Download or read book Playing Nature written by Alenda Y. Chang and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2019-12-31 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A potent new book examines the overlap between our ecological crisis and video games Video games may be fun and immersive diversions from daily life, but can they go beyond the realm of entertainment to do something serious—like help us save the planet? As one of the signature issues of the twenty-first century, ecological deterioration is seemingly everywhere, but it is rarely considered via the realm of interactive digital play. In Playing Nature, Alenda Y. Chang offers groundbreaking methods for exploring this vital overlap. Arguing that games need to be understood as part of a cultural response to the growing ecological crisis, Playing Nature seeds conversations around key environmental science concepts and terms. Chang suggests several ways to rethink existing game taxonomies and theories of agency while revealing surprising fundamental similarities between game play and scientific work. Gracefully reconciling new media theory with environmental criticism, Playing Nature examines an exciting range of games and related art forms, including historical and contemporary analog and digital games, alternate- and augmented-reality games, museum exhibitions, film, and science fiction. Chang puts her surprising ideas into conversation with leading media studies and environmental humanities scholars like Alexander Galloway, Donna Haraway, and Ursula Heise, ultimately exploring manifold ecological futures—not all of them dystopian.

Download or read book Playing to Win written by David Sirlin and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2006-04-01 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winning at competitive games requires a results-oriented mindset that many players are simply not willing to adopt. This book walks players through the entire process: how to choose a game and learn basic proficiency, how to break through the mental barriers that hold most players back, and how to handle the issues that top players face. It also includes a complete analysis of Sun Tzu's book The Art of War and its applications to games of today. These foundational concepts apply to virtually all competitive games, and even have some application to "real life." Trade paperback. 142 pages.

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.

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.

Download or read book Videogames for Humans written by Merritt Kopas and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Literary Nonfiction. Poetry. Fiction. Hybrid Genre. LGBTQIA Studies. VIDEOGAMES FOR HUMANS, curated and introduced by Twine author and games theorist merritt k, puts Twine authors, literary writers, and games critics into conversation with one another's work, reacting to, elaborating on, and being affected by the same. The result is an unprecedented kind of book about video games, one that has helped to jumpstart the discussions that will define the games culture of tomorrow. Featuring contributions from Aevee Bee, Alex Roberts, Anna Anthropy, Auriea Harvey, Austin Walker, Avery Mcdaldno, Benji Bright, Bryan Reid, Cara Ellison, Cat Fitzpatrick, Christine Love, Elizabeth Sampat, Elizabeth Sampat, Emily Short, Eva Problems, Gaming Pixie, Imogen Binnie, Jeremy Lonien & Dominik Johann, Jeremy Penner, John Brindle, Katherine Cross, Kayla Unknown, Lana Polansky, Leigh Alexander, Leon Arnott, Lydia Neon, Maddox Pratt, Mary Hamilton, Matthew S. Burns, Mattie Brice, Michael Brough, Mike Joffe, Mira Simon, Naomi Clark, Nina Freeman, Olivia Vitolo, Patricia Hernandez, Pippin Barr, Riley MacLeod, Rokashi Edwards, Sloane, Soha Kareem, Squinky, Tom McHenry, Toni Pizza, Winter Lake, and Zoe Quinn.

Download or read book Fuck Yeah Video Games written by Daniel Hardcastle and published by Unbound Publishing. This book was released on 2019-09-19 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A labour of undiluted love and enthusiasm' Daily Telegraph As Daniel Hardcastle careers towards thirty, he looks back on what has really made him happy in life: the friends, the romances... the video games. Told through encounters with the most remarkable – and the most mind-boggling – games of the last thirty-odd years, Fuck Yeah, Video Games is also a love letter to the greatest hobby in the world. From God of War to Tomb Raider, Pokémon to The Sims, Daniel relives each game with countless in-jokes, obscure references and his signature wit, as well as intricate, original illustrations by Rebecca Maughan. Alongside this march of merriment are chapters dedicated to the hardware behind the games: a veritable history of Sony, Nintendo, Sega and Atari consoles. Joyous, absurd, personal and at times sweary, Daniel's memoir is a celebration of the sheer brilliance of video games.

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.

Download or read book The Aesthetics of Videogames written by Jon Robson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-03-19 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays is devoted to the philosophical examination of the aesthetics of videogames. Videogames represent one of the most significant developments in the modern popular arts, and it is a topic that is attracting much attention among philosophers of art and aestheticians. As a burgeoning medium of artistic expression, videogames raise entirely new aesthetic concerns, particularly concerning their ontology, interactivity, and aesthetic value. The essays in this volume address a number of pressing theoretical issues related to these areas, including but not limited to: the nature of performance and identity in videogames; their status as an interactive form of art; the ethical problems raised by violence in videogames; and the representation of women in videogames and the gaming community. The Aesthetics of Videogames is an important contribution to analytic aesthetics that deals with an important and growing art form.

Download or read book The Illustrated History of 151 Video Games written by Simon Parkin and published by . This book was released on 2014-01-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than any other entertainment medium, videogames offer the chance for us to participate in a worldbeyond the ordinary. Whether you are playing as asupersonic hedgehog, an athletic archeologist, or amoustachioed Italian plumber, video games allow theirplayers to inhabit spaces where the usual parameters ofexistence do not apply. The medium's history ischronicled through the individual stories of 151 of themost iconic video games. Beginning in the early 1970s, the book charts five decades of the pixel revolution. Thestory of each game is accompanied by trivia andquotations, and illustrated with photographs, screenshotsand artwork. This celebratory reference, and up-to-datehistory, will enthral any video games aficionado. - Chronicles the history of gaming through an analysis of151 of the world's most-iconic and best-loved games - Expert analysis of the story of each game, accompaniedby fascinating trivia, memorable quotes, and informationon the year of publication and where the game can beplayed today - Includes titles across all platforms, including arcade, console, PC, online and handheld games - Charts five decades of video game evolution, fromComputer Space to Fez - Compulsively illustrated with over 1000 actionscreenshots, game artworks and photographs

Download or read book Love and Electronic Affection written by Lindsay Grace and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2020-04-30 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Love and Electronic Affection: A Design Primer brings together thought leadership in romance and affection games to explain the past, present, and possible future of affection play in games. The authors apply a combination of game analysis and design experience in affection play for both digital and analog games. The research and recommendations are intersectional in nature, considering how love and affection in games is a product of both player and designer age, race, class, gender, and more. The book combines game studies with game design to offer a foundation for incorporating affection into playable experiences. The text is organized into two sections. The first section covers the patterns and practice of love and affection in games, explaining the patterns and practice. The second section offers case studies from which designers can learn through example. Love and Electronic Affection: A Design Primer is a resource for exploring how digital relationships are offered and how to convey emotion and depth in a variety of virtual worlds. This book provides: • A catalog of existing digital and analog games for which love and affection are a primary or secondary focus. • A catalog of the uses of affection in games, to add depth and investment in both human-computer and player-to-player engagement. • Perspective on affection game analyses and design, using case studies that consider the relationship of culture and affection as portrayed in games from large scale studios to single author independent games. • Analysis and design recommendations for incorporating affection in games beyond romance, toward parental love, affection between friends, and other relationships. • Analysis of the moral and philosophical considerations for historical and planned development of love and affection in human–computer interaction. • An intersectionality informed set of scholarly perspectives from the Americas, Eurasia, and Oceania. Editor Bio: Lindsay D. Grace is Knight Chair of Interactive Media and an Associate Professor at the University of Miami School of Communication. He is Vice President for the Higher Education Video Game Alliance and the 2019 recipient of the Games for Change Vanguard award. Lindsay is author of Doing Things with Games, Social Impact through Design and more than fifty peer-reviewed papers on games and related research. He has given talks at the Game Developers Conference, SXSW, Games for Change Festival, the Online News Association, the Society for News Design, and many other industry events. He was the founding director of the American University Game Lab and Studio and the designer-developer behind several award winning games, including two affection games. He served as Vice President and on the board of directors for the Global Game JamTM non-profit between 2014 and 2019. From 2009 to 2013 he was the Armstrong Professor at Miami University’s School of Art. Lindsay also served on the board for the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) between 2013 and 2015.

Download or read book Game Art written by Matt Sainsbury and published by No Starch Press. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Game Art is a collection of breathtaking concept art and behind-the-scenes interviews from videogame developers, including major players like Square Enix, Bioware, and Ubisoft as well as independent but influential studios like Tale of Tales and Compulsion Games. Immerse yourself in fantastic artwork and explore the creative thinking behind over 40 console, mobile, and PC games. A lone independent developer on a tiny budget can create an experience as powerful and compelling as a triple-A blockbuster built by a team of 1,000. But like all works of art, every game begins with a spark of inspiration and a passion to create. Let Game Art take you on a visual journey through these beautiful worlds, as told by the minds that brought them to life.

Download or read book Choice Theory written by William Glasser, M.D. and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-11-16 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr. William Glasser offers a new psychology that, if practiced, could reverse our widespread inability to get along with one another, an inability that is the source of almost all unhappiness. For progress in human relationships, he explains that we must give up the punishing, relationship–destroying external control psychology. For example, if you are in an unhappy relationship right now, he proposes that one or both of you could be using external control psychology on the other. He goes further. And suggests that misery is always related to a current unsatisfying relationship. Contrary to what you may believe, your troubles are always now, never in the past. No one can change what happened yesterday.

Download or read book What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy Second Edition written by James Paul Gee and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2014-12-02 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cognitive Development in a Digital Age James Paul Gee begins his classic book with "I want to talk about video games–yes, even violent video games–and say some positive things about them." With this simple but explosive statement, one of America's most well-respected educators looks seriously at the good that can come from playing video games. This revised edition expands beyond mere gaming, introducing readers to fresh perspectives based on games like World of Warcraft and Half-Life 2. It delves deeper into cognitive development, discussing how video games can shape our understanding of the world. An undisputed must-read for those interested in the intersection of education, technology, and pop culture, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy challenges traditional norms, examines the educational potential of video games, and opens up a discussion on the far-reaching impacts of this ubiquitous aspect of modern life.

Download or read book Everything Bad is Good for You written by Steven Johnson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-05-02 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author of How We Got To Now and Farsighted Forget everything you’ve ever read about the age of dumbed-down, instant-gratification culture. In this provocative, unfailingly intelligent, thoroughly researched, and surprisingly convincing big idea book, Steven Johnson draws from fields as diverse as neuroscience, economics, and media theory to argue that the pop culture we soak in every day—from Lord of the Rings to Grand Theft Auto to The Simpsons—has been growing more sophisticated with each passing year, and, far from rotting our brains, is actually posing new cognitive challenges that are actually making our minds measurably sharper. After reading Everything Bad is Good for You, you will never regard the glow of the video game or television screen the same way again. With a new afterword by the author.

Download or read book How Games Get Made written by Emma Schaale and published by . This book was released on 2020-12-07 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Games Get Made: The Stories of the People Who Make and Play the Games We Love is your all-in-one comprehensive deep dive into the lives of developers and online platforms that create and broadcast your favorite games. What is it like solo developing a game from scratch? Is employment stable in the industry? And just how do people end up as gaming-focused Twitch streamers or YouTubers for a living? All these questions and more are answered through interviews with the likes of David Cage of Quantic Dream, Feargus Urquhart of Obsidian Entertainment, and Sean Baptiste of Bethesda among many others! Wondering what it's like to work in a corporate setting versus an indie studio? Trying to break into the gaming industry as a content creator? Look no further! How Games Get Made not only goes in depth on the developers, but also takes a comprehensive look at how games get marketed through traditional means as well as through platforms like YouTube and Twitch!

Download or read book Hooked on Games written by Andrew P. Doan and published by Fep International. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: About the Book The multi-billion dollar video game industry is in the business of creating fun and enticing games that can be addictive. As addicted gamers feast on digital indulgences, real life is neglected and their reality crumbles around them. Headlines related to video games: ¿New Mexico mom gets 25 years for starving daughter.¿ ¿ Fox News ¿China used prisoners in lucrative Internet gaming work.¿ ¿ Guardian News ¿Online gamer killed for selling virtual weapon.¿ ¿ Sydney Morning Herald ¿South Korean dies after games sessions.¿ ¿ BBC News Hooked on Games is written by Brooke Strickland and Andrew Doan, MD, PhD, a physician with a research background in neuroscience, who battled his own addictions with video games. Dr. Doan was an addicted gamer, who at his peak, invested over 20,000 hours of playing games over a period of nine years. Dr. Doan¿s reckless compulsion to play games transformed him into a monster that almost destroyed his family, marriage, and career. He shares his expertise to educate others on the dangers of video game addiction and to provide hope for video game addicts and their families. Dr. Doan shares steps for gaming addicts to achieve recovery and steps for families and loved ones to intervene. Without attention to this quickest growing addiction, our society will suffer from the creation of Generation Vidiot, millions of people devoid of innovation and skills to live in the physical world. ¿As is true with many addictions, overuse of video games steals our valuable and limited time and minds.¿ ¿ Christie Morse, MD (Pediatric Ophthalmologist) ¿Shocking insights into the minds of hardcore gamers.¿ ¿ Daniel Hunt (Former Competitive Gamer)

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.