Download or read book A Precarious Game written by Ergin Bulut and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-15 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Precarious Game is an ethnographic examination of video game production. The developers that Ergin Bulut researched for almost three years in a medium-sized studio in the U.S. loved making video games that millions play. Only some, however, can enjoy this dream job, which can be precarious and alienating for many others. That is, the passion of a predominantly white-male labor force relies on material inequalities involving the sacrificial labor of their families, unacknowledged work of precarious testers, and thousands of racialized and gendered workers in the Global South. A Precarious Game explores the politics of doing what one loves. In the context of work, passion and love imply freedom, participation, and choice, but in fact they accelerate self-exploitation and can impose emotional toxicity on other workers by forcing them to work endless hours. Bulut argues that such ludic discourses in the game industry disguise the racialized and gendered inequalities on which a profitable transnational industry thrives. Within capitalism, work is not just an economic matter, and the political nature of employment and love can still be undemocratic even when based on mutual consent. As Bulut demonstrates, rather than considering work simply as a matter of economics based on trade-offs in the workplace, we should consider the question of work and love as one of democracy rooted in politics.
Download or read book Precarious written by Al Riske and published by Hampton Ryan. This book was released on 2010-10-15 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The stories in Precarious are about doing the right thing and regretting it. About making bets and dancing naked. They play out in rain-soaked Seattle and drought-stricken California. In the front seat of Mom's Malibu and a vacation cabin on Cape Cod. On a tiny island and in a desert filled with light and heat and sand that slips through your fingers like friendships you once had. In these fifteen stories you will meet a boy trying to make it through that summer between the end of high school and the beginning of something else. A woman attracted to a man with muscles, because it makes her feel safe...until it doesn't. A man who can only imagine what it's like to sleep with many different women, but that's OK -he has a good imagination. In prose that is by turns spare and lyrical, the stories of Precarious capture the feeling of late summer. A never-ending game of Kick the Can. All sense of time lost among the stars
Download or read book Game Production Studies written by Olli Sotamaa and published by . This book was released on 2021-03-18 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1. Production as a major factor of video game culture Media research often revolves around the triumvirate of texts, audiences, and industries as its main focal points. Writing in 2017, Aphra Kerr, the leading expert on video game industry, noted that video game production is an understudied area both in game studies and in media studies more broadly, especially when compared to how much has been written games and players. This edited collection aims to address this research gap by zooming in on particular issues connected to labor, development, publishing, and monetization and catch up on other areas of research, such as screen studies, which started paying attention to production decades ago. 2. A contextualized treatment of video game production As the first collection to exclusively focus on video game production, Game Production Studies offers a unique package of 16 chapters, which explore major themes of labor, development, publishing, and monetization. Building upon the rich foundations of production studies, the collection combines various methodological approaches in order to analyze the cultural practices of video game production. Altogether, it tackles a wide range of issues and topics and aspires to provide the go-to resource for anyone interested in video game production. 3. Timely case studies from across the world This edited collection brings together 16 all-new essays based on empirical research carried out in recent years across the world. Our contributors present case studies from Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, Poland, and the US among other countries. Considering how fast the video game production networks are evolving, the collection provides both timely discussion of new trends and phenomena such as boutique publishers, in-game monetization regulation, or game jam natives and also historical probes into particular industries, which address the wider socio-historical context of these changes.
Download or read book Precarious Power written by Susan Booysen and published by Wits University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-01 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An incisive analysis of South Africa's ANC power-as party, as government, as state South Africa's African National Congress (ANC) is in decline, its hegemony has been weakened, its legitimacy diluted. President Cyril Ramaphosa's appointment suspended the ANC's electoral decline, it also heightened internal tensions between those who would deepen its acquired status as corrupt and captured, and those who would remodel it as redeemable. These are the incontrovertible knowns of South African politics; what will evolve from this is less certain. In Precarious Power, renowned political scientist Susan Booysen uses in-depth research and analysis to distill that which is bound to shape South Africa's political future, Booysen focuses on contradictory party politics and internal ANC dissent that is veiled for the sake of retaining an electoral following. Also exposed is the incongruous, populist policymaking, protest politics and the use of soft law to ensure it does not alienate angry citizens, fueling further discontent and protest. The ANC's power has become exceedingly precarious. Precarious Power is the name of the political game, for the foreseeable future. The comprehensive analysis in Precarious Power will appeal not only to political scientists and postgraduate students, but to all who take a keen interest in current affairs.
Download or read book A Game for Swallows written by Zeina Abirached and published by Graphic Universe ™. This book was released on 2012-09-01 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Zeina was born, the civil war in Lebanon had been going on for six years, so it's just a normal part of life for her and her parents and her little brother. The city of Beirut is cut in two, separated by bricks and sandbags and threatened by snipers and shelling. East Beirut is for Christians, and West Beirut is for Muslims. When Zeina's parents don't return one afternoon from a visit to the other half of the city, and the bombing grows ever closer, the neighbors in her apartment house create a world indoors for Zeina and her brother where it's comfy and safe, where they can share cooking lessons and games and gossip. Together they try to make it through a dramatic day in the one place they hoped they would always be safehome. Zeina Abirached, born into a Lebanese Christian family in 1981, has collected her childhood recollections of Beirut in a warm story about the strength of family and community.
Download or read book Games of Empire written by Nick Dyer-Witheford and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2013-11-30 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the first decade of the twenty-first century, video games are an integral part of global media culture, rivaling Hollywood in revenue and influence. No longer confined to a subculture of adolescent males, video games today are played by adults around the world. At the same time, video games have become major sites of corporate exploitation and military recruitment. In Games of Empire, Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter offer a radical political critique of such video games and virtual environments as Second Life, World of Warcraft, and Grand Theft Auto, analyzing them as the exemplary media of Empire, the twenty-first-century hypercapitalist complex theorized by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. The authors trace the ascent of virtual gaming, assess its impact on creators and players alike, and delineate the relationships between games and reality, body and avatar, screen and street. Games of Empire forcefully connects video games to real-world concerns about globalization, militarism, and exploitation, from the horrors of African mines and Indian e-waste sites that underlie the entire industry, the role of labor in commercial game development, and the synergy between military simulation software and the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan exemplified by Full Spectrum Warrior to the substantial virtual economies surrounding World of Warcraft, the urban neoliberalism made playable in Grand Theft Auto, and the emergence of an alternative game culture through activist games and open-source game development. Rejecting both moral panic and glib enthusiasm, Games of Empire demonstrates how virtual games crystallize the cultural, political, and economic forces of global capital, while also providing a means of resisting them.
Download or read book Wild Game written by Adrienne Brodeur and published by Houghton Mifflin. This book was released on 2019 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a hot July night on Cape Cod, at the age of 14, Brodeur became a confidante to her mother's affair with her husband's closest friend. Malabar came to rely on her daughter to help, but when the affair had calamitous consequences for everyone involved, Brodeau was driven into a precarious marriage of her own, and then into a deep depression. In her memoir she examines how the people close to us can break our hearts simply because they have access to them, and the lies we tell in order to justify the choices we make. -- adapted from jacket
Download or read book The Most Dangerous Game written by Gavin Lyall and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-09-28 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Cary is great with a gun and deadpan about danger' Spectator Bill Cary makes a precarious living flying aerial surveys over Lapland. When he's hired by a wealthy American hunter, Frederick Wells Homer, to fly into a prohibited part of Finland near the Soviet border, the job seems shady indeed, and when a major crook wants him to go on the hunt for Tsarist treasure, things get messy. With thugs and the Finnish Secret Service already on his tail, matters get worse when Homer's beautiful sister turns up to search for him, and Cary's fellow bush pilots start getting killed off in a series of suspicious accidents. Cary begins to realise that it may all stem from an incident in his wartime past. The Most Dangerous Game was shortlisted for the British Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger Award. 'A glorious tale, vivid in character and escapade' Book Week
Download or read book Gamerunner written by B.R. Collins and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-07-04 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stunning departure into a futuristic world of computer gaming. From award-winning author B.R. Collins
Download or read book The Usual Suspects written by Maurice Broaddus and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-05-21 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fans of Jason Reynolds and Sharon M. Draper will love this oh-so-honest middle grade novel from writer and educator Maurice Broaddus. Thelonius Mitchell is tired of being labeled. He’s in special ed, separated from the “normal” kids at school who don’t have any “issues.” That’s enough to make all the teachers and students look at him and his friends with a constant side-eye. (Although his disruptive antics and pranks have given him a rep too.) When a gun is found at a neighborhood hangout, Thelonius and his pals become instant suspects. Thelonius may be guilty of pulling crazy stunts at school, but a criminal? T isn’t about to let that label stick.
Download or read book Disrupting the Game written by Reggie Fils-Aimé and published by HarperCollins Leadership. This book was released on 2022-05-03 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER LESSONS FROM A BOSS-LEVEL DISRUPTOR AND GAMING LEGEND Reggie Fils-Aimé, retired President and Chief Operating Officer of Nintendo of America Inc., shares leadership lessons and inspiring stories from his unlikely rise to the top. Although he’s best known as Nintendo's iconic President of the Americas-immortalized for opening Nintendo’s 2004 E3 presentation with, “My name is Reggie, I'm about kicking ass, I'm about taking names, and we're about making games”-Reggie Fils-Aimé’s story is the ultimate gameplan for anyone looking to beat the odds and achieve success. Learn from Reggie how to leverage disruptive thinking to pinpoint the life choices that will make you truly happy, conquer negative perceptions from those who underestimate or outright dismiss you, and master the grit, perseverance, and resilience it takes to dominate in the business world and to reach your professional dreams. As close to sitting one-on-one with the gaming legend as it gets, you will learn: About the challenges Reggie faced throughout his life and career-from his humble childhood as the son of Haitian immigrants, to becoming one of the most powerful names in the history of the gaming industry. What it takes to reach the top of your own industry, including being brave enough to stand up for your ideas, while also being open to alternative paths to success. How to create vibrant and believable visions for your team and company. How to maintain relentless curiosity and know when to ask questions to shatter the status quo.
Download or read book The Preacher s Wife written by Kate Bowler and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although most evangelical traditions bar women from ordained ministry, many women have carved out unofficial positions of power in their husbands' spiritual empires or their own ministries. The biggest stars write bestselling books, grab high ratings on Christian television, and even preach. Bowler offers a sympathetic and revealing portrait of megachurch women celebrities, showing how they must balance the demands of celebrity culture and conservative, male-dominated faiths. And black celebrity preachers' wives carry a special burden of respectability. A compelling account of women's search for spiritual authority in the age of celebrity. -- adapted from jacket
Download or read book Queer Game Studies written by Bonnie Ruberg and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2017-03-28 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Video games have developed into a rich, growing field at many top universities, but they have rarely been considered from a queer perspective. Immersion in new worlds, video games seem to offer the perfect opportunity to explore the alterity that queer culture longs for, but often sexism and discrimination in gamer culture steal the spotlight. Queer Game Studies provides a welcome corrective, revealing the capacious albeit underappreciated communities that are making, playing, and studying queer games. These in-depth, diverse, and accessible essays use queerness to challenge the ideas that have dominated gaming discussions. Demonstrating the centrality of LGBTQ issues to the gamer world, they establish an alternative lens for examining this increasingly important culture. Queer Game Studies covers important subjects such as the representation of queer bodies, the casual misogyny prevalent in video games, the need for greater diversity in gamer culture, and reading popular games like Bayonetta, Mass Effect, and Metal Gear Solid from a queer perspective. Perfect for both everyday readers and instructors looking to add diversity to their courses, Queer Game Studies is the ideal introduction to the vast and vibrant realm of queer gaming. Contributors: Leigh Alexander; Gregory L. Bagnall, U of Rhode Island; Hanna Brady; Mattie Brice; Derek Burrill, U of California, Riverside; Edmond Y. Chang, U of Oregon; Naomi M. Clark; Katherine Cross, CUNY; Kim d’Amazing, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology; Aubrey Gabel, U of California, Berkeley; Christopher Goetz, U of Iowa; Jack Halberstam, U of Southern California; Todd Harper, U of Baltimore; Larissa Hjorth, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology; Chelsea Howe; Jesper Juul, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts; merritt kopas; Colleen Macklin, Parsons School of Design; Amanda Phillips, Georgetown U; Gabriela T. Richard, Pennsylvania State U; Toni Rocca; Sarah Schoemann, Georgia Institute of Technology; Kathryn Bond Stockton, U of Utah; Zoya Street, U of Lancaster; Peter Wonica; Robert Yang, Parsons School of Design; Jordan Youngblood, Eastern Connecticut State U.
Download or read book Great Games Local Rules written by Alexander Cooley and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The struggle between Russia and Great Britain over Central Asia in the nineteenth century was the original "great game." But in the past quarter century, a new "great game" has emerged, pitting America against a newly aggressive Russia and a resource-hungry China, all struggling for influence over one of the volatile areas in the world: the long border region stretching from Iran through Pakistan to Kashmir. In Great Games, Local Rules, Alexander Cooley, one of America's most respected Central Asia experts, explores the dynamics of the new competition over the region since 9/11. All three great powers are pursuing important goals: basing rights for the US, access to natural resources for the Chinese, and increased political influence for the Russians. But Central Asian governments have proven themselves powerful forces in their own right, establishing local rules that serve to fend off foreign involvement, enrich themselves and reinforce their sovereign authority. Cooley's careful and surprising explanation of how small states interact with great powers in this vital region greatly advances our understanding of how world politics actually works in this contemporary era.
Download or read book Marx at the Arcade written by Jamie Woodcock and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2019-06-18 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More people are playing video games than ever before, and yet much of the work of their production remains obscured to us. Deploying a Marxist approach, Jamie Woodcock delves into the hidden abode of the gaming industry, unravelling the vast networks of artists, software developers, and factory and logistics workers whose material and immaterial labor flows into the products we consume on a gargantuan scale. Beyond this, the book analyzes the increasingly important role the gaming industry plays in contemporary capitalism, and the broader transformations of work and economy that it embodies. Woodcock also presents game-play itself not as a “deviant activity,” as it is often understood, but as a commentary of estrangement from contemporary forms of work. In so doing, it offers a fresh and much needed analysis of a sector which has for too long been neglected by scholars and labor activists alike.
Download or read book Precarious written by Bella Jewel and published by . This book was released on 2014-08-04 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In darkness, we find danger. In danger, I find Beau. Ash is a prison guard, she's tough, she's strong and she never backs away from a fight. She takes her job seriously, she takes her training seriously, and everything in her life goes as planned. Until the day he is brought into the prison. She'll never forget meeting Beau 'Krypt' Dawson for the first time. He's a member of the Jokers' Wrath MC and it is said he killed an innocent family in the middle of a cafe, in cold blood. Deranged. Crazy. Psychotic. All those words describe the infamous Krypt, but Ash suspects there's far more to the quiet man than meets the eye. Secrets are being hidden by the club, information is being kept under wraps. Krypt is silent for a reason. Ash is desperate to know that reason. Continually fighting, Krypt is transferred to a high security prison. Ash is in charge. She's always prepared, always alert. Not even her skills will stop the club from ambushing them and taking back Krypt. Only Ash ends up right in the middle of it. They take her, too. Now she's stuck with a Motorcycle Club who are determined not to let her go. She's too much of a risk. Until the situation can be sorted, they send her and Krypt into the mountains together....alone. The dark, sexy, handsome biker will crawl into her soul and embed himself there. Changing her life forever. An epic, dangerous love will be built on the foundations of darkness.
Download or read book The Great Transition written by B. M. S. Campbell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-06-23 with total page 491 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Major account of the fourteenth-century crisis which saw a series of famines, revolts and epidemics transform the medieval world.
