This article is a contribution to the cultural and historical mapping of electronic gaming. Its basic premise is at least seemingly simple: electronic games did not appear out of nowhere; they have a cultural background that needs to be excavated. The existing literature on the history of videogames has done little towards achieving this goal. In fact, the (hi)story is usually told in a remarkably uniform fashion, built around the same landmarks, breakthroughs and founding fathers (not a word about mothers!). In this article I will excavate some cultural and historical issues relevant for a critical assessment of the emergence of games as an interactive medium. The main emphasis will be the background of electronic games as a manifestation of the human-machine relationship. Although I am fully aware of the complexity of electronic games as a cultural hybrid, I have chosen not to deal with certain of their historical "ingredients", like motives from earlier forms of gaming and play and the oral and literary traditions of storytelling. In the final section I will reflect on the significance of these "media archaeological" findings for contemporary media culture and electronic gaming in particular, pointing out connecting links across the fabric of the 20th century culture.