Equestrian video game industry.

[Stainless Steel Fox]

Just when I thought the Equestrian tech tree couldn't get any more overgrown... cabinet arcade games! In Hearts and Hooves day, the colt who's too young is also playing what's clearly a cabinet mounted video game, and there are others around, which show some sort of screen. This was something I was certain was beyond Equestrian technology.

Apart from the processor unit, there must be some sort of display technology. Which begs the question, why don't we see other examples of it? Absent any form of radio or cable network to act as a broadcast system, there must be some sort of recording technology better than vitrola style vinyl discs to act as the memory of the arcade game.

This is a society with no forms of mass media beyond the newspaper. Despite having quite sophisticated photographic technology and audio recording, and bright enough light sources, they don't have even the most basic film industry, something that happened in our world with a more primitive tech level than theirs. They even have unicorn illusions (Rarity's fashion show) to give them a starting point (Rarity should have challenged Trixie on that, she'd have knocked her illuminated line drawings out of the ring).

I can't believe a society that developed airships to a practical level and has things like aerosol spray cans (Sweet and Elite) isn't able to come up with a flexible celuloid film. Thermionic valves are possible, since we've seen incandescent bulbs in multiple episodes, so broadcast radio might be a possibility. But that's a side issue.

Thaumo-tech is the only answer. Some magic or magic/electrical/mechanical hybrid technology that allows for low density memory storage (the earliest arcade games were electromechanical and used discrete components). Either the display uses ordinary lights projected onto a screen (again why would this be developed for arcade games and not film?) and manipulated by mechanical slides, or some magical equivalent of the cathode ray tube.

I suppose they could be purely mechanical ones, but the one he was playing definitely had a joystick like controller, and I can't think of any mechanical game that did.

[Davroth]

The arcade cabinets could be mechanical rather then electrical. With firefly lighting.

Just saying. ^^

[SteelEagle]

And even if they were electrical and everything the OP said is spot-on accurate, the absence of something in the show does not necessarily mean it doesn't exist in the universe at large- it just means it isn't canon...yet.

[tacobob]

I REALLY wish they stuck to a sort of steam-punk fantasy setting, but I guess the writers are going to throw in whatever seems fun for a scene. Mind you, I think all that stuff was thrown in for the song. Don't think some pony is going to have his bath tub sitting in the middle of town..Or those yelly jars. When the song stopped, all that stuff sort of poofed away.

[Rosewind]

My theory is it's a cartoon, and the creative powers that be will use whatever technology will fit into the story on an episode-by-episode basis.

I also think FiM would be pretty boring if they really did stick to strict canon.

[Stainless Steel Fox]

Ship fic between Pinkie Pie and Jelly Jar stallion, it will have to happen.

@ Rosewind - Maybe so, but it's a pain for fanfic writers and world bulding when the goal posts keep changing. I love the steampunk aesthetic and would have been happy to stay there, especially combined with unicorn magic. If you want to think outside the chimney, my concept of a Star Heart reactor, a magical fusion gravity pinch-bottle reactor that outputs energy as either electricity or raw magic is in the thaumo-tech thread in Proposed Lore.

[Acynder]

I REALLY wish they stuck to a sort of steam-punk fantasy setting, but I guess the writers are going to throw in whatever seems fun for a scene. Mind you, I think all that stuff was thrown in for the song. Don't think some pony is going to have his bath tub sitting in the middle of town..Or those yelly jars. When the song stopped, all that stuff sort of poofed away.

This. Or at the very least Clock-punk.

[Dessa]

From what I surmise, Lauren Faust was the one who seemed to police the tech levels. She didn't want the ponies aboard a train in Over a Barrel, and wrestled with the writing staff over that (which is what resulted in the odd compromise of a horse-drawn train). My best guess is with her off of the show, the writers would rather have the freedom to write in tech as needed rather than have to try to come up with stories that fit a particular setting.

[Bronynumber299]

that is a hard question it makes me feel bad about putting night vision goggles in my fanfic

[Ashton]

My theory is it's a cartoon, and the creative powers that be will use whatever technology will fit into the story on an episode-by-episode basis.

This.

If it fits, we will see the ponies on a starship. If it fits, they will be riding dinosaurs and reading stone tablets.

I'm still sticking to the assumption that Tech is fairly rare and expensive - that would explain the cabinette games (think back to pinball and how advanced it was for it's time, how much it cost to buy/rent a machine, and how much money the proprietor made on those nickles/dimes/quarters that kept being pumped into it) I can see a large arcade doing this even when the average family cant afford as much as a radio.