An investigation of what makes digital games engaging to players and a reexamination of the concept of immersion. Digital games offer a vast range of engaging experiences, from the serene exploration of beautifully rendered landscapes to the deeply cognitive challenges presented…
From the Publisher: World of Warcraft is more than a game. There is no ultimate goal, no winning hard, no princess to be rescued. WoW contains more than 5,000 possible quests, games within the game, and encompasses hundreds of separate parallel realms (computer serves, each of w…
Contributors from a range of disciplines explore boundary-crossing in videogames, examining both transgressive game content and transgressive player actions. Video gameplay can include transgressive play practices in which players act in ways meant to annoy, punish, or harass ot…
Ramifications of the convergence of sports and digital technology, from athlete and spectator experience to the role of media innovation at the Olympics.
"In Playing with Sound, Karen Collins examines video game sound from the player's perspective. She explores the many ways that players interact with a game's sonic aspects, ambient sound, dialogue, and interface sounds -- both within and outside of the game. She investigates the…
"Competitive video and computer game play is nothing new: the documentary King of Kong memorably portrays a Donkey Kong player's attempts to achieve the all-time highest score; the television show Starcade (1982--1984) featured competitions among arcade game players; and first-p…
What if every part of our everyday life was turned into a game? The implications of "gamification."
Thirty-nine essays explore the vast diversity of video game history and culture across all the world's continents.
Thirty-nine essays explore the vast diversity of video game history and culture across all the world's continents.
This is a critical overview of the emerging field of machinima the use of computer game engines to create movies.
The avant-garde challenges or leads culture; it opens up or redefines art forms and our perception of the way the world works. In this book, Brian Schrank describes the ways that the avant-garde emerges through videogames. Just as impressionism or cubism created alternative ways…
"While there have been a great many triumphs written about video games (the first game developed jointly by MIT and Harvard; the wild success of Pong at a rather seedy bar in Sunnyvale, CA; the Golden Age of Videogames; and the growing prominence of video games over screen-based…
"Against Flow critically examines the idea of flow in order to temper a growing number of voices that focus on play's positive potentials"--
The Nintendo Wii, introduced in 2006, helped usher in a moment of retro-reinvention in video game play. This hugely popular console system, codenamed Revolution during development, signaled a turn away from fully immersive, time-consuming MMORPGs or forty-hour FPS games and back…
