The Gaming Mind: A New Psychology of Videogames and the Power of Play

by Alexander Kriss

A therapist reveals the role of videogames in the lives of his patients, writing in the tradition of Oliver Sacks

Society has come to malign videogames and their players, suggesting that videogames promote violence or indulge antisocial behavior. The Gaming Mind is the antidote to this rhetoric.

Drawing us into his therapy office, clinical psychologist Alexander Kriss explores the positive impact of playing videogames and how they connect us with our humanity. Kriss sees videogames as a window into the mind, and he weaves together case studies, professional insight, and his personal history in a gripping narrative that disrupts our assumptions about gaming and “gamers.” We meet his patients: Jack struggles to decode emotions yet relishes the relationship-building dynamics of Mass Effect; while Patricia, a former aspiring model, finds solace in the wake of trauma by crafting a hideous avatar, “Pat.” Kriss also recounts how even he experienced Silent Hill 2 as a virtual landscape, in which to process the death of a friend.

Without shying away from potentially risky subjects like addiction and online harassment, Kriss advances a balanced, scientifically supported view of videogames. Sometimes the way we play reveals who we are—and what we want from our lives.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, Video Games, Science, Games, Gaming, Technology

288 pages, Paperback

First published March 31, 2020

Reviews

[Tyler Bray · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is geared more towards those who are unfamiliar with video games. As a gamer, I soon learned that this book was not written for me.

Dr. Kriss discusses the many aspects of different games for which I was already familiar with. At times, I felt like the description of different games took the forefront of most chapters compared to the lessons learned on the effects these games might have on others.

There were certainly some positives of the book. I appreciated his discussion on play, and how it can helps us balance the needs of the self compared to that of the community; that relationships with certain games can help us find that stability.

I felt like many of the chapters had interesting titles but were most related to some patient the author had worked with. The author tried to tie what he and his patients were going through with the content the chapter title promised to discuss, this messed with my expectation of each chapter. Many of the patients and experiences he described seemed inconclusive; I understand as Dr. Kriss quotes that in the world of Psychology patients can be metaphorical ocean liners that don't look like they are making drastic changes in the moment but can ultimately end up on a different shore. I felt like there was little closure with the people whom I came to care about in the book.

Overall, I agree with Dr. Kriss in that video games are not key for advancing humanity as some technologists believe, and it is neither the 5th horseman of the apocalypses than the general public up until recently equated with the stunted development of gamers. To quote the author, "The player-game relationship is not one of 'doer' or 'done to' but something mutual, which both parties collaborate to build and experience - and as such, both hold a measure of responsibility for the experience".

I love video games and I will continue to do so, this book was not meant for me. It was written for the parents, teachers, friends, family, and lovers of those who do enjoy games. It encourages all parties to seek understanding when it comes to games and the relationships they form.

[Jozua · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a pleasure to read as a gamer, not only because it tries to remove the stigma surrounding videogames and people who like/love them, but it also reminded me of why I love games and want them in my life.

It doesn't have all the answers, because there are more reasons we play videogames than he gives, but the author comes forward with interesting theories about different people and their relationship with videogames.
I think most gamers will be able to relate to something in these stories, and non gamers can hopefully get a better understanding about the hobby/lifestyle.

The only thing I can say that might deter you from reading this book is there are video game spoilers.

[Jim Razinha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a review copy of this from the publisher The Experiment through NetGalley, published previously in the UK with the title Universal Play: How Videogames Tell Us Who We Are and Show Us Who We Could Be. Though I finished it quickly, a little more than a week ago, I've been struggling a bit with "reviewer's block". Several non-book related and one that is particular to the copy I received (for which I am grateful): I couldn't highlight anything on the secure PDF except the watermark, and that is a hindrance. I understand and respect digital rights, but I've had many others that would let me copy at least highlight the text on the page, if not copy it for the review. It makes deciphering my notes more difficult and that will unfortunately end up being an unintentional disservice to the author. Anyway, in his Preface, Kriss says his goal with the book was to "defang" videogames and psychotherapy. I'm not sure if he achieved that for the latter, but I do think he made good points with respect to the former. His age shouldn't necessarily be a factor, but it bears thinking about. He drops hints, such as he was around 16 when he started therapy for a personal issue and playing Silent Hill 2, which came out in 2001; that would make him 35ish. He grew up in a world with video games...for some of us, and I presume not an insignificant number of his fellow therapists, that is a more recent intrusion, development, bounty, ...take your pick of meaning. And he plays. It wouldn't be credible to comment (write a book) on a subject with which one has little to no direct experience. Many do so, and they are, well, not as credible.

I have admitted many times that I don't seem to have the gene that finds obscure meaning in a movie scene, or a book section, even a classical, baroque, romantic period musical composition. Even when something is explained to me ("did you see that the director was trying to indicate...?", to be shockingly confirmed by the director's comments on the disc extras), sometimes it has a hard time registering. Kriss explained the premise behind Silent Hill 2 and the psychology involved with the different approaches to the gameplay. He asks, "What kind of player got to see 'In Water'?" 'In Water' is a non-"normal" ending to the game. What kind of player? Okay, I am not the target audience. Sounds like he’s describing real characteristics and not game play. Sure, I know people can get embedded (I have seen first hand such in my sons' Dungeons and Dragons sessions), but I have a hard time grasping that. Kriss continues, "Most of all, the player who was comfortable existing close to death was the one who recognised the inconsequential nature of playing a videogame. No actual harm could come to him - he was not James [the game character] and James was not real, so compassion or care for this avatar's well-being was unnecessary." Again, fully admit not the target audience. Those thoughts would never occur to me. Seems if I do play a game, I just play it. I'm less invested. Some 25 years ago, my oldest my oldest son, eight at the time, asked his visiting uncle to play a Nintendo game with him. I was taken aback at the response: “Okay, but my hand eye coordination isn’t the best right now”. I guess by recalling that, I still am.

Kriss alternates between personal experiences with games, experience (by permission) of his patients, and the approaches of psychotherapy to problems related directly or indirectly to gaming. He talks about the elephant in the room - violence, and addiction, health, group interactions (multiplayer), and throughout, part of the subtitle to his book, the Power of Play.

Selected takeaways...

Kriss says

Say your favourite book is The Once and Future King by T. H. White (good choice!). [Mine might be The Lord of the Rings or Dune] Its humour and humanity forever altered the way you think about the power of old stories to inform contemporary problems. Perhaps you first read the novel during a difficult time in your life and its worn pages still bring you comfort in times of need.
Now imagine trying to explain your relationship with The Once and Future King to a person who has never read a book before, indeed has made a point of avoiding even reading about books.[...]
You can picture the scepticism on his face when you say that White's Arthurian epic changed your life. [...] He is shocked to learn, for instance, the The Once and Future King is structured as a narrative...

Even someone who can be as obtuse in some things as me saw what was coming...

This is how it can feel to try to talk about videogames with those who have little experience with then...

You know? He has a point. {raises hand} More than once I've heard from my sons of plots and story arcs to games that to me seem to be live-in-the-moment.

Continuing that with his parallel theme, on therapy,

Therapy, too, can appear bafflingly opaque when viewed from outside the patient-therapist relationship. When asked what happens in session, a patient tells her friend, accurately: 'We talk.' The friend looks at her like she's being taken for a ride. How can 'talking' make any appreciable difference in her life?

How indeed. But I did not let me thoughts on that subject color my reception of this book.

Time is important to gaming, in-game and real-world. And space:

The road between worlds is two-way: unlike most other forms of media - books, theatre, films and television - the player is not only observer but participant.

Some people can immerse themselves in a book or movie, but its not the same. Those media do not interact.

On the game Tomb Raider 3 and some phenomena of players killing the Lara Croft character in many ways (she resurrects), and to me, the phenomena of people reflecting their real lives in their actions with the game characters, a patient "points toward the complex dynamic he has formed with this character, one with power to move from altruism to sadism, love to hate." I don't think that way so that's hard for me to imagine, let alone accept (more reason why I'm an engineer and not a psychologist, right?)

Freud pops up now and then. Kriss acknowledges "the fall of psychoanalysis as the dominant form of mental health treatment..." I've done some reading over the years and as noted above, this isn't my field, but I am given to understand that Freud was on his way out a long time ago.

Kriss talks about one of the earliest "video" games, the classic text-based game Adventure and its creator who was going through a divorce. "A speculative take on Adventure might cast it less as a toy for his children than as a powerful, unconscious drive toward catharsis..." Speculative is a good term - though with a data set of one, speculation has little meaning. Kriss talks about a little of the history of how the game spread, how in 1977 a Stanford grad student requested the source code (we called those programs back then) and expanded it. I tweaked a version in BASIC myself in 1978, and in FORTRAN in 1980.

On the virtual selves of online game play, sometimes people lack skills in real life that they have in spades in a game universe. Finding connection and translating those into real skills doesn't always seem to have a blueprint (my deliberate use of an anachronistic term.)

Now, that elephant... Kriss talks about a [flawed on many levels, my word and his later explanation] 2005 study in which groups were divided and tasked with playing the "archeological relic" 12 year old Doom. One group played the shoot 'em up normal version, and the other group played a modified version without weapons, simply navigating around the corridor mazes. After 25 minutes, both groups played a prisoner's dilemma game, finding that the "violent" group was "moderately more likely to defect than its counterpart." The study's numbing conclusion was that "violent games may undermine prosocial and altruistic motivation..." And from the meager data that per Kriss "yielded little and yet labelled its findings as 'remarkable', video games being harmful became the mantra. It seems to me that the "researchers" (my quotes meant to undermine their credibility) were looking for data to get the conclusion they wanted.

On health, Kriss opens "A criticism often levied at clinical psychologists, and sometimes rightly so, is that our training skews us to view the human experience through the lens of pathology." From the armchair, I think it is always good to keep a lens on that lens. Different players of games get different things from the games - audio-visual stimulation, character play, or system mechanics as examples. Kriss says "As with other phenomena we have seen, the 'fun' of videogames is rooted in the unique relationship that forms between the player and the game, a relationship that at its best helps the player relate more fully to himself." Struggled hard to keep the mind open... "The player knows this - though often not consciously - and so his play can be regarded as part of the innate human instinct toward health." More struggles... and then, "It is this same instinct that often brings someone to psychotherapy despite not fully knowing why he has come..." Instinct?? That's hard.

The subtitle to his chapter on Multiplayer is What can games teach us about how groups and societies function? Turns out, quite a bit. This I've seen first hand with my sons' play. [My notes here were sketchy and unfortunately, make little sense to me now without those highlights I apparently needed.] Kriss says games "had always been a private pursuit" for him... no multiplayer games. That is something I can relate to. Apart from the monstrous simultaneous data screens of so many of those games, I'm not moved to play with other players (I don't play more than individual puzzle type games myself.) One of Kriss's patient found a game - EVE [look it up] - overwhelming. My sons played, stopped, and then began playing as again as adults that game. I still laugh at a memory from around 2005-6 when my two older teen sons said, "Dad, you'd like EVE! It has spreadsheets!" (There's a business component to that game, and no, "spreadsheets" was not an attractant.) I was interested to learn that in 2013 the UN gave EVE a World Summit Award for digital work demonstrating a "high impact on improving society."

Last paragraph that should be first is something anyone not realizing the impact, or need to help someone realize the impact, should keep handy:

If you love someone who plays games - or you love someone who struggles to understand why you play games - and I can leave you with no other message, let it be this: talk to each other about it! Games don't bite and neither does an open conversation about thoughts and feelings. Understanding is not difficult, but wanting to understand can be, and to a surprising degree. Wanting to understand can be, and to a surprising degree. Wanting to understand requires that we be curious about the things we don't know and flexible enough to question the things we think we do know. It requires that we care more about learning than holding a rigid worldview. And it requires that when looking at others, we are open to looking at ourselves.

Those are good words for more than games.

Notes of interest to me:
Loved this!:

My father's employer had furnished the powerful computer [this was 1986] we used at a time when most families, if they owned a home computer at all, were forced to settle for the cheaper but vastly inferior Apple IIe.

As said in the beginning, the book was originally published in the UK, and I've left the spelling as seen in the parts I've quoted. And quoting is a conundrum...the disclaimers always say I need permission, but how does one point out positives and less-positives without quotes of examples? A risk I'll take for semi-clarity.

[Xiaozhen]

There is a sense of fear and insecurity as I read through the patient-therapist discussion. I know that these patients and I are not the same person. And I have never really been addicted to games. Yet, their experience of the world through games, and the way the discussions flashed out things like their anxieties, worries, self-victimization, or difficulties in the real world still make me fearful. I kept wondering, what if I am just like them? And I look for parallels. And I reflect on the past. And I try to draw similarities. And I start to feel anxious as I flipped through the pages.

I am back at a place I grow up in, but I could not find comfort in it. The familiar sounds of construction noises jolt me from my thoughts, as the sun rises and the heat and humidity permeate the air. I reached out to my phone, and found myself texting to people who are not from the same city. The past life lingers at the back of my mind, as my mind wanders off to my daily life at various stages, as a primary school kid who returned to singapore thinking that she will be loved the same way, as a teenager struggling through her utterly boring secondary school life, or as the high schooler who again just endured the dreadfully boring academic and co-curriculum life at the belief that she will be able to do something more meaningful one day. But the failure to have fun, or to thoroughly engage with something meaningful in this dreadfully noisy and hot place for so long is so painful. The desire to move out of this place means that each decision is about not taking risk that could destroy a scholarship or a chance at good opinions from favorable parties. I wonder at what cost does it do to myself.

My professor concluded that I am still as shy as I was two years back. I wished I had changed somehow. I wished I am braver, stronger, smarter, more outspoken and more well-versed. But the statement kind of kicked me back into ground zero. I am still the same me. Nothing has changed in these two years. I wanted to show them that I am a better person elsewhere, that being in Singapore is the reason why nothing is working out for me. I wanted to show that I will be able to enjoy my life, socially and in other areas, games, parties, adventures. And develop hobbies along the way. And somehow be more outgoing, inspiring.

As I boarded the crowded train and squeeze to make space for myself, it was flashback to one of the many days when I was an undergraduate, disheartened and disillusioned. The difference between the me now and the me then blurred in that instant. And the memories are tearing me apart every time I think about them. For probably these are vast stretches of unhappiness, with nothing but me mechanically surviving the days.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Gaming Mind and psychologist/ author Alex Kriss are featured in our book festival this year. I was excited to read since my son is a "gamer". While I embrace my son's love of the game, I wanted to read this book to better understand how to communicate this to others. Gaming is not bad, it just gets a bad rap. Literally since the invention of computer games.

It took me awhile to read because it's alot of information to absorb. With each chapter, there is a theme or concept being discussed then Kriss provides patient cases to better illustrate the concept.

The Gaming Mind is written in a way that begins with gaming history then breaking down the parts of gaming to expanding on the world its become.

[Ren · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was received as an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I prowled through this book while, believe it or not, playing games. The new Animal Crossing, in particular, and I swear this has to do with my review so stick with me here. I usually have a tendency to do this, and that's why this book oddly hit me in the heart. It might be just because I have such a personal attraction to the subject matter, but I'm extremely glad that there's something out here that isn't just another hit piece on gaming; saying that it's skewing our culture towards failure.

The Gaming Mind should be mandatory reading for pretty well everyone, considering the mass of misinformation out there about those who are what parts of society call gamers. Spoiler, there is no definition at this point. I don't know of a member of society who hasn't picked up a video game nowadays, and just because my mom plays Yahtzee on her phone with my sister and gets angry doesn't mean she has an undiagnosed rage disorder. Just because I want to play an hour of Doom, doesn't mean I'm going to harm people. This book outlines the major disconnect and issues there are with even broaching discussion about these things, because there's so much constant backlash.

I think the biggest takeaway from this book is that everyone's journey through therapy is different. If gaming helps someone, then power to them! But it won't work for everyone, and working out why you have feelings about those kind of media is another part of what needs to be a larger discussion about our society as a whole.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even if you don't take the authors opinion as facts, it was still a good experience to see the oppose side taken on the old argument - gaming causes violence.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

The Gaming Mind is a well presented layman accessible discussion of videogames and the effects of play on development and psychology. Released 31st March 2020 by The Experiment, it's 288 pages and available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats.

I've been a gamer since (long) before the internet (or computers - in a meaningful way) existed. I went from chess and backgammon to tabletop strategy wargames, to warhammer and D&D, and eventually to MU*s, and thereafter to various MMOrpgs and other video games (including arcade ones). Being a gamer (and bibliophile) is so integral to my personality that it has shaped me profoundly and colored most aspects of my life. I was excited to read this book and explore the clinical aspects of that portion of my life. I wasn't disappointed.

This is such a well written and invitingly warm and compassionate discussion of how gaming affects players and how they can also shape and inform our interpersonal relationships. My experiences paralleled the author's own in a lot of ways (I'm about 15 years older than he is). The chapters are arranged thematically by subject and include a lot of profound insights on the positive aspects of gaming as well as the inevitable discussions of violence and addiction as they relate to video games.

I was surprised at how honestly and frankly he speaks of his real life experiences growing up, and his narrative is so open and compelling that I really felt a connection and a desire to know how his trauma had been resolved and see if his own insights had applicability to my own life.

This would make a superlative read for gamers, of course, but even more for gamers' families, students of clinical psychology, school learners, pretty much everyone, honestly. This is a really well made book. It's an interesting and enlightening read, beautifully and exhaustively annotated and footnoted, with a solid cross referenced index included.

Five stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

[Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐What I Liked

*All of the games were explained well. I've played half of these games (so, luckily I have some context), but I didn't feel ignorant about the other games. I guess I'm trying to say that a lay person should be able to understand what he's saying.

*I appreciate the insights from this book. It is a reminder of how important it is that we don't slap labels on each other and dismiss each other's humanity.

*It broadened my definition of "learning through play".

*Makes me feel more optimistic about our increasingly screen-led society. (Although I still feel like we all, as a whole, need to get in touch with nature more than we do.)

*The psychology aspect of this book isn't hard to understand, and is well cited.

📝 What Lacked

* Seeing as how this is called "The Gaming Mind", I wish it had more definitive information about how our brains respond to video games in general. I'm talking about the literal gray matter. I wanted more stats about gamers' brains vs. non-gamers.

*I wish it talked about addiction more. It was posited that since screens are not a literal consumable narcotic that we can't necessarily compare them side by side. But it didn't get too much deeper than that.

I ought to digress; the author was clear about how there hasn't been enough ethical, objective, studies about how games affect us.

All in all I appreciate seeing gamers in therapy through the eyes of their therapist who also dabbles in gaming.

[Wesley Schantz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Far and away the most thoughtful and thought-provoking of the books I've read about video games and psychology. The author's interview here (https://mindsplain.com/alex-kriss-gam...) gives a good sense of the approach, the personality behind it, and why I'm inclined to find it so congenial. We have references to Proust's madeleine and the triggering phrase 'gamer kid,' to Winnicott (whose Playing and Reality is cited by 23K and counting), to The Black Cauldron (about which Mrs Kelly, leading light of Forest Oak Middle School, showed us a board game project sample once, but probably never knew it was a Sierra computer game, too), and Myst (from the brothers Rand and Robyn Miller, based here in Spokane). Kriss explores through case studies and reflections on his experience with games and psychoanalysis the ways in which video games have enriched his and his patients' lives, and how discussing and thinking about them has led to what you might call breakthroughs. The reading of Silent Hill, for example, is fascinating, though it's a game I'm afraid to play. And Kriss even turns his hand to making a game of his own, the interactive fiction Progression. Insightful as it is, the book leaves me wanting more of a holistic call to action for understanding games and people alike in themselves, not as indices of pathology and health.

From a longer piece on games and psychology - https://videogameacademia.org/2023/05...

[Kamran Ayub · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read. I'm a gamer and resonated with much of what Dr. Kriss related. I also wanted to read it to understand a little more about games' role in education and learning, which was only touched on at the very end. But throughout, there were definitely hints of it, such as play is learning and we learn through play.

I liked learning about the idea of "potential space" and Winicott might be further reading for me on play/learning.

I finished the book and it helped me understand that my relationship with games is more than surface level. As some others have mentioned, it's not a book "for" gamers, it's for people who don't understand our relationship to games. There is a lot of explaining of game concepts that you would know immediately, which makes sense. I still enjoyed the book! And if I need a therapist... Well, guess I know who to ask first 😉

[Hannah Gardner · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘I have wondered whether it is a distortion of my profession that makes it impossible for me to see something as ‘just’ anything. By insisting there is meaning in play, or the joy that play generates, am I sucking all of the fun out of it?’

This sums up my fundamental issue with this book which made me feel like I was the wrong audience for it. Either a) I could do with visiting his practice myself or b) some people just like to play games because they are fun and that’s about it.

Added a star as I appreciated the topic was a perspective I’ve never read about before and I really liked the narrator.

[Whitney · Rating 3 out of 5]

It turns out I don't enjoy reading psychoanalysis. It's a bunch of nebulous connections presented as fact. Useful for getting to know oneself, perhaps, but not really my jam for nonfiction reading.

He has a useful perspective on the value and place of video games in a person's life, and for that it gets the third star. Somebody needed to say something positive, and he did, so thanks dude.

[Shai Dina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ive decided to focus my directed study on gaming and its potential within play/narrative therapy and this was an absolute blast to read. Mostly enjoyed how personal this all felt in relation to the patient experiences. It feels good to have something like games be taken seriously because at this point, they should be.

[Rahul Jain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it. Gaming x Therapy. Relationships between the self and the virtual basements of games and the id; between the queer and computing; between shaming & gaming; between a blackbox of self-expression & easy black box to blame for violence.

[Cristóbal Sepúlveda Cobo · Rating 2 out of 5]

5/10

[Prakit Ketthai · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't get the point.

[Jennifer Sexton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Compelling and thought provoking

[Simon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pseudoscience.

[Haley Sickler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Certain parts were very interesting, but I otherwise had to force myself to finish this whole thing.

[Kasey Szamatulski · Rating 4 out of 5]

I became intrigued with this book since it combines two things I love- gaming and psychology.

Starting off, I consider myself a “player” as the author refers to people who game rather than the common term “gamer”. Of course he does argue for “player” given the connotations that the term gamer does and I have to admit even while typing this, gamer makes me think of more of a hardcore gamer with multiple screens, the gaming chair, just furiously typing on the keypad or button mash on a controller. Since I’m more casual, as many of his patients, I rather like the term player.

The book starts off with one potential patient his clinic is reviewing for evaluation and getting dismissed as a “gamer” kid. The author, someone who’s played games since childhood, feels defensive and takes the patient on. With this case and others patients, some worried about their gaming addiction-a term the author argues against and I find myself questioning how-other patients with other concerns, he explores the ties between the mind and gaming.

For example, the common adage “video games makes people violent”, may sound tempting especially if you look at the violence that can happen in games, but author points out the chances of people mixing up video games and reality is low. Rather he points out that video games are more of scapegoat to people to rally against than say something like stricter gun laws.

Other ways of examining the mind through video games, like how the choices made in games gives insight to mind, how we interact with others whether it be npc or other players, exploring the case of “video game addiction”, and more are inside this book. I find this read both fascinating and entertaining. If you consider yourself a player, don’t understand what drives people to play video games, or want to learn a bit more of the human mind-I recommend this book.

[Phoebe Chew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book changed my relationship with computer/ video games.

As a lonely child I spent entire days immersed in virtual worlds, and a part of me has always been critical of my younger self for it. I had been conditioned to think that being a "gamer" was sinful or showed weakness of character and mind, and like many of the writer's patients, I hid my love for my games.

Years later, reading this book, I now understand why I spent all those hours in RPGs like Club Penguin, Adventure Quest, and Elsword. In the virtual worlds I was free to explore or do whatever I wanted - in stark contrast to my real life. I was not limited by my fears or physical limitations, and the NPCs I interacted with would never be bothered by the quirks that, in real life, caused my peers to label me a geeky loner weirdo.

(Page 113) Games stimulate our potential: who we might be and how it might feel to be that way. Players are provided the chance to "try out" being the altruist or the sadist, the powerful or the powerless and many shades of grey in between. Because the game world is real - but not too real - it invites us to experiment with different versions and parts of ourselves that may seem inaccessible or overwhelming in daily life.

Through my games, I am led to wonder about surviving post-apocalyptic worlds, to experience homelessness and the poverty cycle, to (gently) face my past emotional baggage regarding grief, loss, and death.

I also learnt that I am someone who does best with structure and explicit guidance in the beginning of new exploits, and once I understand the whats, whys, and hows, I'll be just fine. Very important in life, me thinks.

Choose-your-own-adventure aka choices-matter games were particularly useful in helping me realise that l feared making decisions. I was so afraid of making the wrong choice and often fretted that I didn't have enough information. But as we know, this is also real life, and the "correct" or "optimal" choices are revealed only in hindsight or sometimes never at all. Again, Kriss sums it up nicely on page 171:

Often, we feel stymied in decision-making because the uncertainty of the future seems too great and the consequences of our choices too weighty. Spontaneity and being present in the moment are disrupted by an anxiety that we may take the 'wrong' path ... and that the world will not forgive our mistake.

Overall a beautiful, thought-provoking book that isn't too heavy on psych jargon or preaching about video games as a cardinal sin.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting look into the relationship we have with videogames and how people can use them to cope with what is going on in their real world lives. This is the book I want to put into my mum's hands everytime I try and discuss whatever game I'm currently playing with her and she is barely holding in her eyeroll.

This is a book that people who play games and people who don't could both benefit from reading to get a better understanding of why so many people play games.

[Janis Berzins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the important, honest and truthful books on videogames I have ever read. He covers important topics, like addiction, does videogames cause violence and even online bullying. And most importantly it tells where we should stand on videogame topic. The book is written for gamers and non-gamers alike and as a writer is psychotherapist, he really does have some interesting thing to say!

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and a nice easy read. I didn't feel it went quite as in depth in terms of analysis as I would have liked but it was still a solid choice.

[Y · Rating 1 out of 5]

Good as an apology of gaming that concedes politically correct objections and draws on almost no actual studies. Otherwise earns an end-of-year dishonorable mention.