. These technical structures, or “principles,” were adjusted for different
toy designs, leveraging a razor/razor-blade commodity model which split an underlying
material structure from accessories to be “sold separately.” While redressing Barbie to
change her look, or inserting a miniature record into an analog device to change its
output, are technically simple compared to later developments like inserting a cartridge
into a digital videogame system, they align conceptually. Thus, we argue that such
“principles” provide an alternative history of videogames—stemming from analog
toys, not digital computation—while also explaining how videogame platforms would
appear familiar to an innovative toy company like Mattel.
Further supporting this argument, our paper analyzes how Intellivision was
originally conceived as an extension of the traditional toy category of “games.” Our
research has revealed that Mattel wanted to develop new product categories while also
strengthening its market presence within the “games” category—traditionally including
board and card games for both children and adults. The market for games, both analog
and digital, was expanding in the mid-1970s. Thus, electronic games—including
Intellivision and Mattel’s toy-like, portable, handheld games—were conceptualized as
extensions of the “game” category of toy production, a historical influence that shaped
the kind of realistic simulations and complex videogames that came to define
Intellivision’s early game library.
Our focus on Mattel, toys, games, and videogames allows us to understand the
nascent videogame industry within the US from a different perspective. Platform
studies (and videogame history in general) has focused on digital technologies to
narrate historical transition, for example, locating second-generation videogame
systems (which detached cartridges from platform, software from hardware) as a
rupture and paradigm shift toward programmability (Montfort and Bogost 2009).
Mattel’s history reveals the second generation not only as a rupture, but also as a time
of continuity, teaching us that there are alternative chronologies of videogame history
beyond the technological. In doing so we contribute to scholarship that seeks differing
accounts of historical determination in relation to platforms, such as the economic
(Deterding 2016) and material embodiment (Reynolds 2016).
Overall, this paper provides the following interventions. First, it offers a
historical and conceptual account of the emergence of an important videogame
platform in the US, Intellivision, and explains why a toy company like Mattel decided
to produce a sophisticated videogame system. Second, it provides a specific historical
examination of early videogames in the USA from the perspective of toys and games.
Third, it offers an alternative history of videogames from the perspective of analog
instead of digital technology. Fourth, it expands our understanding of platforms in
terms of the history of videogames, providing an analysis of Mattel’s toy “principles”

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as proto-platforms. Fifth, it demonstrates the importance of linking game studies, toy
studies, and play studies to investigate game history. Our research is based on
thousands of documents from institutional, corporate, and personal employee archives.
In addition, we have interviewed over 150 individuals (largely US-based, English-
speaking respondents) who worked on Intellivision including engineers, programmers,
managers, executives, lawyers, marketers, QA testers, and more.

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[Link]
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