Thinking about Video Games

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Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253017181
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (53 download)

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Book Synopsis Thinking about Video Games by : David S. Heineman

Download or read book Thinking about Video Games written by David S. Heineman and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2015-08-03 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The growth in popularity and complexity of video games has spurred new interest in how games are developed and in the research and technology behind them. David Heineman brings together some of the most iconic, influential, and interesting voices from across the gaming industry and asks them to weigh in on the past, present, and future of video games. Among them are legendary game designers Nolan Bushnell (Pong) and Eugene Jarvis (Defender), who talk about their history of innovations from the earliest days of the video game industry through to the present; contemporary trailblazers Kellee Santiago (Journey) and Casey Hudson (Mass Effect), who discuss contemporary relationships between those who create games and those who play them; and scholars Ian Bogost (How to Do Things With Videogames) and Edward Castronova (Exodus to the Virtual World), who discuss how to research and write about games in ways that engage a range of audiences. These experts and others offer fascinating perspectives on video games, game studies, gaming culture, and the game industry more broadly.

The Psychology of Video Games

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000194760
Total Pages : 105 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (1 download)

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Book Synopsis The Psychology of Video Games by : Celia Hodent

Download or read book The Psychology of Video Games written by Celia Hodent and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-10-07 with total page 105 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What impact can video games have on us as players? How does psychology influence video game creation? Why do some games become cultural phenomena? The Psychology of Video Games introduces the curious reader to the relationship between psychology and video games from the perspective of both game makers and players. Assuming no specialist knowledge, this concise, approachable guide is a starter book for anyone intrigued by what makes video games engaging and what is their psychological impact on gamers. It digests the research exploring the benefits gaming can have on players in relation to education and healthcare, considers the concerns over potential negative impacts such as pathological gaming, and concludes with some ethics considerations. With gaming being one of the most popular forms of entertainment today, The Psychology of Video Games shows the importance of understanding the human brain and its mental processes to foster ethical and inclusive video games.

How to Do Things with Videogames

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Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
ISBN 13 : 145293312X
Total Pages : 194 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (529 download)

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Book Synopsis How to Do Things with Videogames by : Ian Bogost

Download or read book How to Do Things with Videogames written by Ian Bogost and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2011-08-05 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, computer games have moved from the margins of popular culture to its center. Reviews of new games and profiles of game designers now regularly appear in the New York Times and the New Yorker, and sales figures for games are reported alongside those of books, music, and movies. They are increasingly used for purposes other than entertainment, yet debates about videogames still fork along one of two paths: accusations of debasement through violence and isolation or defensive paeans to their potential as serious cultural works. In How to Do Things with Videogames, Ian Bogost contends that such generalizations obscure the limitless possibilities offered by the medium’s ability to create complex simulated realities. Bogost, a leading scholar of videogames and an award-winning game designer, explores the many ways computer games are used today: documenting important historical and cultural events; educating both children and adults; promoting commercial products; and serving as platforms for art, pornography, exercise, relaxation, pranks, and politics. Examining these applications in a series of short, inviting, and provocative essays, he argues that together they make the medium broader, richer, and more relevant to a wider audience. Bogost concludes that as videogames become ever more enmeshed with contemporary life, the idea of gamers as social identities will become obsolete, giving rise to gaming by the masses. But until games are understood to have valid applications across the cultural spectrum, their true potential will remain unrealized. How to Do Things with Videogames offers a fresh starting point to more fully consider games’ progress today and promise for the future.

Power Play

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Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
ISBN 13 : 1250089344
Total Pages : 237 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis Power Play by : Asi Burak

Download or read book Power Play written by Asi Burak and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2017-01-31 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The phenomenal growth of gaming has inspired plenty of hand-wringing since its inception--from the press, politicians, parents, and everyone else concerned with its effect on our brains, bodies, and hearts. But what if games could be good, not only for individuals but for the world? In Power Play, Asi Burak and Laura Parker explore how video games are now pioneering innovative social change around the world. As the former executive director and now chairman of Games for Change, Asi Burak has spent the last ten years supporting and promoting the use of video games for social good, in collaboration with leading organizations like the White House, NASA, World Bank, and The United Nations. The games for change movement has introduced millions of players to meaningful experiences around everything from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the US Constitution. Power Play looks to the future of games as a global movement. Asi Burak and Laura Parker profile the luminaries behind some of the movement's most iconic games, including former Supreme Court judge Sandra Day O’Connor and Pulitzer-Prize winning authors Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. They also explore the promise of virtual reality to address social and political issues with unprecedented immersion, and see what the next generation of game makers have in store for the future.

The Comic Book Story of Video Games

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Publisher : Ten Speed Graphic
ISBN 13 : 0399578919
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (995 download)

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Book Synopsis The Comic Book Story of Video Games by : Jonathan Hennessey

Download or read book The Comic Book Story of Video Games written by Jonathan Hennessey and published by Ten Speed Graphic. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A complete, illustrated history of video games--highlighting the machines, games, and people who have made gaming a worldwide, billion-dollar industry/artform--told in a graphic novel format. Author Jonathan Hennessey and illustrator Jack McGowan present the first full-color, chronological origin story for this hugely successful, omnipresent artform and business. Hennessey provides readers with everything they need to know about video games--from their early beginnings during World War II to the emergence of arcade games in the 1970s to the rise of Nintendo to today's app-based games like Angry Birds and Pokemon Go. Hennessey and McGowan also analyze the evolution of gaming as an artform and its impact on society. Each chapter features spotlights on major players in the development of games and gaming that contains everything that gamers and non-gamers alike need to understand and appreciate this incredible phenomenon.

How to Talk about Videogames

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Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
ISBN 13 : 1452949875
Total Pages : 219 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (529 download)

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Book Synopsis How to Talk about Videogames by : Ian Bogost

Download or read book How to Talk about Videogames written by Ian Bogost and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2015-11-15 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Videogames! Aren’t they the medium of the twenty-first century? The new cinema? The apotheosis of art and entertainment, the realization of Wagnerian gesamtkunstwerk? The final victory of interaction over passivity? No, probably not. Games are part art and part appliance, part tableau and part toaster. In How to Talk about Videogames, leading critic Ian Bogost explores this paradox more thoroughly than any other author to date. Delving into popular, familiar games like Flappy Bird, Mirror’s Edge, Mario Kart, Scribblenauts, Ms. Pac-Man, FarmVille, Candy Crush Saga, Bully, Medal of Honor, Madden NFL, and more, Bogost posits that videogames are as much like appliances as they are like art and media. We don’t watch or read games like we do films and novels and paintings, nor do we perform them like we might dance or play football or Frisbee. Rather, we do something in-between with games. Games are devices we operate, so game critique is both serious cultural currency and self-parody. It is about figuring out what it means that a game works the way it does and then treating the way it works as if it were reasonable, when we know it isn’t. Noting that the term games criticism once struck him as preposterous, Bogost observes that the idea, taken too seriously, risks balkanizing games writing from the rest of culture, severing it from the “rivers and fields” that sustain it. As essential as it is, he calls for its pursuit to unfold in this spirit: “God save us from a future of games critics, gnawing on scraps like the zombies that fester in our objects of study.”

Game Thinking

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Author :
Publisher : Gamethinking.IO
ISBN 13 : 9780999788547
Total Pages : 214 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (885 download)

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Book Synopsis Game Thinking by : Amy Jo Kim

Download or read book Game Thinking written by Amy Jo Kim and published by Gamethinking.IO. This book was released on 2018-05-25 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During her time working on genre-defining games like The Sims, Rock Band, and Ultima Online, Amy Jo learned that customers stick with products that help them get better at something they care about, like playing an instrument or leading a team. Amy Jo has used her insights from gaming to help hundreds of companies like Netflix, Disney, The New York Times, Ubisoft and Happify innovate faster and smarter, and drive long-term engagement.

Philosophy Through Video Games

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 113585968X
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (358 download)

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Book Synopsis Philosophy Through Video Games by : Jon Cogburn

Download or read book Philosophy Through Video Games written by Jon Cogburn and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-09-10 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can Wii Sports teach us about metaphysics? Can playing World of Warcraft lead to greater self-consciousness? How can we learn about aesthetics, ethics and divine attributes from Zork, Grand Theft Auto, and Civilization? A variety of increasingly sophisticated video games are rapidly overtaking books, films, and television as America's most popular form of media entertainment. It is estimated that by 2011 over 30 percent of US households will own a Wii console - about the same percentage that owned a television in 1953. In Philosophy Through Video Games, Jon Cogburn and Mark Silcox - philosophers with game industry experience - investigate the aesthetic appeal of video games, their effect on our morals, the insights they give us into our understanding of perceptual knowledge, personal identity, artificial intelligence, and the very meaning of life itself, arguing that video games are popular precisely because they engage with longstanding philosophical problems. Topics covered include: * The Problem of the External World * Dualism and Personal Identity * Artificial and Human Intelligence in the Philosophy of Mind * The Idea of Interactive Art * The Moral Effects of Video Games * Games and God's Goodness Games discussed include: Madden Football, Wii Sports, Guitar Hero, World of Warcraft, Sims Online, Second Life, Baldur's Gate, Knights of the Old Republic, Elder Scrolls, Zork, EverQuest Doom, Halo 2, Grand Theft Auto, Civilization, Mortal Kombat, Rome: Total War, Black and White, Aidyn Chronicles

The Gaming Mind

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Author :
Publisher : The Experiment + ORM
ISBN 13 : 161519682X
Total Pages : 259 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (151 download)

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Book Synopsis The Gaming Mind by : Alexander Kriss

Download or read book The Gaming Mind written by Alexander Kriss and published by The Experiment + ORM. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are videogames bad for us? It’s the question on everyone’s mind, given teenagers’ captive attention to videogames and the media’s tendency to scapegoat them. It’s also—if you ask clinical psychologist Alexander Kriss—the wrong question. In his therapy office, Kriss looks at videogames as a window into the mind. Is his patient Liz really “addicted” to Candy Crush—or is she evading a deeper problem? Why would aspiring model Patricia craft a hideous avatar named “Pat”? And when Jack immerses himself in Mass Effect, is he eroding his social skills—or honing them via relationship-building gameplay? Weaving together Kriss’s personal history, patients’ experiences, and professional insight—and without shying away from complex subjects, such as online harassment—The Gaming Mind disrupts our assumptions about “gamers” and explores how gaming can be good for us. It offers guidance for parents, clinicians, and the rest of us to better understand the gaming mind. Like any mode of play, at their best, videogames reveal who we are—and what we want from our lives.

Real Games

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Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262042606
Total Pages : 219 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (62 download)

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Book Synopsis Real Games by : Mia Consalvo

Download or read book Real Games written by Mia Consalvo and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How we talk about games as real or not-real, and how that shapes what games are made and who is invited to play them. In videogame criticism, the worst insult might be “That's not a real game!” For example, “That's not a real game, it's on Facebook!” and “That's not a real game, it's a walking simulator!” But how do people judge what is a real game and what is not—what features establish a game's gameness? In this engaging book, Mia Consalvo and Christopher Paul examine the debates about the realness or not-realness of videogames and find that these discussions shape what games get made and who is invited to play them. Consalvo and Paul look at three main areas often viewed as determining a game's legitimacy: the game's pedigree (its developer), the content of the game itself, and the game's payment structure. They find, among other things, that even developers with a track record are viewed with suspicion if their games are on suspect platforms. They investigate game elements that are potentially troublesome for a game's gameness, including genres, visual aesthetics, platform, and perceived difficulty. And they explore payment models, particularly free-to-play—held by some to be a marker of illegitimacy. Finally, they examine the debate around such so-called walking simulators as Dear Esther and Gone Home. And finally, they consider what purpose is served by labeling certain games “real."

Extra Lives

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Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307474313
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis Extra Lives by : Tom Bissell

Download or read book Extra Lives written by Tom Bissell and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-06-14 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Extra Lives, acclaimed writer and life-long video game enthusiast Tom Bissell takes the reader on an insightful and entertaining tour of the art and meaning of video games. In just a few decades, video games have grown increasingly complex and sophisticated, and the companies that produce them are now among the most profitable in the entertainment industry. Yet few outside this world have thought deeply about how these games work, why they are so appealing, and what they are capable of artistically. Blending memoir, criticism, and first-rate reportage, Extra Lives is a milestone work about what might be the dominant popular art form of our time.

Things We Think about Games

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 164 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (321 download)

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Book Synopsis Things We Think about Games by : Will Hindmarch

Download or read book Things We Think about Games written by Will Hindmarch and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An unholy mixture of helpful guidebook and jabbing provocation, [THINGS WE THINK ABOUT GAMES] will earn its right to rattle around your brain. It is essential reading for designer, critic, and straight-up rank 'n' file gamer alike." ¿Robin D. Laws, creator of HeroQuest and Feng ShuiWill Hindmarch and Jeff Tidball think a lot about games. At their commentary website, Gameplaywright.net, they think out loud about what it means to play games, make games, sell games, and love games. They are gamers.Here, with fellow game designers and notable game players, they think out loud on paper in the first Gameplaywright book.THINGS WE THINK ABOUT GAMES collects dozens on dozens of bite-sized thoughts about games. From the absurd to the magnificent, the demonstrable to the dogmatic, this collection spans both the breadth of games¿board, card, roleplaying and more¿and the depth of gaming, offering insights about collecting, playing, critiquing, designing, and publishing.

Mind At Play

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Mind At Play by : Geoffrey R. Loftus

Download or read book Mind At Play written by Geoffrey R. Loftus and published by . This book was released on 1983-12-13 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analyzes the fascination of computer games, discussing reinforcement, the arcade subculture, etc.

Changing the Game

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Publisher : FT Press
ISBN 13 : 0137151756
Total Pages : 238 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (371 download)

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Book Synopsis Changing the Game by : David Edery

Download or read book Changing the Game written by David Edery and published by FT Press. This book was released on 2008-10-07 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Use Video Games to Drive Innovation, Customer Engagement, Productivity, and Profit! Companies of all shapes and sizes have begun to use games to revolutionize the way they interact with customers and employees, becoming more competitive and more profitable as a result. Microsoft has used games to painlessly and cost-effectively quadruple voluntary employee participation in important tasks. Medical schools have used game-like simulators to train surgeons, reducing their error rate in practice by a factor of six. A recruiting game developed by the U.S. Army, for just 0.25% of the Army’s total advertising budget, has had more impact on new recruits than all other forms of Army advertising combined. And Google is using video games to turn its visitors into a giant, voluntary labor force--encouraging them to manually label the millions of images found on the Web that Google’s computers cannot identify on their own. Changing the Game reveals how leading-edge organizations are using video games to reach new customers more cost-effectively; to build brands; to recruit, develop, and retain great employees; to drive more effective experimentation and innovation; to supercharge productivity...in short, to make it fun to do business. This book is packed with case studies, best practices, and pitfalls to avoid. It is essential reading for any forward-thinking executive, marketer, strategist, and entrepreneur, as well as anyone interested in video games in general. In-game advertising, advergames, adverworlds, and beyond Choose your best marketing opportunities--and avoid the pitfalls Use gaming to recruit and develop better employees Learn practical lessons from America’s Army and other innovative case studies Channel the passion of your user communities Help your customers improve your products and services--and have fun doing it What gamers do better than computers, scientists, or governments Use games to solve problems that can’t be solved any other way

The Rhetoric of Videogames as Embodied Practice

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351399470
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (513 download)

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Book Synopsis The Rhetoric of Videogames as Embodied Practice by : Steve Holmes

Download or read book The Rhetoric of Videogames as Embodied Practice written by Steve Holmes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-11 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Rhetoric of Videogames as Embodied Practice offers a critical reassessment of embodiment and materiality in rhetorical considerations of videogames. Holmes argues that rhetorical and philosophical conceptions of "habit" offer a critical resource for describing the interplay between thinking (writing and rhetoric) and embodiment. The book demonstrates how Aristotle's understanding of character (ethos), habit (hexis), and nature (phusis) can productively connect rhetoric to what Holmes calls "procedural habits": the ways in which rhetoric emerges from its interactions with the dynamic accumulation of conscious and nonconscious embodied experiences that consequently give rise to meaning, procedural subjectivity, control, and communicative agency both in digital game design discourse and the activity of play.

Future Gaming

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Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 1906897700
Total Pages : 160 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (68 download)

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Book Synopsis Future Gaming by : Paolo Ruffino

Download or read book Future Gaming written by Paolo Ruffino and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-05-11 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sophisticated critical take on contemporary game culture that reconsiders the boundaries between gamers and games. This book is not about the future of video games. It is not an attempt to predict the moods of the market, the changing profile of gamers, the benevolence or malevolence of the medium. This book is about those predictions. It is about the ways in which the past, present, and future notions of games are narrated and negotiated by a small group of producers, journalists, and gamers, and about how invested these narrators are in telling the story of tomorrow. This new title from Goldsmiths Press by Paolo Ruffino suggests the story could be told another way. Considering game culture, from the gamification of self-improvement to GamerGate's sexism and violence, Ruffino lays out an alternative, creative mode of thinking about the medium: a sophisticated critical take that blurs the distinctions among studying, playing, making, and living with video games. Offering a series of stories that provide alternative narratives of digital gaming, Ruffino aims to encourage all of us who study and play (with) games to raise ethical questions, both about our own role in shaping the objects of research, and about our involvement in the discourses we produce as gamers and scholars. For researchers and students seeking a fresh approach to game studies, and for anyone with an interest in breaking open the current locked-box discourse, Future Gaming offers a radical lens with which to view the future.

How Computer Games Help Children Learn

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Author :
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 9780230602526
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (25 download)

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Book Synopsis How Computer Games Help Children Learn by : David Williamson Shaffer

Download or read book How Computer Games Help Children Learn written by David Williamson Shaffer and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2006 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book looks at how particular video and computer games--such as Digital Zoo, The Pandora Project, SodaConstructor, and more--can help teach our children and students to think like doctors, lawyers, engineers, urban planners, journalists, and other professionals. In the process, new "smart games" will give them the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in a changing world.