Overview
Despite the pervasive rhetorics of immersion and embodiment found in industrial and social discourses, playing a video game is an exercise in non-linearity. The pervasiveness of trial and error mechanics, unforgiving game over screens, loading times, minute tweakings of options and settings, should lead us to consider video games as a medium that cannot eschew fragmentation. Every Game is an Island is an analysis and a critique of grey areas, dead ends and extremities found in digital games, an exploration of border zones where play and non-play coexist or compete. Riccardo Fassone describes the complexity of the experience of video game play and brings integral but often overlooked components of the gameplay experience to the fore, in an attempt to problematize a reading of video games as grandiosely immersive, all-encompassing narrative experiences. Through the analysis of closures and endings, limits and borders, and liminal states, this field-advancing study looks at the heart of a medium starting from its periphery.
Full Product Details
Author: Dr. Riccardo Fassone (University of Torino, Italy)
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic USA
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 1.80cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.449kg
ISBN: 9781501316616
ISBN 10: 1501316613
Pages: 208
Publication Date: 23 February 2017
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Tertiary & Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
While Riccardo Fassone is talking about limitations, endings and closures, he is doing it with an amazing open mind. He is in fact pushing boundaries, pointing us new areas to consider, encouraging us to pay attention to details and, above all, showing us how far game studies have come since we have started to explore videoludic islands. If I can extend the metaphor, I'll say that Fassone is a great voyager. Bernard Perron, Full Professor of Film and Game Studies, University of Montreal, Canada In Every Game Is an Island Riccardo Fassone provides us with a fascinating look at what games look like and how they can be understood, when approached from their ends and boundaries. Are games finite and clearly defined objects to start with, or are games' procedural and performance related dimensions pre-emptying all attempts to capture them in their entirety? How is the aesthetic value of games related to their ephemerality? This study makes use of dazzling array of scholarship from multiple fields, ranging from computer science to continental philosophy, building bridges between disciplines, thereby also lessening the chance of intellectual endeavours related to games remaining as islands, isolated from each other. This is one of the best works that fully recognises the enormous diversity and complexity of game form, written so far. Frans Mayra, Professor, University of Tampere, Game Research Lab, Finland In a medium obsessed with openness and possibility, Fassone shows why boundaries and limitations offer a better measure for games. Ian Bogost, Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies and author of Play Anything: The Pleasure of Limits, the Uses of Boredom, and the Secret of Games (2016), Georgia Institute of Technology, USA Every Game is an Island is a provocative and necessary book for game studies. In this book, Riccardo Fassone proposes an irreverent, well-read, and productive approach to many of the key topics in game studies, from immersion to nostalgia. Every Game is an Island delivers comprehensive readings and re-rereadings of games and game scholarship, encouraging us to think extremely about the extremes of games. Miguel Sicart, Associate Professor, IT University of Copenhage, Denmark
While Riccardo Fassone is talking about limitations, endings and closures, he is doing it with an amazing open mind. He is in fact pushing boundaries, pointing us new areas to consider, encouraging us to pay attention to details and, above all, showing us how far game studies have come since we have started to explore videoludic islands. If I can extend the metaphor, I'll say that Fassone is a great voyager. * Bernard Perron, Full Professor of Film and Game Studies, University of Montreal, Canada * In Every Game Is an Island Riccardo Fassone provides us with a fascinating look at what games look like and how they can be understood, when approached from their ends and boundaries. Are games finite and clearly defined objects to start with, or are games' procedural and performance related dimensions pre-empting all attempts to capture them in their entirety? How is the aesthetic value of games related to their ephemerality? This study makes use of dazzling array of scholarship from multiple fields, ranging from computer science to continental philosophy, building bridges between disciplines, thereby also lessening the chance of intellectual endeavours related to games remaining as islands, isolated from each other. This is one of the best works that fully recognises the enormous diversity and complexity of game form, written so far. * Frans Mayra, Professor, University of Tampere, Game Research Lab, Finland * In a medium obsessed with openness and possibility, Fassone shows why boundaries and limitations offer a better measure for games. * Ian Bogost, Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies and author of Play Anything: The Pleasure of Limits, the Uses of Boredom, and the Secret of Games (2016), Georgia Institute of Technology, USA * Every Game is an Island is a provocative and necessary book for game studies. In this book, Riccardo Fassone proposes an irreverent, well-read, and productive approach to many of the key topics in game studies, from immersion to nostalgia. Every Game is an Island delivers comprehensive readings and re-rereadings of games and game scholarship, encouraging us to think extremely about the extremes of games. * Miguel Sicart, Associate Professor, IT University of Copenhage, Denmark *
Author Information
Riccardo Fassone is a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Torino, Italy, where he works on the history of the Italian video game industry. He is among the founders of GAME. The Italian Journal of Game Studies has published several articles and book chapters on the history and theory of video games, and their intersections with other media. He has a background in film and media studies and has worked as visiting researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology and as research fellow at The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, NY.
