Playing with Videogames

Playing with Videogames
Author: James Newman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2008-08-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1134173008

Playing with Videogames documents the richly productive, playful and social cultures of videogaming that support, surround and sustain this most important of digital media forms and yet which remain largely invisible within existing studies. James Newman details the rich array of activities that surround game-playing, charting the vibrant and productive practices of the vast number of videogame players and the extensive 'shadow' economy of walkthroughs, FAQs, art, narratives, online discussion boards and fan games, as well as the cultures of cheating, copying and piracy that have emerged. Playing with Videogames offers the reader a comprehensive understanding of the meanings of videogames and videogaming within the contemporary media environment.

How to Play Video Games

How to Play Video Games
Author: Matthew Thomas Payne
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2019-03-26
Genre: Games & Activities
ISBN: 1479805920

Forty original contributions on games and gaming culture What does Pokémon Go tell us about globalization? What does Tetris teach us about rules? Is feminism boosted or bashed by Kim Kardashian: Hollywood? How does BioShock Infinite help us navigate world-building? From arcades to Atari, and phone apps to virtual reality headsets, video games have been at the epicenter of our ever-evolving technological reality. Unlike other media technologies, video games demand engagement like no other, which begs the question—what is the role that video games play in our lives, from our homes, to our phones, and on global culture writ large? How to Play Video Games brings together forty original essays from today’s leading scholars on video game culture, writing about the games they know best and what they mean in broader social and cultural contexts. Read about avatars in Grand Theft Auto V, or music in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. See how Age of Empires taught a generation about postcolonialism, and how Borderlands exposes the seedy underbelly of capitalism. These essays suggest that understanding video games in a critical context provides a new way to engage in contemporary culture. They are a must read for fans and students of the medium.

Videogames

Videogames
Author: James A. Newman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2013
Genre: Games & Activities
ISBN: 0415669162

"James Newman's lucid and engaging introduction guides the reader through the world of videogaming, providing a history of the videogame from its origins in the computer lab to its contemporary status as a global entertainment industry, with characters such as Lara Croft and Sonic the Hedgehog familiar even to those who've never been near a games console. Topics covered include: classifications, game theory and interactivity - what is a videogame? the videogame audience the videogame industry videogame structure narratives and play- approaches to the study of videogames videogames, avatars and virtual worlds social gaming and the culture of videogames This second edition updates the book to include recent developments such as: the popularity of the wii and the increase in non-traditional gamers and more physical gaming the development of MMOGs (massively multiplayer online games) such as World of Warcraft games being downloaded as apps or accessed via mobile phones, iPods and social networking sites"--

Videogames

Videogames
Author: James Newman
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2004
Genre: Video games
ISBN: 9780415281911

Newman's lucid and engaging introduction guides the reader through the world of videogaming. It traces the history of the videogame, from its origins in the computer lab, to its contemporary status as a global entertainment industry, where characters such as Lara Croft and Sonic the Hedgehog are familiar even to those who've never been near a games console.Topics covered include:* What is a videogame?* Why study videogames?* a brief history of videogames, from Pac-Man to Pokémon* the videogame industry* who plays videogames?* are videogames bad for you?* the narrative structure of videogames* the future of videogames.

Video Games You Will Never Play

Video Games You Will Never Play
Author: Luca Taborelli
Publisher:
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2016-08-30
Genre:
ISBN: 9781537389028

How many video games have you played during your life? Do you think games are a form of art that should be preserved? What if we told you that there are thousands of interesting games you'll never play, all of which could be lost forever? It's true, there are many cancelled titles that are often lost to video game history. While video games may not be largely considered to be on par with paintings and statues, they are still art on their own, just like books, movies, and music, and like other works of art, video games have their own lost works. Games that were cancelled, never released, and often not even known by the general public. Unfortunately, there is no proper museum dedicated on saving them.Unseen64 is an online archive to preserve articles, screens and videos for cancelled, beta & unseen videogames. Every change and cut creates a different gaming experience: we would like to save some documents of this evolution for curiosity, historic and artistic preservation.Over the course of almost 500 pages, the 45+ writers and editors of this crowdsourced book hope to educate the gaming world on the history of video games as an ephemeral art form, by showcasing more than 200 lost games that could have been forgotten. Starting from early '90s PC titles, to 8-bit games for the NES and Sega Master System, and all the way through to the 7th generation of consoles with PS3, X360 and Wii, there are many unseen games that you will discover in this book. Also included are essays about the preservation of cancelled games, how to research for these unseen titles, and 20 interviews with museums and developers who worked on lost games. In this book there's plenty of examples of what gaming history is losing every day.Hopefully, by reading this book, more gamers, developers, youtubers, gaming journalists and historians can look back at what could have been and as a result raise awareness on the preservation of lost games: to see the hidden stories that played a part in leading gaming culture to where it is now.This is the full color version of the book, the content is identical to the black / white version, the only difference is the cover and the interior color.Before to read this book, please keep in mind that:- The lost games featured in this book are just a small sample of all the titles we will never play. It would be impossible to list them all in just one book.- We are a collective of gamers from all around the world.- This book is fully in English, but most articles were written by Italians and people from other non-English countries. Each article was proofread by English native speakers, but there could still be typos and random engrish. - This book was made with love and sleep deprivation.

Player and Avatar

Player and Avatar
Author: David Owen
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2017-06-19
Genre: Games & Activities
ISBN: 1476629420

Do you make small leaps in your chair while attempting challenging jumps in Tomb Raider? Do you say "Ouch!" when a giant hits you with a club in Skyrim? Have you had dreams of being inside the underwater city of Rapture? Videogames cast the player as protagonist in an unfolding narrative. Like actors in front of a camera, gamers' proprioception, or body awareness, can extend to onscreen characters, thus placing them "physically" within the virtual world. Players may even identify with characters' ideological motivations. The author explores concepts central to the design and enjoyment of videogames--affect, immersion, liveness, presence, agency, narrative, ideology and the player's virtual surrogate: the avatar. Gamer and avatar are analyzed as a cybernetic coupling that suggests fulfillment of Atonin Artaud's vision of the "body without organs."

The Debate about Playing Video Games

The Debate about Playing Video Games
Author: Rachel Seigel
Publisher: North Star Editions, Inc.
Total Pages: 48
Release: 2018-01-01
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1635176689

Provides a thorough overview of the major pros and cons of playing video games. Readable text, interesting sidebars, and illuminating infographics invite readers to jump in and join the debate.

What Is a Game?

What Is a Game?
Author: Gaines S. Hubbell
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2020-02-14
Genre: Games & Activities
ISBN: 147666837X

What is a videogame? What makes a videogame "good"? If a game is supposed to be fun, can it be fun without a good story? If another is supposed to be an accurate simulation, does it still need to be entertaining? With the ever-expanding explosion of new videogames and new developments in the gaming world, questions about videogame criticism are becoming more complex. The differing definitions that players and critics use to decide what a game is and what makes a game successful, often lead to different ideas of how games succeed or fail. This collection of new essays puts on display the variety and ambiguity of videogames. Each essay is a work of game criticism that takes a different approach to defining the game and analyzing it. Through analysis and critical methods, these essays discuss whether a game is defined by its rules, its narrative, its technology, or by the activity of playing it, and the tensions between these definitions. With essays on Overwatch, Dark Souls 3, Far Cry 4, Farmville and more, this collection attempts to show the complex changes, challenges and advances to game criticism in the era of videogames.

Culture at Play: How Video Games Influence and Replicate Our World

Culture at Play: How Video Games Influence and Replicate Our World
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 152
Release: 2020-11-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004439781

What is video game culture? This volume avoids easy answers and deceitful single definitions. Instead, the collected essays included here navigate the messy and exciting waters of video games, of culture, and of the meeting of video games and culture.

Video Games as Culture

Video Games as Culture
Author: Daniel Muriel
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2018-03-14
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317223926

Video games are becoming culturally dominant. But what does their popularity say about our contemporary society? This book explores video game culture, but in doing so, utilizes video games as a lens through which to understand contemporary social life. Video games are becoming an increasingly central part of our cultural lives, impacting on various aspects of everyday life such as our consumption, communities, and identity formation. Drawing on new and original empirical data – including interviews with gamers, as well as key representatives from the video game industry, media, education, and cultural sector – Video Games as Culture not only considers contemporary video game culture, but also explores how video games provide important insights into the modern nature of digital and participatory culture, patterns of consumption and identity formation, late modernity, and contemporary political rationalities. This book will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as postdoctoral researchers, interested in fields such Video Games, Sociology, and Media and Cultural Studies. It will also be useful for those interested in the wider role of culture, technology, and consumption in the transformation of society, identities, and communities.