By Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Jonas Heide Smith, Susana Pajares Tosca
From Pong to PlayStation three and past, knowing games is the 1st normal advent to the intriguing new box of online game experiences. This textbook lines the historical past of games, introduces the main theories used to research video games equivalent to ludology and narratology, stories the economics of the sport undefined, examines the aesthetics of online game layout, surveys the huge diversity of online game genres, explores participant tradition, and addresses the key debates surrounding the medium, from academic merits to the results of violence.
Throughout the booklet, the authors ask readers to contemplate higher questions on the medium:
* what defines a video game?
* who performs games?
* why can we play games?
* how do video games impact the player?
Extensively illustrated, realizing games is an crucial and accomplished source for these drawn to the methods games are reshaping leisure and society. A better half web site (www.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415977210) beneficial properties pupil assets together with dialogue questions for every bankruptcy, a thesaurus of key words, a online game timeline, and hyperlinks to different online game experiences assets for extra learn.
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Additional resources for Understanding video games: the essential introduction
Example text
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, on the other hand, affords most of the pleasures with the exception of fellowship. The categories should not be seen as “objective” as they depend on interpretation and the context in which the game is played. For instance, we can interpret both Tetris and Grand Theft Auto as providing as social framework, and we can imagine a player expressing herself through Tetris by modifying37 the game and designing new background images. The MDA model is a very useful tool for understanding—and discussing—the way games work.
Of these characteristics, representation and safety stand out as the most debatable. Crawford ties the former to the idea that games are systems, but in this regard, representation is an odd term to use. We can have a system that is not a representation in any ordinary sense of the word. , for example, or the endless array of puzzle games like Tetris. ”30 Thus, the player can perceive the game action as meaningful even though it has no reference to the outside world. As for safety, it implies that games operate inside the “magic circle” discussed previously in this chapter; that game events are without direct real-world consequences.
First, he does not really try to find the common feature that he claims does not exist. He merely offers a few examples and notes how they do not share certain (more or less random) features. Second,Wittgenstein’s analysis rests on a peculiarity of language. German, like English, does not distinguish between formal games and the informal games that children play; ring-around-the-rosy and chess are both “ein Spiel” (a game) in German. But this is not the case in Scandinavian languages, for instance.
