Product Description: Games allow players to experiment and play with subject positions, values and moral choice. In game worlds players can take on the role of antagonists; they allow us to play with behaviour that would be offensive, illegal or immoral if it happened outside of the game sphere...read more

Product Description: The book provides a comprehensive application of narrative theory to video games, and presents the player-response paradigm of game criticism. Video Game Narrative and Criticism explains the nature of gameplay - a psychological experience and a meaning-making process in the fictional world of video games...read more

Product Description: What does love have to do with gaming? As games have grown in complexity, they have increasingly included narratives that seek to engage players with love in a variety of ways. While media attention often focuses on violent emotions and behavior in gaming, love has always been central to the experience...read more

Product Description: Control the Controller looks at how gaming and addiction have come together so rapidly in recent years. Mobile-based gaming and free-to-play games have revolutionized the gaming world. But, what are the implications of this? How does it affect the current thinking on addiction? The book addresses gamers, their families, mental health professionals, and game developers in this thorough and fascinating discussion of the nature of video game addiction...read more

Product Description: If he were alive today, what might Heidegger say about Halo, the popular video game franchise? What would Augustine think about Assassin’s Creed ? What could Maimonides teach us about Nintendo’s eponymous hero, Mario? While some critics might dismiss such inquiries outright, protesting that these great thinkers would never concern themselves with a medium so crude and mindless as video games, it is impor­tant to recognize that games like these are, in fact, becoming the defining medium of our time...read more

Product Description: As the widespread use of digital entertainment has changed not only the ways in which we spend our leisure time but also how we learn and communicate, Serious Games have emerged as an effective tool for the purpose of learning, skill acquisition, and training...read more

Known for their visibility and tendency to generate controversy, first-person shooter (FPS) games are cultural icons and powder-kegs in American society. Contributors will examine a range of FPS games such as the Doom, Half-Life, System Shock, Deus Ex, Halo, Medal of Honor and Call of Duty franchises. By applying and enriching a broad range of perspectives, this volume will address the cultural relevance and place of the genre in game studies, game theory and the cultures of game players. Guns, Grenades, and Grunts gathers scholars from all disciplines to bring the weight of contemporary social theory and media criticism to bear on the public controversy and intellectual investigation of first-person shooter games. As a genre, FPS games have helped shepherd the game industry from the early days of shareware distribution and underground gaming clans to contemporary multimillion dollar production budgets, Hollywood-style launches, downloadable content and worldwide professional gaming leagues. The FPS has been and will continue to be a staple of the game market.

Product Description: The idea that such pervasive and ever-growing immersion in virtual play affects consciousness seems obvious and is the focus of this volume. These apparently wide-ranging topics have never been collected together under the consciousness and gaming header...read more