The Pleasures of Computer Gaming

The Pleasures of Computer Gaming
Author: Melanie Swalwell
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2015-05-12
Genre: Games & Activities
ISBN: 0786451203

This collection of essays situates the digital gaming phenomenon alongside broader debates in cultural and media studies. Contributors to this volume maintain that computer games are not simply toys, but rather circulate as commodities, new media technologies, and items of visual culture that are embedded in complex social practices. Apart from placing games within longer arcs of cultural history and broader critical debates, the contributors to this volume all adopt a pedagogical and theoretical approach to studying games and gameplay, drawing on the interdisciplinary resources of the humanities and social sciences, particularly new media studies. In eight essays, the authors develop rich and nuanced understandings of the aesthetic appeals and pleasurable engagements of digital gameplay. Topics include the role of "cheats" and "easter eggs" in influencing cheating as an aesthetic phenomenon of gameplay; the relationship between videogames, gambling, and addiction; players' aesthetic and kinaesthetic interactions with computing technology; and the epistemology and phenomenology of popular strategy-based wargames and their relationship with real-world military applications. Notes and a bibliography accompany each essay, and the work includes several screenshots, images, and photographs.

Careers in Computer Gaming

Careers in Computer Gaming
Author: Matthew Robinson
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2009-09-02
Genre: Computer games
ISBN: 1427091161

Computer games are more popular and accessible than ever and, as computer technology advances, computer games have become more challenging, engaging, and addictive to millions of gamers across the country. That opens up a wide range of career opportunities, especially gamers. In this easy-to-follow and informative career guide, the author presents a brief history of the gaming industry before breaking down the major and cutting-edge careers in the field. Whether discussing the game designer, graphic artist, sound designer, marketer, or writer, useful insights are given into the qualifications and temperament needed for each job, as well as a realistic picture of the work environment and useful tips for breaking into the industry.

Computer Games and Technical Communication

Computer Games and Technical Communication
Author: Jennifer deWinter
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2016-05-23
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1317162617

Taking as its point of departure the fundamental observation that games are both technical and symbolic, this collection investigates the multiple intersections between the study of computer games and the discipline of technical and professional writing. Divided into five parts, Computer Games and Technical Communication engages with questions related to workplace communities and gamic simulations; industry documentation; manuals, gameplay, and ethics; training, testing, and number crunching; and the work of games and gamifying work. In that computer games rely on a complex combination of written, verbal, visual, algorithmic, audio, and kinesthetic means to convey information, technical and professional writing scholars are uniquely poised to investigate the intersection between the technical and symbolic aspects of the computer game complex. The contributors to this volume bring to bear the analytic tools of the field to interpret the roles of communication, production, and consumption in this increasingly ubiquitous technical and symbolic medium.

Transforming Gaming and Computer Simulation Technologies across Industries

Transforming Gaming and Computer Simulation Technologies across Industries
Author: Dubbels, Brock
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2016-11-23
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1522518185

In recent years, digital technologies have become more ubiquitous and integrated into everyday life. While once reserved mostly for personal uses, video games and similar innovations are now implemented across a variety of fields. Transforming Gaming and Computer Simulation Technologies across Industries is a pivotal reference source for the latest research on emerging simulation technologies and gaming innovations to enhance industry performance and dependency. Featuring extensive coverage across a range of relevant perspectives and topics, such as user research, player identification, and multi-user virtual environments, this book is ideally designed for engineers, professionals, practitioners, upper-level students, and academics seeking current research on gaming and computer simulation technologies across different industries.

Computer Games

Computer Games
Author: Diane Carr
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2014-03-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0745687504

Computer games are one of the most exciting and rapidly evolving media of our time. Revenues from console and computer games have now overtaken those from Hollywood movies; and online gaming is one of the fastest-growing areas of the internet. Games are no longer just kids' stuff: the majority of players are now adults, and the market is constantly broadening. The visual style of games has become increasingly sophisticated, and the complexities of game-play are ever more challenging. Meanwhile, the iconography and generic forms of games are increasingly influencing a whole range of other media, from films and television to books and toys. This book provides a systematic, comprehensive introduction to the analysis of computer and video games. It introduces key concepts and approaches drawn from literary, film and media theory in an accessible and concrete manner; and it tests their use and relevance by applying them to a small but representative selection of role-playing and action-adventure games. It combines methods of textual analysis and audience research, showing how the combination of such methods can give a more complete picture of these playable texts and the fan cultures they generate. Clearly written and engaging, it will be a key text for students in the field and for all those with an interest in taking games seriously.

Games vs. Hardware. The History of PC video games

Games vs. Hardware. The History of PC video games
Author: Bogdan Ion Purcaru
Publisher: Purcaru Ion Bogdan
Total Pages: 552
Release: 2014-03-13
Genre: Computers
ISBN:

My two biggest passions concerning computers are hardware and gaming. I wrote this book because I don’t want that important pieces of history regarding computer hardware, games and, in a smaller amount the 80’s operating systems to be forgotten and lost. I want everyone to appreciate the hardware and software industry and especially the people behind them as they worked many days and nights to deliver us fast and advanced computers and entertaining and complex games.

Ethics of Computer Gaming

Ethics of Computer Gaming
Author: Samuel Ulbricht
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 120
Release: 2022-01-02
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3662643979

Despite the increasing number of gamers worldwide, the moral classification of computer gaming marks an as yet unsolved riddle of philosophical ethics. In view of the explosive nature of the topic in everyday life (as seen in various debates about rampages), it is obvious that a differentiated professional clarification of the phenomenon is needed: Can playing computer games be immoral? To answer this question, the author first discusses what we do at all when we play computer games: What kind of action are we talking about? The second step is a moral classification that reveals whether (and if so, why) some cases of computer gaming are morally problematic. The considerations made here provide a fundamental insight into the normative dimension of computer gaming. Samuel Ulbricht studied philosophy and German studies in Stuttgart, where he passed his first state examination. He completed his second state examination in Heidelberg. For his final thesis on the ethics of computer gaming, he received the "Prize of the Friends of the University of Stuttgart". His current research focuses on normative differences in moral theories, problem areas in applied ethics, the aesthetics and ethics of computer games and the ethics of education and teaching. He currently works at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz. This book is a translation of the original German 1st edition Ethik des Computerspielens by Samuel Ulbricht, published by J.B. Metzler, an imprint of Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature in 2020. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation. Springer Nature works continuously to further the development of tools for the production of books and on the related technologies to support the authors.

Computer Games and the Social Imaginary

Computer Games and the Social Imaginary
Author: Graeme Kirkpatrick
Publisher: Polity
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2013-10-07
Genre: Games & Activities
ISBN: 0745641105

Computer games have fundamentally altered the relation of self and society in the digital age. Analysing topics such as technology and power, the formation of gaming culture and the subjective impact of play with computer games, this text will be of great interest to students and scholars of digital media, games studies and the information society.