What do you think?
Rate this book
Electronic Mediations
How to Talk about Videogames (Volume 47)
Videogames! Aren’t they the medium of the twenty-first century? The new cinema? The apotheosis of art and entertainment, the realization of Wagnerian gesamtkunstwerk? The final victory of interaction over passivity? No, probably not. Games are part art and part appliance, part tableau and part toaster. In How to Talk about Videogames , leading critic Ian Bogost explores this paradox more thoroughly than any other author to date. Delving into popular, familiar games like Flappy Bird, Mirror’s Edge, Mario Kart, Scribblenauts, Ms. Pac-Man, FarmVille, Candy Crush Saga, Bully, Medal of Honor, Madden NFL , and more, Bogost posits that videogames are as much like appliances as they are like art and media. We don’t watch or read games like we do films and novels and paintings, nor do we perform them like we might dance or play football or Frisbee. Rather, we do something in-between with games. Games are devices we operate, so game critique is both serious cultural currency and self-parody. It is about figuring out what it means that a game works the way it does and then treating the way it works as if it were reasonable, when we know it isn’t. Noting that the term games criticism once struck him as preposterous, Bogost observes that the idea, taken too seriously, risks balkanizing games writing from the rest of culture, severing it from the “rivers and fields” that sustain it. As essential as it is, he calls for its pursuit to unfold in this “God save us from a future of games critics, gnawing on scraps like the zombies that fester in our objects of study.”
208 pages, Paperback
First published November 15, 2015
39 people are currently reading
746 people want to read
About the author
Ian Bogost
127 books143 followersIan Bogost is a video game designer, critic and researcher. He holds a joint professorship in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication and in Interactive Computing in the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he is the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts Distinguished Chair in Media Studies.
He is the author of Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism and Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames as well as the co-author of Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System and Newsgames: Journalism at Play. Bogost also released Cow Clicker, a satire and critique of the influx of social network games. His game, A Slow Year, won two awards, Vanguard and Virtuoso, at IndieCade 2010.
He is the author of Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism and Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames as well as the co-author of Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System and Newsgames: Journalism at Play. Bogost also released Cow Clicker, a satire and critique of the influx of social network games. His game, A Slow Year, won two awards, Vanguard and Virtuoso, at IndieCade 2010.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
January 3, 2019
I came into this book expecting something of a meta-critique of games criticism: a book about videogames, but also about the discourse around videogames. It is called, after all, How to Talk about Videogames. Its introduction waves at this idea, positing that videogame criticism is both preposterous and necessary, and mulling over the distinction between criticism and technical product reviews.
This not that book, though. Really, it's just a series of distinct essays on various games, each essay in its own silo. They aren't reviews, and often go for pages without discussing the games in question. The essays dive into deeply abstract territory, straying further from the subject than you would ever predict. Several of the essays are fascinating; others, less so. At times, Bogost's theses seem almost willfully obtuse, the arguments harder to navigate than Flappy Bird. At these times, I would trudge through, word by word, just to get to the next one.
At times, it's refreshing to see such intellectual rigor brought to bear on the medium of videogames. At other times, it feels as though the book is over-intellectualizing, grasping at maximal seriousness when just moderate seriousness will do. At one point, Bogost refers to the (then) vice president as "Joseph Biden," which is as sure a sign as any that someone's trying to fancy things up. I doubt that even Biden's mother has ever called him "Joseph."
There are some good nuggets in here, though they are (for my tastes) mostly in the book's first half. And I will forever be grateful to Bogost for describing the act of playing Pac-Man as "directing a circular, discarnate maw." But it's not the book I wanted, the book it seems to present itself as, and what it is falls a bit short.
This not that book, though. Really, it's just a series of distinct essays on various games, each essay in its own silo. They aren't reviews, and often go for pages without discussing the games in question. The essays dive into deeply abstract territory, straying further from the subject than you would ever predict. Several of the essays are fascinating; others, less so. At times, Bogost's theses seem almost willfully obtuse, the arguments harder to navigate than Flappy Bird. At these times, I would trudge through, word by word, just to get to the next one.
At times, it's refreshing to see such intellectual rigor brought to bear on the medium of videogames. At other times, it feels as though the book is over-intellectualizing, grasping at maximal seriousness when just moderate seriousness will do. At one point, Bogost refers to the (then) vice president as "Joseph Biden," which is as sure a sign as any that someone's trying to fancy things up. I doubt that even Biden's mother has ever called him "Joseph."
There are some good nuggets in here, though they are (for my tastes) mostly in the book's first half. And I will forever be grateful to Bogost for describing the act of playing Pac-Man as "directing a circular, discarnate maw." But it's not the book I wanted, the book it seems to present itself as, and what it is falls a bit short.
June 12, 2018
comparing the formation of ms pac man from pac man, to Adam and eve— issa no from me dawg
July 14, 2025
“Victory and defeat are just lies told out of two sides of the same mouth.”
Pretty deep, right? Would you ever guess this was written about the Blue Shell from Mario Kart?
Let’s backtrack (get it? Mario Kart? Track? I’ll see myself out): I didn’t find this book. It found me. I stumbled across a secondhand copy while browsing booths at Philadelphia’s annual “Too Many Games” convention. The title struck me: “How to Talk About Videogames.”
I’m a passive gamer at most. I enjoy partaking in inebriated rounds of Mario Kart with friends, and I spent the first few months of the pandemic committing housing discrimination in Animal Crossing. I attend “Too Many Games” not as an active participant but as my dear boyfriend’s annual plus one. He feels strongly about old consoles and moonlights as a retro videogame reseller.
Thus, I saw this book and thought, ‘Perfect! A how-to guide that’ll teach me how to articulate an opinion about videogames! A meta-analysis of videogame discourse! Exactly what I need! That way, when I engage in dialogue about my boyfriend’s favorite hobby, I’ll actually know what I’m talking about.’
How naive I was.
“How to Talk About Videogames” does not teach its reader how to talk about videogames. Rather, it’s a series of essays, each analyzing and philosophizing on a different videogame or videogame genre and its position in the zeitgeist. A far less misleading title would be, “This Is What I, Ian Bogost, Think About Videogames and Our Relationship to Them.”
The essays that convey those thoughts are either hits or misses, which is the problem with most books of essays: not all of them can be bangers. In Bogost’s case, the front half of his book is more compelling than the back.
I particularly enjoyed Bogost’s analyses of:
* Flappy Bird and the devotion of material indifference (an essay that contains the brilliant line “We play games because games are stupid”)
* Journey and the problem with a tabula rasa (it contains all meaning and no meaning at once)
* The existentialism inherent in the Blue Shell (actually called Spiny’s Shell!)
* Why the Scribblenauts racial slur incident proves the game achieved its goal (an essay that includes an educational explanation of the watermelon stereotype’s history)
* Why Ms. Pac-Man is the first feminist video game (and why Ms. Pac-Man’s evolution from her baby daddy closely resembles Eve’s birth from Adam’s rib)
* Why the racketeering present in free-to-play games is more threatening than violent content
* Why videogames are mirrors, not windows
* Puzzle games and their relationship to the Immanuel Kant-defined mathematical sublime
Unfortunately, this book lost me just beyond the halfway point, when Bogost shared his thoughts on Microsoft Flight Simulator. I finally put the book down midway through the essay about sports games.
I’m not sure why my interest waned here. Perhaps it was the lack of “caughtcha off guard!” arguments that made me scoff, then think: e.g., “The Blue Shell … is the welfare queen of kart racing,” “Ms. Pac-Man’s formation from Pac-Man is almost biblical in its implications,” etc. Bogost’s best arguments have a strong aftertaste: first, the reader says, “That’s ridiculous. What the hell is this guy talking about?” Then, the reader ponders Bogost’s argument and comes back saying, “Wait, I understand now, and I agree!” The latter half of the book didn’t leave me saying either.
I’ll conclude my thoughts with the paragraph I reacted the strongest to:
“It’s hard to perform thoughtful criticism on puzzles because they don’t carry meaning in the way novels or films or oil paintings do. The peg solitaire set on the table at Cracker Barrel does not function as a religious text, for example.”
Maybe not to YOU, Mr. Bogost. Some of us would fervently disagree.
Pretty deep, right? Would you ever guess this was written about the Blue Shell from Mario Kart?
Let’s backtrack (get it? Mario Kart? Track? I’ll see myself out): I didn’t find this book. It found me. I stumbled across a secondhand copy while browsing booths at Philadelphia’s annual “Too Many Games” convention. The title struck me: “How to Talk About Videogames.”
I’m a passive gamer at most. I enjoy partaking in inebriated rounds of Mario Kart with friends, and I spent the first few months of the pandemic committing housing discrimination in Animal Crossing. I attend “Too Many Games” not as an active participant but as my dear boyfriend’s annual plus one. He feels strongly about old consoles and moonlights as a retro videogame reseller.
Thus, I saw this book and thought, ‘Perfect! A how-to guide that’ll teach me how to articulate an opinion about videogames! A meta-analysis of videogame discourse! Exactly what I need! That way, when I engage in dialogue about my boyfriend’s favorite hobby, I’ll actually know what I’m talking about.’
How naive I was.
“How to Talk About Videogames” does not teach its reader how to talk about videogames. Rather, it’s a series of essays, each analyzing and philosophizing on a different videogame or videogame genre and its position in the zeitgeist. A far less misleading title would be, “This Is What I, Ian Bogost, Think About Videogames and Our Relationship to Them.”
The essays that convey those thoughts are either hits or misses, which is the problem with most books of essays: not all of them can be bangers. In Bogost’s case, the front half of his book is more compelling than the back.
I particularly enjoyed Bogost’s analyses of:
* Flappy Bird and the devotion of material indifference (an essay that contains the brilliant line “We play games because games are stupid”)
* Journey and the problem with a tabula rasa (it contains all meaning and no meaning at once)
* The existentialism inherent in the Blue Shell (actually called Spiny’s Shell!)
* Why the Scribblenauts racial slur incident proves the game achieved its goal (an essay that includes an educational explanation of the watermelon stereotype’s history)
* Why Ms. Pac-Man is the first feminist video game (and why Ms. Pac-Man’s evolution from her baby daddy closely resembles Eve’s birth from Adam’s rib)
* Why the racketeering present in free-to-play games is more threatening than violent content
* Why videogames are mirrors, not windows
* Puzzle games and their relationship to the Immanuel Kant-defined mathematical sublime
Unfortunately, this book lost me just beyond the halfway point, when Bogost shared his thoughts on Microsoft Flight Simulator. I finally put the book down midway through the essay about sports games.
I’m not sure why my interest waned here. Perhaps it was the lack of “caughtcha off guard!” arguments that made me scoff, then think: e.g., “The Blue Shell … is the welfare queen of kart racing,” “Ms. Pac-Man’s formation from Pac-Man is almost biblical in its implications,” etc. Bogost’s best arguments have a strong aftertaste: first, the reader says, “That’s ridiculous. What the hell is this guy talking about?” Then, the reader ponders Bogost’s argument and comes back saying, “Wait, I understand now, and I agree!” The latter half of the book didn’t leave me saying either.
I’ll conclude my thoughts with the paragraph I reacted the strongest to:
“It’s hard to perform thoughtful criticism on puzzles because they don’t carry meaning in the way novels or films or oil paintings do. The peg solitaire set on the table at Cracker Barrel does not function as a religious text, for example.”
Maybe not to YOU, Mr. Bogost. Some of us would fervently disagree.
November 29, 2017
This is part of a series entitled electronic meditations and this is entirely apt - the book is a series of short essays that are essentially meditations often of an abstract and philosophical nature on topics related to video games. So Flappy Bird prompts questions of existential angst, boredom and misery; Journey and Flower leads to a broader look at aesthetics and how this can be applied to games, which is further explored in essays on Ways of Looking (specific to the game Mirror's Edge) and the idea of the Sublime.
Among other topics in this wide-ranging survey are what exactly is a "sports" game which is tied into a broader exploration of the concept of a game itself (by way of Wittgenstein) and questions about the economics of gaming (including looking at in game purchases) and an insightful essay on gaming and censorship including a defence of games from a free speech perspective.
If you're expecting a book reviewing or evaluating specific games you will be disappointed but that isn't Bogost's goal here. Not all the essays were equally engrossing, but this book is a worthy read for anyone who wants to think more deeply about gaming as art, as a commodity, and as a pastime.
Among other topics in this wide-ranging survey are what exactly is a "sports" game which is tied into a broader exploration of the concept of a game itself (by way of Wittgenstein) and questions about the economics of gaming (including looking at in game purchases) and an insightful essay on gaming and censorship including a defence of games from a free speech perspective.
If you're expecting a book reviewing or evaluating specific games you will be disappointed but that isn't Bogost's goal here. Not all the essays were equally engrossing, but this book is a worthy read for anyone who wants to think more deeply about gaming as art, as a commodity, and as a pastime.
October 28, 2019
This book has some interesting takes on a good selection of video games and it did encourage me to think about games in a way I hadn't considered before. However, there were many occasions where things were phrased in an unnecessarily complicated way. This would obscure the point that the author was trying to get across, without adding anything.
June 16, 2017
I came to this book on the strength and delight of Bogost’s book 'Alien Phenomenology,' a long-time favorite. This book, 'How to Talk about Video Games,' is a strange choice for me because I am a most occasional of occasional gamers. But I am a computer modeler, and my interest in digital objects is based on trying to understand how such things represent real objects and their relationships through relational mappings of real objects to digital ones and back again. There is something similar to gaming in these endeavors. This book is not about that per se, but I found his insights into what makes a good game, how we play them, how games succeed or fail, how marketing works in the Darwinian processes that drive games into the forefront. It explores the history of gaming and its evolution. The book points to the possibility that digital games are worthy of critique in the same way that literature and art are, with their own set of purposes and conditions of satisfaction. All in all a fantastic book (even if one is not a gamer) that explores the place of games in our culture. I’d say that if you are interested in games enough to have enjoyed Cline’s Ready Player One, you’ll find this book fascinating.
October 12, 2015
Go deep into the art, code, and reasoning behind some of the most famous (and not so famous) video games.
This was an interesting book. In the beginning I wasn’t sure if the author was going to tell me how he felt about a bunch of games and I was worried I was going to be reading a 200 page book of reviews. That was not the case. As I got deeper and deeper it was clear — the author is definitely a professor and this book was written for a class that he teaches. I would be incredibly shocked if it wasn’t. The book reads like a textbook — a lot of drawn out explanations that could have been done in much less words.
Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t take away from the it, but the chapters where either I didn’t know about the game (I’m an avid gamer) or where I wasn’t interested in the authors point of view on the game — those chapters reminded me of being in Economics and being forced to read a text that was dry.
The chapters that I did love (including the one on the game Hard Rain, and the chapter on video games and violence were really fun and interesting to read. I guess it’s just a preference.
All in all, the reader should be warned that this does read like a textbook at times. And I wouldn’t recommend it for someone who isn’t well versed in popular video game culture. There are just too many references to games that people may not know.
Note to publisher/author:
The title of the book could be construed as incredibly confusing. You need a deep knowledge of video games to understand a lot of the topics that were talked about in this book. I would call this book “A Criticism of Video Games” or something of the sorts.
I was given a free copy of this book by NetGalley for an honest review.
This was an interesting book. In the beginning I wasn’t sure if the author was going to tell me how he felt about a bunch of games and I was worried I was going to be reading a 200 page book of reviews. That was not the case. As I got deeper and deeper it was clear — the author is definitely a professor and this book was written for a class that he teaches. I would be incredibly shocked if it wasn’t. The book reads like a textbook — a lot of drawn out explanations that could have been done in much less words.
Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t take away from the it, but the chapters where either I didn’t know about the game (I’m an avid gamer) or where I wasn’t interested in the authors point of view on the game — those chapters reminded me of being in Economics and being forced to read a text that was dry.
The chapters that I did love (including the one on the game Hard Rain, and the chapter on video games and violence were really fun and interesting to read. I guess it’s just a preference.
All in all, the reader should be warned that this does read like a textbook at times. And I wouldn’t recommend it for someone who isn’t well versed in popular video game culture. There are just too many references to games that people may not know.
Note to publisher/author:
The title of the book could be construed as incredibly confusing. You need a deep knowledge of video games to understand a lot of the topics that were talked about in this book. I would call this book “A Criticism of Video Games” or something of the sorts.
I was given a free copy of this book by NetGalley for an honest review.
September 6, 2015
A maturidade dos jogos de computador enquanto media de expressão artística é sublinhado pela existência, hoje, de crítica séria, capaz de contextualizar e dissecar videojogos para além dos domínios técnicos e intrísecos ao tipo de jogo. Ian Bogost tem-se distinguido quer pelo seu trabalho académico quer pelos projectos que desenvolve no domínio do serious gaming. Também faz crítica, sendo mais acessível aos leitores globais através das crónicas que escreve para a revista The Atlantic. Este livro colige algumas das crónicas de Bogost, onde analisa com profundidade elementos do campo dos videojogos, desde as aplicações mais populares às implicações artísticas dos jogos criados por independentes. Coloca em evidência aspecto ligados à criatividade, técnica, narrativa e contextualização económica e social. Apesar de uma prosa por vezes fortemente elaborada, é um livro incisivo que expande os horizontes da cultura dos jogos.
Read
January 30, 2016كتاب بيتكلم عن العاب الكمبيوتر، بجد..ايه التفاهةدى ؟
دى اول حاجة هتيجى على دماغك لما تبص على الكتاب، لكن اول ما هتبدا فيه هتكتشف ان الموضوع جد جدا
طبعا دى اول مرة اقرا كتاب من النوعية دى..الكتاب كان ممتع و مسلى جدا بالنسبة لى، فكرة انك تبص لحاجة اغلب االناس بتستتفهها و تحللها باسلوب محترم و منظم، دى حاجة رائعة فى حد ذاتها
لو بتحب الالعاب الكتاب هيعجبك جدا، لانه هيحسسك انك بتعمل حاجة ليها قيمة
لكن مش ده سبب اعجابى بالكتاب، الكتاب عجبنى ل��نه بيوضح نقطة انا شىايفها مهمة جدا
ان فيه مواضيع كتير-الالعاب واحدة منها-بدات تبقى ليها تأثير شديد على افكار الناس و ارائهم، سواء بالايجاب او السلب و مع ذلك الحاجات دى مش واخدة حقها من الاهتمام
هل دى دعوة اننا كلنا نشترى بلاى ستيشن و نبدا نلعب، لاطبعا
لكن اقصد ان المفروض دلوقتى. تبدا تظهر العاب بتزرع افكار ايجابية فى الشباب و الاطفال بدلا من اغلب الالعاب المنتشرة اللى بتنشر العنف والتخلف
January 9, 2020
Este es el tipo de lecturas que me encantan. Diría que incluso no es necesario haber jugado a los títulos de los que el autor habla para poder disfrutar de las reflexiones que ofrece, aunque reconozco que el capítulo acerca de Journey me ha fascinado. Por otro lado, no soy quién para valorar este tipo de obras, solo para leerlas e intentar aprender algo de ellas. Por eso las puntuaciones son tan subjetivas y por eso cada vez tienen menos sentido para mí. Si le pongo 4 estrellas es porque me ha gustado mucho, pero en algunos puntos no me ha atrapado (cosa mía por no conocer algún que otro título; nada que ver con el autor).
Me quedo con algunas frases, pero tiene otras muchas reflexiones interesantes en el resto del libro:
"The very idea that the very idea of a game about a lesbian girl could surprise us should also embarrass us." (sobre Gone Home, p. 179)
"[Videogames] become consumer electronics accessories akin to headphones rather than cultural media artifacts akin to books." (p. 183)
"Games are still a niche tricked by the echo chamber of internal success into thinking that they are approaching the mainstream." (p. 185)
Lectura imprescindible para los que quieran aproximarse a otras formas de ver el medio, más allá de los detalles puramente técnicos o estéticos de los videojuegos.
Me quedo con algunas frases, pero tiene otras muchas reflexiones interesantes en el resto del libro:
"The very idea that the very idea of a game about a lesbian girl could surprise us should also embarrass us." (sobre Gone Home, p. 179)
"[Videogames] become consumer electronics accessories akin to headphones rather than cultural media artifacts akin to books." (p. 183)
"Games are still a niche tricked by the echo chamber of internal success into thinking that they are approaching the mainstream." (p. 185)
Lectura imprescindible para los que quieran aproximarse a otras formas de ver el medio, más allá de los detalles puramente técnicos o estéticos de los videojuegos.
June 20, 2021
A diverse collection of essays, all previously published elsewhere, on videogames (duh!).
At times, rather highfalutin but there's the odd nugget to chew on after finishing the essay.
The Conclusion chapter seems to suggest that videogames will only come of age when they're not treated as something 'other' and when books about them, like this one, become pointless since games are just like toasters or books and don't stand out as a separate niche. Maybe I'm being a bit dense but aren't there also literary critical reviews and individual book reviews in all the major Sunday papers?
At times, rather highfalutin but there's the odd nugget to chew on after finishing the essay.
The Conclusion chapter seems to suggest that videogames will only come of age when they're not treated as something 'other' and when books about them, like this one, become pointless since games are just like toasters or books and don't stand out as a separate niche. Maybe I'm being a bit dense but aren't there also literary critical reviews and individual book reviews in all the major Sunday papers?
October 21, 2023
A continuation of Bogost’s “How to Do Things with Video Games” that converts video games studies to “toaster studies”. Which means, essentially, that a video game is more than just the “bread” that is toasted. It is about the mechanisms that take place that toast your bread in the first place. This parallels to graphics, haptic responses, NPC A.I., and so much more.
A good enough read, with some critically insightful essays, but nothing too groundbreaking.
A good enough read, with some critically insightful essays, but nothing too groundbreaking.
January 19, 2025
Mix samostatných esejí o různých hrách a přestože přináší k dílům kotenxt a zajímavé náhledy, tak mi osobně přišlo podnětná jen část z nich. Dost možná zkrátka jen tenhle žánr neumím číst, ale textům by za mě prospělo místy probírat myšlenky víc důkladně, pročistit zbytečně komplikovaný jazyk a tím si koupit prostor navíc.
No a mrzí mě, že i když intro k tomu směřovalo, tak jsem se vlastně nedozvěděl, jak mluvit o videohrách:(
No a mrzí mě, že i když intro k tomu směřovalo, tak jsem se vlastně nedozvěděl, jak mluvit o videohrách:(
October 21, 2017
Ian Bogost’s Musings
Less a tutorial on ways to approach and discuss video games than a collection of writings by Bogost. This is not to say that’s a bad thing! Bogost has a rich perspective on games in a field of analysis he more or less founded, but understand this is more a collection of philosophical writings than a how-to of critical analysis, as the title suggests
Less a tutorial on ways to approach and discuss video games than a collection of writings by Bogost. This is not to say that’s a bad thing! Bogost has a rich perspective on games in a field of analysis he more or less founded, but understand this is more a collection of philosophical writings than a how-to of critical analysis, as the title suggests
March 12, 2023
Una percepción casi melancólica, muy crítica sobre la industria, rememorando videojuegos icónicos y analizando su importancia así como impacto hacia el mundo en 2015. Claro recopilatorio de escritos del autor. Sería bueno una edición 2023 (post pandemia) para entender la importancia que los videojuegos y la industrias tuvieron en la última época más compleja que hemos vivido.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 15, 2019
An interesting exploration of how to talk, and especially write, about video games in a serious matter. Criticism, rather than reviewing. Some of the example chapters are very good reads, while others are lacking.
May 8, 2017
Another really good book from Bogost. Alas, another really good book nobody will read this decade because the words "videogames" is written on its cover.
November 8, 2018
Think the opening essay ("Nobody Asked for a Toaster Critic"), the flappy bird essay, and the piece on sports videogames are the strongest - the former and the latter really knocked my thinking about video games as appliance/entertainment/art form for a loop. In general Bogost's tone is entertaining, dryly funny, and clever; think the middle of the book drags a bit, and it doesn't quite flow as a collection IMO, but I dug it regardless.
December 20, 2021
3,5 stars. Very refreshing to read about games from this sort of a perspective even if some of the conclusions were a bit of stretch.
April 16, 2024
3.5 stars. Not all the critiques are inspiring, but some are.
March 4, 2017
Bogost's writing is self referential about the fact of whether or not this kind of criticism needs to be taken seriously. I am a firm advocate that it should, but the final essay here gives the impression that video games are always going to be stuck in an adolescent position even disparaging what I thought was fantastic story telling in the Bioshock franchise.
Still this is a valuable book and will likely never receive the credit it deserves. In the last month my Commander, an Army Captain talked about going home to play Assassin's Creed. A full bird colonel talked about going home to play Watchdogs 2. This means something, that games have moved from the basement in which players were society's dispossessed. Now it is equally true of so-called "serious" individuals.
There is much illumination here about some pretty far reaches of the video game universe. Although Bogost himself is critical it is at least a great way to look at the medium as a serious and significant part of modern life, that games can and should be read with the same critical insight with which we treat other forms of media as the effort and intent is at least on par and the effort well deserved. And perhaps in time gamers will be treated to the narratives and sophisticated story telling that they deserve as "serious" individuals transcribe their narratives into games.
Still this is a valuable book and will likely never receive the credit it deserves. In the last month my Commander, an Army Captain talked about going home to play Assassin's Creed. A full bird colonel talked about going home to play Watchdogs 2. This means something, that games have moved from the basement in which players were society's dispossessed. Now it is equally true of so-called "serious" individuals.
There is much illumination here about some pretty far reaches of the video game universe. Although Bogost himself is critical it is at least a great way to look at the medium as a serious and significant part of modern life, that games can and should be read with the same critical insight with which we treat other forms of media as the effort and intent is at least on par and the effort well deserved. And perhaps in time gamers will be treated to the narratives and sophisticated story telling that they deserve as "serious" individuals transcribe their narratives into games.
November 18, 2017
I did not enjoy this book.
It wasn't that author Bogost did not raise some points to consider about video games as a medium, and the ways in which their potential might be more fully explored, beyond simply entertaining the masses. Because he definitely raised those points. I take issue with the fact that Bogost seems to look down on games as they are (fun, entertaining, sometimes challenging and frustrating ways to spend time), and instead tries to make them what they are not, namely, think pieces designed to engender deeper exploration of the games' motivations and all that.
But, okay. At least Bogost seems aware that what he's doing is not what one generally expects from a game review. He even dedicates the entire introduction to explaining how what he's doing is critique and it's different and shouldn't be held to the same standards as a mere review.
The fact is, I simply did not enjoy the author's style, nor his tone, which seemed to imply that he, and he alone, was the only person clever enough in the history of ever to consider the idea of critiquing video games as one would critique a work of literature or an art piece. Actually, in the conclusion he even goes so far as to note (in a vaguely self-pitying manner) that very few people will even read this book, because it is such a unique, challenging, too-clever-for-the-plebs creation (obviously I'm paraphrasing here), and he is so special for having written it.
What made this book infinitely more palatable was my decision about halfway through to look up Ben Croshaw's Zero Punctuation reviews of the games he mentions in the book, and watch them at the end of the chapter, which is how I recommend everyone who makes the (questionable) decision to read this book approach the work.
It wasn't that author Bogost did not raise some points to consider about video games as a medium, and the ways in which their potential might be more fully explored, beyond simply entertaining the masses. Because he definitely raised those points. I take issue with the fact that Bogost seems to look down on games as they are (fun, entertaining, sometimes challenging and frustrating ways to spend time), and instead tries to make them what they are not, namely, think pieces designed to engender deeper exploration of the games' motivations and all that.
But, okay. At least Bogost seems aware that what he's doing is not what one generally expects from a game review. He even dedicates the entire introduction to explaining how what he's doing is critique and it's different and shouldn't be held to the same standards as a mere review.
The fact is, I simply did not enjoy the author's style, nor his tone, which seemed to imply that he, and he alone, was the only person clever enough in the history of ever to consider the idea of critiquing video games as one would critique a work of literature or an art piece. Actually, in the conclusion he even goes so far as to note (in a vaguely self-pitying manner) that very few people will even read this book, because it is such a unique, challenging, too-clever-for-the-plebs creation (obviously I'm paraphrasing here), and he is so special for having written it.
What made this book infinitely more palatable was my decision about halfway through to look up Ben Croshaw's Zero Punctuation reviews of the games he mentions in the book, and watch them at the end of the chapter, which is how I recommend everyone who makes the (questionable) decision to read this book approach the work.
December 12, 2015
Do you ever ponder how Rothko paintings and Doom have both constrained their creators to
certain types of expected forms? What about contrasting William Carlos Williams’ imagist verse to Monument Valley? If so ‘How to Talk about Videogames’ (2015) by Ian Bogost is the book for you. It’s full of well written, serious criticism of games in the spirit of Art, Music and Literature criticism. Bogost has a PhD from in Comparative Literature and is a Professor at Georgia Tech. He also designs games. The book is a collection of related essays.
The book has a clever introduction that looks at the purpose of criticism itself which is really good. Bogost says that reviews and criticism are different and deliniates them carefully. Then the book goes on to discuss Mario Kart, Ms Pac Man, Home Alone, Flappy Bird, Bully, Puzzle Games, Sports Games, gaining mastery in games and various Independent Artistic games that aim to be videogames as art. Bogost also ponders if games will be perpetually an adolescent art form.
As far as this sort of thing goes this book is about as it gets. It’s also worth noting how games, compared to comics and other art forms are getting criticism like this fairly early in their existence. Games are particularly hard to write about because the act of playing is so critical to the game just as criticism of sports in an artistic sort of way is very hard. The book looks at the plot of games and considers how novel the revelation but this sort of criticism doesn’t work as well in things where the narrative isn’t that important.
If you’re interested in games and read The Atlantic or the New Yorker or the arts section of The Economist or something similar then this book will provide some thoughtful and entertaining times.
certain types of expected forms? What about contrasting William Carlos Williams’ imagist verse to Monument Valley? If so ‘How to Talk about Videogames’ (2015) by Ian Bogost is the book for you. It’s full of well written, serious criticism of games in the spirit of Art, Music and Literature criticism. Bogost has a PhD from in Comparative Literature and is a Professor at Georgia Tech. He also designs games. The book is a collection of related essays.
The book has a clever introduction that looks at the purpose of criticism itself which is really good. Bogost says that reviews and criticism are different and deliniates them carefully. Then the book goes on to discuss Mario Kart, Ms Pac Man, Home Alone, Flappy Bird, Bully, Puzzle Games, Sports Games, gaining mastery in games and various Independent Artistic games that aim to be videogames as art. Bogost also ponders if games will be perpetually an adolescent art form.
As far as this sort of thing goes this book is about as it gets. It’s also worth noting how games, compared to comics and other art forms are getting criticism like this fairly early in their existence. Games are particularly hard to write about because the act of playing is so critical to the game just as criticism of sports in an artistic sort of way is very hard. The book looks at the plot of games and considers how novel the revelation but this sort of criticism doesn’t work as well in things where the narrative isn’t that important.
If you’re interested in games and read The Atlantic or the New Yorker or the arts section of The Economist or something similar then this book will provide some thoughtful and entertaining times.
November 2, 2016
Different corners of the internet clash over what makes "good" games criticism. It's a marker that subjectively falls between X/10 feature lists and over-intellectualised wankery, hampered by the need to build a new taxonomy for interactive products, the financial realities of enthusiast media, and more. Bogost isn't here to tell you any one style is more valid than the other, but offers a few new directions.
Despite the title, this is not an instruction manual. It's a series of articles (some already published on the web) that serve as examples. Some of them are games criticism, and some are commentary on games criticism, but mostly they're launchpads for a particular direction of thought. Could America's economic problems be likened to MarioKart's infamous Blue Shell? Could an abstract puzzle game capture moral choices better than Bioshock? Bogost will persist down these paths, analogising and analysing through areas the developers themselves likely haven't visited, until (hopefully) a clearing is reached. Did we arrive at truth? Insight? A chuckle? Was he himself convinced by this contemplative exploration? None of that matters -- the point is this is how we could be thinking about games.
Your average freelancer would have a hard time pitching articles such as these, but perhaps that's part of the point? There's a lot here to reflect on, and I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to think deeply about games. It presents itself as a humble alternative style as opposed to something "better". But while not every article needs to ask whether videogames are a form of racketeering, or examine the honour of iterative improvements to Words with Friends, let's be honest... Bogost's criticism is better, and mostly because it's Bogost.
Despite the title, this is not an instruction manual. It's a series of articles (some already published on the web) that serve as examples. Some of them are games criticism, and some are commentary on games criticism, but mostly they're launchpads for a particular direction of thought. Could America's economic problems be likened to MarioKart's infamous Blue Shell? Could an abstract puzzle game capture moral choices better than Bioshock? Bogost will persist down these paths, analogising and analysing through areas the developers themselves likely haven't visited, until (hopefully) a clearing is reached. Did we arrive at truth? Insight? A chuckle? Was he himself convinced by this contemplative exploration? None of that matters -- the point is this is how we could be thinking about games.
Your average freelancer would have a hard time pitching articles such as these, but perhaps that's part of the point? There's a lot here to reflect on, and I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to think deeply about games. It presents itself as a humble alternative style as opposed to something "better". But while not every article needs to ask whether videogames are a form of racketeering, or examine the honour of iterative improvements to Words with Friends, let's be honest... Bogost's criticism is better, and mostly because it's Bogost.
January 16, 2016
I received an ARC of this book free through Goodreads Giveaways. I really did not know what to expect of this book, and never really thought of videogame criticism. But I am related to a self-called "gamer" who wants to go into videogame development so I thought I'd give this a read. This is video game criticism, not review and Bogost approaches it as both a "toaster critic" and a film critic. Most of the book has appeared in earlier versions in various publications and covers such topics as how the blue shell in Mario Kart signifies in society ("The Blue Shell is Everything That's Wrong with America") and the significance of gesture controls in games "Shaking the Holocaust Train"). Even Flappy Bird and Ms. PacMan are covered! Although I was unfamiliar with most of the games talked about, I found the book interesting and maybe I will think a little bit more deeply about the significance of Just Dance or Triple Town next time I play them. And I am passing the book along to my gamer relative.
May 16, 2016
Bogost starts with the thesis that games are toasters, mere entertainment appliances, but they are also more. Reading through this, He could not present a single argument for the sake of the second half of it. I am now convinced that games can't be more. Also, the fact that writing about games can be rather esoteric. I skipped 2 chapters just for this reason.
However, as a life long gamer, there are perspectives featured in the book that are sorely missing from writings on the subject, and Bogost is the best in the field, so the book is still worth a read.
However, as a life long gamer, there are perspectives featured in the book that are sorely missing from writings on the subject, and Bogost is the best in the field, so the book is still worth a read.
January 15, 2016
It reads like a textbook, in a good way. It brings a lot of intelligent and interesting thoughts about games and assumes the reader has a rich background in other disciplines and media besides games. Also it gives quite a few examples of games that do things differently and break the mold of how we think about games. Not really a book for the non-gamers
January 8, 2017
I received this book through the goodreads giveaways for an honest review.
How To Talk About Videogames reads like a textbook and a game critic review. It seemed more like a lecture than a novel. I found a few of the chapters interesting - I liked the history behind some of the games. I disagreed with the author's opinion on some games.
How To Talk About Videogames reads like a textbook and a game critic review. It seemed more like a lecture than a novel. I found a few of the chapters interesting - I liked the history behind some of the games. I disagreed with the author's opinion on some games.
January 17, 2017
Insightful examination with examples
There are a lot of ways to do games criticism right and a lot of ways to do it wrong. While there are things that I disagree with Bogost on, his insight on how to talk about video games is clear and helpful for anyone wanting to get into the craft.
There are a lot of ways to do games criticism right and a lot of ways to do it wrong. While there are things that I disagree with Bogost on, his insight on how to talk about video games is clear and helpful for anyone wanting to get into the craft.
November 6, 2015
I have to say that I was very surprised with this one. There was some interesting information, and I was amazed that I all the games. Great job! I won this great book on GoodReads and like I do with most my wins I will be paying it forward by giving my win either to a friend or library to enjoy.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews