Jessica Doyle and Jordan Ferguson, "Dance Dance Revolution" (Boss Fight Books, 2025)

Nov 3, 2025

Jessica Doyle, a writer and city planning Ph.D. from Atlanta, and Jordan Ferguson, a Toronto-based author and music critic, dive into the vibrant world of Dance Dance Revolution. They share their personal journeys with the game and how it has influenced communities across the globe. The duo discusses the split between competitive play and artistic freestyle, alongside the impact of the pandemic on DDR's fan base. They also explore fan creativity, including modding and tournaments, and the culture of hands-on maintenance that keeps the game alive.

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INSIGHT

Personal Memory Sparked Research

Jessica pitched DDR because of a strong personal memory of joy from playing it in arcades.
That emotional connection drove a more historical, research-heavy book than a memoir-style account.

ANECDOTE

Remote Coauthors Who Never Met

Jordan and Jessica met online and never met in person while co-authoring the book.
Jordan's DDR experience was intense but brief, mostly via a PS2 pad at home.

INSIGHT

DDR Is An Active, Living Scene

The authors assumed DDR was mostly a past phenomenon but discovered active, ongoing rhythm-game communities.
Finding contemporary scenes reframed the book from nostalgia to living community history.

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On September 26, 1998, a video game made its debut in Japanese arcades. It was over seven feet tall and weighed just over 900 pounds. It had no characters, no story, no quests to fulfill or bosses to beat. What it had was a metal platform on which you were supposed to stand, put your feet into the right place at the right time, and dance.

Join two music critics, long-ago players, and Sota Fujimori fans as they take you on the astonishing journey through the artists, influences, and innovators of Dance Dance Revolution, a game two and a half decades in the making and still going -- in homes, arcades, and expos.

From its unexpected appearance to its social heyday to its reappearance in the American market, DDR has taken many forms -- not all of them sanctioned by Konami. It has spawned community, creativity, competition, lawsuits, 1,000+ songs that range from wacky to tacky to beautiful, and yes, a lot of dancing. While we were all leaning on the back bar, working up a sweat, DDR managed to change the world.

Jessica Doyle has a Ph.D. in city planning and a love for writing about the connections between pop music, globalization, and the built environment. She cares for her family in the Atlanta suburbs.

Jordan Ferguson is the author of J Dilla’s Donuts, #93 in the 33 1/3 series of record guides, and co-host of the Geekdown, a podcast about fandoms. He lives and works in Toronto, Canada. Find him online @jordan_ferguson.

Rudolf Thomas Inderst (*1978) enjoys video games since 1985. He received a master’s degree in political science, American cultural studies as well as contemporary and recent history from Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich and holds two PhDs in game studies (LMU & University of Passau). Currently, he's teaching as a professor for game design and game studies at the HNU University of Applied Sciences Neu-Ulm, Germany, has submitted his third dissertation at the University of Vechta, holds the position as lead editor at the online journal Titel kulturmagazin for the game section, hosts the German local radio show Replay Value and is editor of the weekly game research newsletter DiGRA D-A-CH Game Studies Watchlist.

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