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Great Books about Video Games (Vol. II)
02 Apr 2024 by Staff in Game Deals, Staff Articles View Comments
For some of us video games aren’t just a hobby or a way to past the time, they are a true passion. We spend hours playing them, mastering them and on the occasion create websites to talk about them. In the mix of all of this is reading about video games. For those of you that still pick up a book or a tablet we rounded up 10 great books featuring our love of everything gaming. Enjoy.
You can click any title and it will tell you more about the book, author and price at amazon in a new window, so you can easily come back and check out the others.
Fun Inc.: Why Gaming Will Dominate the Twenty-First Century
paperback: $12.17 kindle: $14.99
- In exploring the potential of the medium, Chatfield covers much territory, briskly and with intent … His conclusion on what the future could hold is in equal parts daunting and lip-smacking. It should be read by gamers and non-gamers alike. From Time Out London
The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon
paperbak: $12.96 kindle: $14.99
- In this rollicking, mammoth history of video games from pinball to Pong to Playstation II Kent, a technology journalist and self-professed video game addict, covers almost every conceivable aspect of the industry, from the technological leaps that made the games possible to the corporate power struggles that won (and lost) billions of dollars. Anecdotes are legion. Readers learn that early Atari, for example, had the corporate climate of a dot-com startup, with rampant drug use and meetings staged in outdoor hot tubs. The original name for Pac-Man turns out to be Puck-Man; its creators changed the name after worrying that vandals in arcades would replace the P with an F. In 1978, there were so many people playing Space Invaders in Japan that the game caused a national coin shortage. Kent meticulously documents the rise of home video games and the console wars of the past decade, when Sega, Nintendo, Sony and others raced to produce the fastest, most powerful game system. Also addressed is the public backlash of the ’80s, when video games were thought to distract students from homework, and the ’90s, when Doom and other violent games were linked to the massacre at Columbine High School. Along the way, Kent interviews virtually every key player in the industry. At times, Kent’s comprehensiveness is exhausting 500-plus pages on video games may be a bit much, even for their most ardent admirers. But most often Kent’s infectious enthusiasm is enough to carry the reader along. Equal parts oral history, engineering study, business memoir, game catalogue and Gen-X nostalgia trip, Kent’s book is a loving tribute to one of the most dynamic (and profitable) industries in the world today. | From Publishers Weekly
Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World
Hardcover: $14.97 kindle: $12.99
- People who spend hours playing video or online games are often maligned for “wasting their time†or “not living in the real world,†but McGonigal argues persuasively and passionately against this notion in her eminently effective examination of why games are important. She begins by disabusing the reader of some inherent prejudices and assumptions made about gamers, such as that they’re lazy and unambitious. Quite the opposite: McGonigal finds that gamers are working hard to achieve goals within the world of whatever game they are playing, whether it’s going on a quest to win attributes to enhance their in-game characters or performing tasks to get to a higher level in the game. Games inspire hard work, the setting of ambitious goals, learning from and even enjoying failure, and coming together with others for a common goal. McGonigal points out many real-world applications, including encouraging students to seek out secret assignments, setting up household chores as a challenge, even a 2009 game created by The Guardian to help uncover the excessive expenses of members of Parliament. With so many people playing games, this comprehensive, engaging study is an essential read. | From Booklist
Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter
paperback: $15.61 kindle: $11.99
- Starred Review. Grand Theft Auto IV is both a waste of time and the most colossal creative achievement of the last 25 years, according to this scintillating meditation on the promise and discontents of video games. Journalist Bissell (Chasing the Sea) should know; the ultraviolent car-chase-and-hookers game was his constant pastime during a months-long intercontinental cocaine binge. He’s ashamed of his video habit, but also ashamed of being ashamed of the dominant art form of our time; by turning the eye of a literary critic on the gory, seemingly puerile genre of ultraviolent, open-ended shooter games, he finds unexpected riches. Bissell bemoans the uncompromising stupidity of their story lines, wafer-thin characters, and the moronic dialogue, but celebrates the button-pushing, mesmeric qualities and the subtle, profound depths these conceal—the catharses of teamwork and heroism in the zombie-fest Left for Dead, the squirmy moral dilemmas of Mass Effect, the mood of wistful savagery suffusing the rifles-and-chainsaws-bedecked denizens of Gears of War. Bissell excels both at intellectual commentary and evocative reportage on the experience of playing games, while serving up engrossing mise-en-scène narratives of the mayhem. If anyone can bridge the aesthetic chasm between readers and gamers, he can. | From Publishers Weekly
Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames
paperback: $13.96 kindle: $9.99
- “Bogost creates and writes about serious games, seemingly simple diversions that deliver educational political and advertising content alongside entertainment. In Persuasive Games, he offers an academic but accessible introduction to their potential, and it is very meaty reading for anybody interested in where the interactive arts meet real-world topics.” | Scott Colbourne, The Globe and The Mail
Changing the Game: How Video Games Are Transforming the Future of Business
paperback: $19.79 kindle: $9.99
- Despite growth challenges in some parts of the entertainment industry, such as music and print media, the video-games industry is thriving. No longer just the providence of the first-person shooter mentality, the concept of video games has opened up with the popularity of virtual worlds such as the Sims and Second Life. “Massively multiplayer online role-playing games†such as World of Warcraft can support thousands of players simultaneously as players join forces with others to go on “quests,†slaying dragons and finding rare hidden items. The authors, who are both affiliates at MIT, discuss how games are being utilized by companies for product placement (“advergamesâ€) and as teaching and motivational tools, making it fun to do business. The military has embraced video games in a big way, utilizing them for recruitment and battle simulation. These game enthusiasts create a compelling argument as to why games matter, because “at their best, they represent the very essence of what drives people to think, to cooperate, and to create.†-David Siegfried | From Booklist
Game Addiction: The Experience and the Effects
paperback: $33.44 kindle: $14.74
- “Should definitely be read by a wide range of folks who are interested in knowing a bit more about where gaming now sits amid general electronic culture…probably the most important work yet written on the subject of habitual gaming…a wealth of information…straight-forward, well-constructed…points out that the problems of excessive gaming…probably the best set of resources on this topic that is available to us at the moment…pick up this book, arm yourselves with Clark and Scott’s research…a practical and sensible starting point to understanding a subject that is going to loom ever larger in all our lives.” -RockPaperShotgun | From Amazon Descriptions
Reset: Changing the Way We Look at Video Games
paperback: $18.02 kindle: $14.97Playing to Wiin: Nintendo and the Video Game Industrys Greatest Comeback
paperback: $16.47 kindle: $9.39Video Games (Opposing Viewpoints)
paperback: $24.11