The Video Game Theory Reader 2

by Bernard Perron (Editor), Mark J.P. Wolf (Editor)

The Video Game Theory Reader 2 picks up where the first Video Game Theory Reader (Routledge, 2003) left off, with a group of leading scholars turning their attention to next-generation platforms - the Nintendo Wii, the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360 - and to new issues in the rapidly expanding field of video games studies. The contributors are some of the most renowned scholars working on video games today including Henry Jenkins, Jesper Juul, Eric Zimmerman, and Mia Consalvo. While the first volume had a strong focus on early video games, this volume also addresses more contemporary issues such as convergence and MMORPGs. The volume concludes with an appendix of nearly 40 ideas and concepts from a variety of theories and disciplines that have been usefully and insightfully applied to the study of video games.

Genres: Nonfiction, Games, Video Games, Game Design, Technology, Theory

430 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gracias a este libro aprendí muchísimas de las cosas que incluí en mi tesis de licenciatura. Temas muy bien explicados.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

This compendium is essential reading for all aspiring game theorists, tackling video games from a range of angles—psychology, market analysis, narratology, education, the whole caboodle—with an accessible range of academic papers and reports.

The focus is, naturally, on academic work, but the best academic writing presents itself in a readable way, shushing the poindexters and pleasing the populace. Academic writing should aspire to be as fluid as the best non-fiction work, and the best papers here do. Those authored by research teams or groups are the worst: smothered in technical language of no interest to those outside research facilities. Boo to them.

I shouldn’t have read the whole thing but what can I say, I’m getting into the topic. Let a man show a little passion from time to time.

* For those reading this review with actual game theory expertise, I am a visitor to this topic, reading these texts to absorb the debate. So pardon my piddling review.