How to do things with videogames /
Ian Bogost.
- Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2011.
- 180 p. ; 23 cm.
- Electronic mediations ; 38 .
Includes bibliographical references.
Introduction: media microecology -- Art -- Empathy -- Reverence -- Music -- Pranks -- Transit -- Branding -- Electioneering -- Promotion -- Snapshots -- Texture -- Kitsch -- Relaxation -- Throwaways -- Titillation -- Exercise -- Work -- Habituation -- Disinterest -- Drill -- Conclusion: the end of gamers.
In recent years, computer games have moved from the margins of popular culture to its center. Reviews of new games and profiles of game designers now regularly appear in the New York Times and the New Yorker, and sales figures for games are reported alongside those of books, music, and movies. They are increasingly used for purposes other than entertainment, yet debates about videogames still fork along one of two paths: accusations of debasement through violence and isolation or defensive paeans to their potential as serious cultural works. In How to Do Things with Videogames, Ian Bogost contends that such generalizations obscure the limitless possibilities offered by the mediums ability to create complex simulated realities.