Overview
A SERIOUS EXPLORATION INTO THE CULTURE OF VIDEO GAMES AND THEIR IMPACT ON SOCIETY No longer just for kids and fanatics, video games have been growing in sophistication and popularity with each passing year. In GAMERS, noted writers, artists, scholars, poets and programmers talk about what gaming means to them and discuss the growing impact of video games on fashion, fiction, film, and music. This collection of essays feature a glittering mix of topics from the esoteric to the purely entertaining: gender identity in relation to gaming, video golf as a meditative exercise, Ms. Pacman versus The Sims, the similarities between writing fiction and programming, the confessions of a video poker junkie, and much more in this witty, wide-screen look at how video games are becoming part of the cultural landscape. The writers, poets, programmers, visual artists, cartoonists, game testers and championship gamers who have contributed to this anthology aren't ready to accept the current view that computer games are purely entertainment. Video games have provided each of us with reasons to love them, whether as nostalgic links to childhood, imaginative escapes from the workaday world, competitive challenges to be met and conquered or as vibrant steps toward a promising new art form. From the creation of Spacewar! in 1962 to the console-in-every-household proliferation today, games have provided us with something books, music, the plastic arts and even film have not. We get to act as well as react.
Full Product Details
Author: Shanna Compton
Publisher: Counterpoint
Imprint: Soft Skull Press
Dimensions:
Width: 17.80cm
, Height: 1.30cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.414kg
ISBN: 9781932360578
ISBN 10: 1932360573
Pages: 280
Publication Date: 26 October 2004
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
"""Relatively free of I Love the 80s-style nostalgia, this book instead focuses on the subtle and unexpected ways gaming touches lives."" - Philadelphia Weekly ""All told, Gamers is a fascinating collection that cracks open an underappreciated art form to reveal its history, its pleasures and its dangers."" - Free Times"""
Relatively free of I Love the 80s-style nostalgia, this book instead focuses on the subtle and unexpected ways gaming touches lives. - Philadelphia Weekly All told, Gamers is a fascinating collection that cracks open an underappreciated art form to reveal its history, its pleasures and its dangers. - Free Times
Author Information
Shanna Compton is a poet, freelance editor and writer whose work has appeared in numerous publications. She lives in Brooklyn, New York City.
