Why Games Are Good For Business

Why Games Are Good For Business
Author: Helen Routledge
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2016-01-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1137448989

By tapping into the same psychology that keeps gamers glued to Minecraft or World of Warcraft, innovative organizations are creating their own engaging and flexible learning experiences. They're called Serious Games. This is a practical toolkit for those who want to learn about more serious games and how to apply them in the workplace.

The Psychology of Video Games

The Psychology of Video Games
Author: Celia Hodent
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 105
Release: 2020-10-07
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1000194760

What impact can video games have on us as players? How does psychology influence video game creation? Why do some games become cultural phenomena? The Psychology of Video Games introduces the curious reader to the relationship between psychology and video games from the perspective of both game makers and players. Assuming no specialist knowledge, this concise, approachable guide is a starter book for anyone intrigued by what makes video games engaging and what is their psychological impact on gamers. It digests the research exploring the benefits gaming can have on players in relation to education and healthcare, considers the concerns over potential negative impacts such as pathological gaming, and concludes with some ethics considerations. With gaming being one of the most popular forms of entertainment today, The Psychology of Video Games shows the importance of understanding the human brain and its mental processes to foster ethical and inclusive video games.

One Up

One Up
Author: Joost van Dreunen
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2020-10-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0231552211

What explains the massive worldwide success of video games such as Fortnite, Minecraft, and Pokémon Go? Game companies and their popularity are poorly understood and often ignored from the standpoint of traditional business strategy. Yet this industry generates billions in revenue by thinking creatively about digital distribution, free-to-play content, and phenomena like e-sports and live streaming. What lessons can we draw from its major successes and failures about the future of entertainment? One Up offers a pioneering empirical analysis of innovation and strategy in the video game industry to explain how it has evolved from a fringe activity to become a mainstream form of entertainment. Joost van Dreunen, a widely recognized industry expert with over twenty years of experience, analyzes how game makers, publishers, and platform holders have tackled strategic challenges to make the video game industry what it is today. Using more than three decades of rigorously compiled industry data, he demonstrates that video game companies flourish when they bring the same level of creativity to business strategy that they bring to game design. Filled with case studies of companies such as Activision Blizzard, Apple, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Microsoft, Nexon, Sony, Take-Two Interactive, Tencent, and Valve, this book forces us to rethink common misconceptions around the emergence of digital and mobile gaming. One Up is required reading for investors, creatives, managers, and anyone looking to learn about the major drivers of change and growth in contemporary entertainment.

Why Video Games are Good for Your Soul

Why Video Games are Good for Your Soul
Author: James Paul Gee
Publisher: Common Ground
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2005
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 186335574X

Imprint. In this text, built entirely around computer games and game play, the author shows how good video games marry pleasure and learning and, at the same time, have the potential to empower people.

Lost in a Good Game

Lost in a Good Game
Author: Pete Etchells
Publisher: Icon Books
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2019-04-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1785785060

'Etchells writes eloquently ... A heartfelt defence of a demonised pastime' The Times 'Once in an age, a piece of culture comes along that feels like it was specifically created for you, the beats and words and ideas are there because it is your life the creator is describing. Lost In A Good Game is exactly that. It will touch your heart and mind. And even if Bowser, Chun-li or Q-Bert weren't crucial parts of your youth, this is a flawless victory for everyone' Adam Rutherford When Pete Etchells was 14, his father died from motor neurone disease. In order to cope, he immersed himself in a virtual world - first as an escape, but later to try to understand what had happened. Etchells is now a researcher into the psychological effects of video games, and was co-author on a recent paper explaining why WHO plans to classify 'game addiction' as a danger to public health are based on bad science and (he thinks) are a bad idea. In this, his first book, he journeys through the history and development of video games - from Turing's chess machine to mass multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft- via scientific study, to investigate the highs and lows of playing and get to the bottom of our relationship with games - why we do it, and what they really mean to us. At the same time, Lost in a Good Game is a very unusual memoir of a writer coming to terms with his grief via virtual worlds, as he tries to work out what area of popular culture we should classify games (a relatively new technology) under.

The Great Game of Business

The Great Game of Business
Author: Jack Stack
Publisher: Broadway Business
Total Pages: 308
Release: 1994
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780385475259

The Great Game of Business started a business revolution by introducing the world to open-book management, a new way of running a business that created unprecedented profit and employee engagement. The revised and updated edition of The Great Game of Business lays out an entirely different way of running a company. It wasn't dreamed up in an executive think tank or an Ivy League business school or around the conference table by big-time consultants. It was forged on the factory floors of the heartland by ordinary folks hoping to figure out how to save their jobs when their parent company, International Harvester, went down the tubes. What these workers created was a revolutionary approach to management that has proven itself in every industry around the world for the past thirty years--an approach that is perhaps the last, best hope for reviving the American Dream.

Your Strategy Needs a Strategy

Your Strategy Needs a Strategy
Author: Martin Reeves
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2015-05-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1625275870

You think you have a winning strategy. But do you? Executives are bombarded with bestselling ideas and best practices for achieving competitive advantage, but many of these ideas and practices contradict each other. Should you aim to be big or fast? Should you create a blue ocean, be adaptive, play to win—or forget about a sustainable competitive advantage altogether? In a business environment that is changing faster and becoming more uncertain and complex almost by the day, it’s never been more important—or more difficult—to choose the right approach to strategy. In this book, The Boston Consulting Group’s Martin Reeves, Knut Haanæs, and Janmejaya Sinha offer a proven method to determine the strategy approach that is best for your company. They start by helping you assess your business environment—how unpredictable it is, how much power you have to change it, and how harsh it is—a critical component of getting strategy right. They show how existing strategy approaches sort into five categories—Be Big, Be Fast, Be First, Be the Orchestrator, or simply Be Viable—depending on the extent of predictability, malleability, and harshness. In-depth explanations of each of these approaches will provide critical insight to help you match your approach to strategy to your environment, determine when and how to execute each one, and avoid a potentially fatal mismatch. Addressing your most pressing strategic challenges, you’ll be able to answer questions such as: • What replaces planning when the annual cycle is obsolete? • When can we—and when should we—shape the game to our advantage? • How do we simultaneously implement different strategic approaches for different business units? • How do we manage the inherent contradictions in formulating and executing different strategies across multiple businesses and geographies? Until now, no book brings it all together and offers a practical tool for understanding which strategic approach to apply. Get started today.

Game Design Workshop

Game Design Workshop
Author: Tracy Fullerton
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 540
Release: 2014-03-05
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1482217163

Create the Digital Games You Love to Play Discover an exercise-driven, non-technical approach to game design without the need for programming or artistic expertise using Game Design Workshop, Third Edition. Author Tracy Fullerton demystifies the creative process with a clear and accessible analysis of the formal and dramatic systems of game design. Examples of popular games, illustrations of design techniques, and refined exercises strengthen your understanding of how game systems function and give you the skills and tools necessary to create a compelling and engaging game. The book puts you to work prototyping, playtesting, and revising your own games with time-tested methods and tools. It provides you with the foundation to advance your career in any facet of the game industry, including design, producing, programming, and visual design.

Reality Is Broken

Reality Is Broken
Author: Jane McGonigal
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2011-01-20
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1101475498

“McGonigal is a clear, methodical writer, and her ideas are well argued. Assertions are backed by countless psychological studies.” —The Boston Globe “Powerful and provocative . . . McGonigal makes a persuasive case that games have a lot to teach us about how to make our lives, and the world, better.” —San Jose Mercury News “Jane McGonigal's insights have the elegant, compact, deadly simplicity of plutonium, and the same explosive force.” —Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother A visionary game designer reveals how we can harness the power of games to boost global happiness. With 174 million gamers in the United States alone, we now live in a world where every generation will be a gamer generation. But why, Jane McGonigal asks, should games be used for escapist entertainment alone? In this groundbreaking book, she shows how we can leverage the power of games to fix what is wrong with the real world-from social problems like depression and obesity to global issues like poverty and climate change-and introduces us to cutting-edge games that are already changing the business, education, and nonprofit worlds. Written for gamers and non-gamers alike, Reality Is Broken shows that the future will belong to those who can understand, design, and play games. Jane McGonigal is also the author of SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient.

What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Second Edition

What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Second Edition
Author: James Paul Gee
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2014-12-02
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1466886420

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.