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Beauty Of Games

by Frank Lantz

66,25€ + 10% CARD

 How games create beauty and meaning, and how we can use them to explore the aesthetics of thought.Are games art? This question is a dominant mode of thinking about games and play in the twenty-first century, but it is fundamentally the wrong question. Instead, Frank Lantz proposes in his provocative new book, The Beauty of Games, that we think about games and how they create meaning through the lens of the aesthetic. We should think of games, he writes, the same way we think of literature, theater, or music—as a form that ranges from deep and profound to easy and disposable, and everything in between. Games are the aesthetic form of interactive systems, a set of possibilities connected by rules of cause and effect. In this book, Lantz analyzes games from chess to poker to tennis to understand how games create beauty and evoke a deeper meaning. He suggests that we think of games not only as hyper-modern objects but also as forms within the ancient context of artistic production, encompassing all of the nebulous and ephemeral qualities of the aesthetic experience.
ENGLISH

Player Vs. Monster - The Making And Breaking Of Video Game Monstrosity

by Jaroslav Svelch

71,55€ + 10% CARD

 A study of the gruesome game characters we love to beat—and what they tell us about ourselves.Since the early days of video games, monsters have played pivotal roles as dangers to be avoided, level bosses to be defeated, or targets to be destroyed for extra points. But why is the figure of the monster so important in gaming, and how have video games come to shape our culture''s conceptions of monstrosity? To answer these questions, Player vs. Monster explores the past half-century of monsters in games, from the dragons of early tabletop role-playing games and the pixelated aliens of Space Invaders to the malformed mutants of The Last of Us and the bizarre beasts of Bloodborne, and reveals the common threads among them.Covering examples from aliens to zombies, Jaroslav Švelch explores the art of monster design and traces its influences from mythology, visual arts, popular culture, and tabletop role-playing games. At the same time, he shows that video games follow the Cold War-era notion of clearly defined, calculable enemies, portraying monsters as figures that are irredeemably evil yet invariably vulnerable to defeat. He explains the appeal of such simplistic video game monsters, but also explores how the medium could evolve to present more nuanced depictions of monstrosity.
ENGLISH

Treacherous Play

by Marcus Carter

3,96€ + 10% CARD

 The ethics and experience of "treacherous play": an exploration of three games that allow deception and betrayal—EVE Online, DayZ, and Survivor.Deception and betrayal in gameplay are generally considered off-limits, designed out of most multiplayer games. There are a few games, however, in which deception and betrayal are allowed, and even encouraged. In Treacherous Play, Marcus Carter explores the ethics and experience of playing such games, offering detailed explorations of three games in which this kind of "dark play" is both lawful and advantageous: EVE Online, DayZ, and the television series Survivor. Examining aspects of games that are often hidden, ignored, or designed away, Carter shows the appeal of playing treacherously.Carter looks at EVE Online''s notorious scammers and spies, drawing on his own extensive studies of them, and describes how treacherous play makes EVE successful. Making a distinction between treacherous play and griefing or trolling, he examines the experiences of DayZ players to show how negative experiences can be positive in games, and a core part of their appeal. And he explains how in Survivor''s tribal council votes, a player''s acts of betrayal can exact a cost. Then, considering these games in terms of their design, he discusses how to design for treacherous play. Carter''s account challenges the common assumptions that treacherous play is unethical, antisocial, and engaged in by bad people. He doesn''t claim that more games should feature treachery, but that examining this kind of play sheds new light on what play can be.
ENGLISH

Making Games - The Politics And Poetics Of Game Creation Tools

by Stefan Werning

66,25€ + 10% CARD

 "Making Games conceptualizes the role of tools in game-making and to demonstrate their influence on both the politics and aesthetics of games"--
ENGLISH

Making Games - The Politics And Poetics Of Game Creation Tools

by Stefan Werning

32,45€ + 10% CARD

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 "Making Games conceptualizes the role of tools in game-making and to demonstrate their influence on both the politics and aesthetics of games"--
ENGLISH

Ambient Play

by Ingrid Richardson e Larissa Hjorth

58,30€ + 10% CARD

 "Games have becomes embedded in our daily acrivities and Ambient Play shows how this affects our creative and ludic practices in everyday life"--
ENGLISH

Play Like A Feminist.

by Shira Chess

71,55€ + 10% CARD

 "Play Like a Feminist discusses how play, in a general sense, and video games, more specifically, are of vital importance to feminist thinking"--
ENGLISH

Achievement Relocked - Loss Aversion And Game Design

by Geoffrey Engelstein

79,50€ + 10% CARD

 How game designers can use the psychological phenomenon of loss aversion to shape player experience.Getting something makes you feel good, and losing something makes you feel bad. But losing something makes you feel worse than getting the same thing makes you feel good. So finding $10 is a thrill; losing $10 is a tragedy. On an "intensity of feeling" scale, loss is more intense than gain. This is the core psychological concept of loss aversion, and in this book game creator Geoffrey Engelstein explains, with examples from both tabletop and video games, how it can be a tool in game design. Loss aversion is a profound aspect of human psychology, and directly relevant to game design; it is a tool the game designer can use to elicit particular emotions in players. Engelstein connects the psychology of loss aversion to a range of phenomena related to games, exploring, for example, the endowment effect—why, when an object is ours, it gains value over an equivalent object that is not ours—as seen in the Weighted Companion Cube in the game Portal; the framing of gains and losses to manipulate player emotions; Deal or No Deal''s use of the utility theory; and regret and competence as motivations, seen in the context of legacy games. Finally, Engelstein examines the approach to Loss Aversion in three games by Uwe Rosenberg, charting the designer''s increasing mastery.
ENGLISH

Real Games - What''S Legitimate And What''S Not In Contemporary Videogames

by Christopher A. Paul e Mia Consalvo

79,50€ + 10% CARD

 How we talk about games as real or not-real, and how that shapes what games are made and who is invited to play them.In videogame criticism, the worst insult might be "That''s not a real game!" For example, "That''s not a real game, it''s on Facebook!" and "That''s not a real game, it''s a walking simulator!" But how do people judge what is a real game and what is not—what features establish a game''s gameness? In this engaging book, Mia Consalvo and Christopher Paul examine the debates about the realness or not-realness of videogames and find that these discussions shape what games get made and who is invited to play them.Consalvo and Paul look at three main areas often viewed as determining a game''s legitimacy: the game''s pedigree (its developer), the content of the game itself, and the game''s payment structure. They find, among other things, that even developers with a track record are viewed with suspicion if their games are on suspect platforms. They investigate game elements that are potentially troublesome for a game''s gameness, including genres, visual aesthetics, platform, and perceived difficulty. And they explore payment models, particularly free-to-play—held by some to be a marker of illegitimacy. Finally, they examine the debate around such so-called walking simulators as Dear Esther and Gone Home. And finally, they consider what purpose is served by labeling certain games "real."
ENGLISH

Fun, Taste, & Games - An Aesthetics Of The Idle, Unproductive, And Otherwise Playful

by David Thomas e John Sharp

74,20€ + 10% CARD

 Reclaiming fun as a meaningful concept for understanding games and play."Fun" is somewhat ambiguous. If something is fun, is it pleasant? Entertaining? Silly? A way to trick students into learning? Fun also has baggage—it seems inconsequential, embarrassing, child''s play. In Fun, Taste, & Games, John Sharp and David Thomas reclaim fun as a productive and meaningful tool for understanding and appreciating play and games. They position fun at the heart of the aesthetics of games. As beauty was to art, they argue, fun is to play and games—the aesthetic goal that we measure our experiences and interpretations against. Sharp and Thomas use this fun-centered aesthetic framework to explore a range of games and game issues—from workplace bingo to Meow Wolf, from basketball to Myst, from the consumer marketplace to Marcel Duchamp. They begin by outlining three elements for understanding the drive, creation, and experience of fun: set-outsideness, ludic forms, and ambiguity. Moving from theory to practice and back again, they explore the complicated relationships among the titular fun, taste, and games. They consider, among other things, the dismissal of fun by game journalists and designers; the seminal but underinfluential game Myst, and how tastes change over time; the shattering of the gamer community in Gamergate; and an aesthetics of play that goes beyond games.
ENGLISH

Playing Smart - On Games, Intelligence, And Artificial Intelligence

by Julian Togelius

58,30€ + 10% CARD

 A new vision of the future of games and game design, enabled by AI.Can games measure intelligence? How will artificial intelligence inform games of the future? In Playing Smart, Julian Togelius explores the connections between games and intelligence to offer a new vision of future games and game design. Video games already depend on AI. We use games to test AI algorithms, challenge our thinking, and better understand both natural and artificial intelligence. In the future, Togelius argues, game designers will be able to create smarter games that make us smarter in turn, applying advanced AI to help design games. In this book, he tells us how.Games are the past, present, and future of artificial intelligence. In 1948, Alan Turing, one of the founding fathers of computer science and artificial intelligence, handwrote a program for chess. Today we have IBM''s Deep Blue and DeepMind''s AlphaGo, and huge efforts go into developing AI that can play such arcade games as Pac-Man. Programmers continue to use games to test and develop AI, creating new benchmarks for AI while also challenging human assumptions and cognitive abilities. Game design is at heart a cognitive science, Togelius reminds us—when we play or design a game, we plan, think spatially, make predictions, move, and assess ourselves and our performance. By studying how we play and design games, Togelius writes, we can better understand how humans and machines think. AI can do more for game design than providing a skillful opponent. We can harness it to build game-playing and game-designing AI agents, enabling a new generation of AI-augmented games. With AI, we can explore new frontiers in learning and play.
ENGLISH

Play Matters

by Miguel Sicart

53,00€ + 10% CARD

 Why play is a productive, expressive way of being, a form of understanding, and a fundamental part of our well-being.
ENGLISH

Uncertainty In Games

by Greg Costikyan

50,35€ + 10% CARD

 How uncertainty in games-from Super Mario Bros. to Rock/Paper/Scissors-engages players and shapes play experiences. In life, uncertainty surrounds us. Things that we thought were good for us turn out to be bad for us (and vice versa); people we thought we knew well behave in mysterious ways; the stock market takes a nosedive. Thanks to an inexplicable optimism, most of the time we are fairly cheerful about it all. But we do devote much effort to managing and ameliorating uncertainty. Is it any wonder, then, asks Greg Costikyan, that we have taken this aspect of our lives and transformed it culturally, making a series of elaborate constructs that subject us to uncertainty but in a fictive and nonthreatening way? That is: we create games.In this concise and entertaining book, Costikyan, an award-winning game designer, argues that games require uncertainty to hold our interest, and that the struggle to master uncertainty is central to their appeal. Game designers, he suggests, can harness the idea of uncertainty to guide their work.Costikyan explores the many sources of uncertainty in many sorts of games-from Super Mario Bros. to Rock/Paper/Scissors, from Monopoly to CityVille, from FPS Deathmatch play to Chess. He describes types of uncertainty, including performative uncertainty, analytic complexity, and narrative anticipation. And he suggest ways that game designers who want to craft novel game experiences can use an understanding of game uncertainty in its many forms to improve their designs.
ENGLISH

Art Of Failure - An Essay On The Pain Of Playing Video Games

by Jesper Juul

66,25€ + 10% CARD

 An exploration of why we play video games despite the fact that we are almost certain to feel unhappy when we fail at them.We may think of video games as being "fun," but in The Art of Failure, Jesper Juul claims that this is almost entirely mistaken. When we play video games, our facial expressions are rarely those of happiness or bliss. Instead, we frown, grimace, and shout in frustration as we lose, or die, or fail to advance to the next level. Humans may have a fundamental desire to succeed and feel competent, but game players choose to engage in an activity in which they are nearly certain to fail and feel incompetent. So why do we play video games even though they make us unhappy? Juul examines this paradox. In video games, as in tragic works of art, literature, theater, and cinema, it seems that we want to experience unpleasantness even if we also dislike it. Reader or audience reaction to tragedy is often explained as catharsis, as a purging of negative emotions. But, Juul points out, this doesn''t seem to be the case for video game players. Games do not purge us of unpleasant emotions; they produce them in the first place. What, then, does failure in video game playing do? Juul argues that failure in a game is unique in that when you fail in a game, you (not a character) are in some way inadequate. Yet games also motivate us to play more, in order to escape that inadequacy, and the feeling of escaping failure (often by improving skills) is a central enjoyment of games. Games, writes Juul, are the art of failure: the singular art form that sets us up for failure and allows us to experience it and experiment with it. The Art of Failure is essential reading for anyone interested in video games, whether as entertainment, art, or education.
ENGLISH

Play Matters

by Miguel (Associate Professor, It University Of Copenhagen) Sicart

32,45€ + 10% CARD

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 Why play is a productive, expressive way of being, a form of understanding, and a fundamental part of our well-being.
ENGLISH

Winning The Right Game - How To Disrupt, Defend, And Deliver In A Changing World

by Ron Adner

31,09€ + 10% CARD

free shipping
ENGLISH

Repairing Play - A Black Phenomenology

by Aaron Trammell

31,09€ + 10% CARD

free shipping
ENGLISH

Achievement Relocked - Loss Aversion And Game Design

by Geoffrey Engelstein

39,20€ + 10% CARD

free shipping
ENGLISH

How Games Move Us - Emotion By Design

by Katherine (Professor, University Of California, Santa Cruz) Isbister

27,03€ + 10% CARD

free shipping
ENGLISH

The Beauty Of Games

by Frank Lantz

31,09€

free shipping

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ENGLISH

Perspecta 55 - Futures Index

by Ethan Zisson e Matthew Wagstaffe

43,26€

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OUT OF STOCK OR NOT AVAILABLE
ENGLISH

Invention And Innovation - A Brief History Of Hype And Failure

by Vaclav Smil

31,09€

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OUT OF STOCK OR NOT AVAILABLE
ENGLISH

Playing Oppression - The Legacy Of Conquest And Empire In Colonialist Board Games

by Mary Flanagan e Mikael Jakobsson

OUT OF STOCK OR NOT AVAILABLE
ENGLISH

Ghost Particle - In Search Of The Elusive And Mysterious Neutrino

by Alan Chodos e James Riordon

OUT OF STOCK OR NOT AVAILABLE
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