Gamer Theory

by McKenzie Wark

Ever get the feeling that life's a game with changing rules and no clear sides, one you are compelled to play yet cannot win? Welcome to gamespace. Gamespace is where and how we live today. It is everywhere and nowhere; the main chance, the best shot, the big leagues, the only game in town. In a world thus configured, McKenzie Wark contends, digital computer games are the emergent cultural form of the times. Where others argue obsessively over violence in games, Wark approaches them as a utopian version of the world in which we actually live. Playing against the machine on a game console, we enjoy the only truly level playing field; where we get ahead on our strengths or not at all.

Gamer Theory uncovers the significance of games in the gap between the near-perfection of actual games and the highly imperfect gamespace of everyday life in the rat race of free-market society. The book depicts a world becoming an inescapable series of less and less perfect games. This world gives rise to a new persona. In place of the subject or citizen stands the gamer. As all previous such personae had their breviaries and manuals, Gamer Theory seeks to offer guidance for thinking within this new character. Neither a strategy guide nor a cheat sheet for improving one's score or skills, the book is instead a primer in thinking about a world made over as a gamespace, recast as an imperfect copy of the game.

Genres: Nonfiction, Games, Philosophy, Theory, Video Games, Gaming, Technology

240 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2007

About the author

McKenzie Wark (she/her) is the author of A Hacker Manifesto, Gamer Theory, 50 Years of Recuperation of the Situationist International, and The Beach Beneath the Street, among other books. She teaches at the New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College in New York City.

Reviews

[Hosein · Rating 5 out of 5]

با اینکه حدود بیست سال از زمان انتشارش می‌گذره (و بازی‌هایی که مثال میزنه حتی قدیمی‌تر هستن) همچنان بیشتر صحبت‌هاش درستن.

تمرکز کتاب روی اینه که چطور ویدیو گیم، باعث میشه ما بهتر دنیای اطرافمون رو بفهمیم و اصلا "چرا" وجود دارن و به "چه چیزی" می‌خوان برسن. دیدی که به قضیه داره برای من جدید بود، احتمالا از کتاب‌هاییه که خیلی بهش فکر خواهم کرد در آینده.

[P. Aaron Potter · Rating 1 out of 5]

For the love of God, people! Don't we academics get enough scorn heaped on us as it is???

Its really not fair: if you work in a nice, traditional academic discipline, producing post-imperialist readings of Moby Dick, people in the general populace mock you for indulging in empty ivory-tower navel gazing, but at least they generally leave you alone to tweed-it-up in peace.

Move over to cultural studies, or visual rhetoric, or media theory and you get to hang out at the cool kids table at interdisciplinary conferences, and while you'll lose the respect of your dissertation advisor, and any hope of tenure, at least you're studying things people actually read and know about.

But write a pop-culture studied book loaded with vague academic jargon that means absolutely nothing, in a rhetorical affectation which sounds like Jacques Derrida and Max Headroom's unholy love child, and all you're going to is annoy the people you were desperately trying to impress.

Epic Fail.

EDIT: SEE MY COMMENT BELOW

[Sarah W]

I'm trying to put away my judgmental pants while reading this, but it's difficult.

I had to skim parts of this book, but it got me thinking about various things. It's interesting to see how a book initially presented online translates to paper publishing.

[Ryan Somma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Giving this five stars to offset the negative reviews. There were issues with this book, but I appreciate how the Critical Theory aspects of it serve as a sort of "red pill" to break us out of our complacent acceptance of the world--specifically in video games. Many reviews complain about the erudite verbiage, but all Critical Theory makes use of newly-invented words in order to circumvent our preconceptions about the social constructs that rule our lives. I appreciated the concept of the "allegorithm" of how the programming of games is used to define a world, the questioning of "play" in games when really many games are actually work, criticizing the concept of "flow" by emphasizing it as "non-contemplation," and the idea that the best gamers are merely the ones who most internalize the algorithms. This book is not for everyone. It is dense and obtuse, but also highly effective and will be very enjoyable for the right readers.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who is this book written for? Game Designers? I don't know many designers who could dig through and decipher prose like this:
"When the topographic develops one dimension of telegraphy--its flow of information across space--the topological develops the other--its intricate coding and addressing. Where the topographic is an analog flow, the topological is the digital divide. It is a line of another type. It is a line that, for a brief, burning moment, reignited the dreams of a topos."

Got that? Yeah. Dense. This is academic writing at it's best. It's not that Wark doesn't have interesting insights. It's that Wark writes them as a scattered academic and who has time to dig through all that. Apparently I did. But that's a fluke.

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very disappointing - posturing, pretentious, muddled and juvenile. This author is trying way too hard to sound cool; he comes off more like a parody of Wired magazine cross-bred with a bad imitation of Hunter Thompson. This is one of those books that leads me to mourn the money I spent to buy it and the time I wasted reading it, and to make a note of the author's name so I never buy anything else of his.

[Rebekah Teske · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm sure someone could find some good use from this book, but I found it overly erudite and complicated.

I have no idea what the point of any of the metaphors or allegories were, and I've played my fair share of the games used as examples in the text.

I don't want to make any assumptions about Ms. Wark, but this book certainly made me think that she thinks "smart" or "thoughtful" means using as many 7-syllable buzz words as possible.

[Aivaras Žukauskas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I understand the origins of this work being not really in a book format, and there are some very interesting ideas scattered throughout the whole thing, but in the end it just stays an at points random-ish collection of notes (with a whiff of pretense here and there) rather than a cohesive statement on Gamespace as a principle of analog reality.

[e · Rating 3 out of 5]

over my head at times, but still a really exciting read. can’t help but question wark’s reasoning behind the games she elaborates on. with so many titles out there, of course she’d pick ones to fit her narrative.

TWO sims games??? really???

[Javier Ponce · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was a hit-or-miss. While I enjoyed some of the chapters, others didn't make a lot of sense, as they felt unorganized.

Gamer Theory is certainly not for everyone. Still, I appreciated the original perspective on game studies.

[Mason · Rating 2 out of 5]

What a nihilistic text about games and the real world.

[Steen Ledet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mckenzie Wark has written a number of strong books, this foray leads us into the world and culture of gaming, something that for Wark becomes more than simply a discussion of how video games work in our culture, but more how our culture has become like a game. Wark's arguments are clear and convincing, if bleak at times. However, Wark refuses pessimism and instead attempts to forge what is also the book's title 'gamer theory' - a theory that will throw a wrench in contemporary culture.

[Knar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've posted a general response to certain facets of Gamer Theory here: http://www.tropopausing.com/blog/2014....

A very provocative text. I enjoyed the pastiche quality of preponderant quotations and thought it suited the content well.

[Ansh · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book that obliterates most of game studies history of inconsequential arguments while simultaneously implicating military entertainment complex so intricately with games painting a solid argument with his playful writing style.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Here is a link to my review from the Brooklyn Rail, June 2007 issue:

[http://brooklynrail.org/2007/6/books/...]

[Mfalco65 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just re-read. Wark is a genius. A touch of humor and, for me, the defining book of our digital era.

[Nikolaos · Rating 2 out of 5]

ugghh too pithy.

[oenggun · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book needs a constant update. A good book nevertheless.

[Joe Nelis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This text is fascinating, but so dense in terms of theory. I'll definitely have to reread this.

[Muath Aziz · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you're a games geek and interested in philosophy then this is your book!

[Bruce · Rating 3 out of 5]

dense but interesting

[Thomas]

Available to read free online under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.5:
http://www.futureofthebook.org/gamert...