Overview

Tom Bissell is a prizewinning writer who published three widely acclaimed books before the age of thirty-four. He is also an obsessive gamer who has spent untold hours in front of his various video game consoles, playing titles such as Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead, BioShock, and Oblivion for, literally, days. If you are reading this flap copy, the same thing can probably be said of you, or of someone you know.
Until recently, Bissell was somewhat reluctant to admit to his passion for games. In this, he is not alone. Millions of adults spend hours every week playing video games, and the industry itself now reliably outearns Hollywood. But the wider culture seems to regard video games as, at best, well designed if mindless entertainment.
Extra Lives is an impassioned defense of this assailed and misunderstood art form. Bissell argues that we are in a golden age of gaming--but he also believes games could be even better. He offers a fascinating and often hilarious critique of the ways video games dazzle and, just as often, frustrate. Along the way, we get firsthand portraits of some of the best minds (Jonathan Blow, Clint Hocking, Cliff Bleszinski, Peter Molyneux) at work in video game design today, as well as a shattering and deeply moving final chapter that describes, in searing detail, Bissell's descent into the world of Grand Theft Auto IV, a game whose themes mirror his own increasingly self-destructive compulsions.
Blending memoir, criticism, and first-rate reportage, Extra Lives is like no other book on the subject ever published. Whether you love video games, loathe video games, or are merely curious about why they are becoming the dominant popular art form of our time, Extra Lives is required reading.

Full Product Details

9780307378705

Table of Contents

Reviews

Tom Bissell is a Renaissance Man for our out-of-joint time . . . His descriptions of simulated gore and mayhem manage to be clinical, gripping, and hilarious all at once. He transmits to the reader the primitive, visceral excitements that make video games so enticing, even addictive, to their legions of devotees. One can almost understand why an intelligent, cultured man such as Bissell has been driven to dedicate large chunks of his adult life to bouts of gaming. <br>-- The New Republic <br> Even if Extra Lives wasn't the only book to deal with the future of videogames in a serious manner, it would probably still be the best one. <br>-- Newsweek <br> What should videogame criticism look like? Bissell's book offers plenty of tantalizing possibilities. . . A deeply personal work, as entertaining as the video games it profiles . . . It's also the first book about videogames that non-gamers can actually enjoy. <br>-- Entertainment Weekly <br> For anyone who has spent a week

Tom Bissell is a Renaissance Man for our out-of-joint time . . . His descriptions of simulated gore and mayhem manage to be clinical, gripping, and hilarious all at once. He transmits to the reader the primitive, visceral excitements that make video games so enticing, even addictive, to their legions of devotees. One can almost understand why an intelligent, cultured man such as Bissell has been driven to dedicate large chunks of his adult life to bouts of gaming. <br>-- The New Republic <br> Even if Extra Lives wasn't the only book to deal with the future of videogames in a serious manner, it would probably still be the best one. <br>-- Newsweek <br> What should videogame criticism look like? Bissell's book offers plenty of tantalizing possibilities. . . A deeply personal work, as entertaining as the video games it profiles . . . It's also the first book about videogames that non-gamers can actually enjoy. <br>-- Entertainment Weekly <br> For anyone who has spent a weekend thrilled by the prospect of beating a game, Extra Lives will cast the addiction in a new, cerebral light. <br>-- Washington Post <br> An important, relentlessly perceptive book . . . Bissell proves that it's possible to ruminate on the past, present, and future of video games in a way that is both intellectually rigorous and consistently entertaining. <br>-- San Francisco Bay Guardian<br> <br> Bissell has written the finest account yet of what it feels like to be a video game player at 'this glorious, frustrating time, ' a rare moment when humanity encounters, as he writes, 'a form of storytelling that is, in many ways, completely unprecedented.' -- New York Times Book Review <br> Fantastic . . . I wish, someday, to play a game that will stay wit me as long as this book about games. <br>--Farhad Manjoo, Slate<br> <br> Extra Lives is the first truly indispensable work of literary nonfiction about society's most lucrative entertainment medium. Bissell's commentary is

Author Information

<br>Tom Bissell (Xbox Live gamertag: T C Bissell; PlayStation Network gamertag: TCBissell) is the author of Chasing the Sea, God Lives in St. Petersburg, and The Father of All Things. A recipient of the Rome Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Bay de Noc Community College Alumnus of the Year Award, he teaches fiction writing at Portland State University and lives in Portland, Oregon.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available