Digital Gameplay: Essays on the Nexus of Game and Gamer (Paperback)

by Nate Garrelts (Editor) "Digital game studies hasn't been on the academic curriculum for long, but it has already proved to be a complex and provocative interdisciplinary field, the..." (more)
Key Phrases: extreme sports games, digital games, mod tools, New York, Neverwinter Nights, Grand Theft Auto (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
In recent years, computer technology has permeated all aspects of life—not just work and education, but also leisure time. Increasingly, digital games are the way we play. This volume addresses the world of digital games, with special emphasis on the role and input of the gamer. In fifteen essays, the contributors discuss the various ways the game player interacts with the game. The first half of the book considers the physical and mental aspects of digital game play. The second section concentrates on other factors that influence play. Essays cover the full range of digital gaming, including computer and video games. Topics include several detailed investigations of particular, often controversial games such as Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, as well as a consideration of the ways in which game-playing crosses socioeconomic, age, gender and racial lines. The concluding essays discuss scholars’ perceptions of digital media and efforts to frame them.

About the Author
Nate Garrelts is an assistant professor of English at Saginaw Valley State University in University Center, Michigan.

Product Details

• Paperback: 268 pages
• Publisher: McFarland & Company (August 11, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786422920
• ISBN-13: 978-0786422920
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,423,250 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fifteen essays discuss how players interact with games , January 3, 2006

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

Digital Gameplay isn't another game programmer's handbook, but a collection of scholarly, college- level essays on the topic of digital games with a survey of the role of the game. Fifteen essays discuss how players interact with games - essential information for programmers to know - and survey both physical and mental aspects of playing. While video games are also included, any game programmer will find discussions of how games are perceived and used by players to be important considerations in organizing and developing routines.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nexus of Brilliance, March 17, 2006

By	R. Weber - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Garrelts has assembled a first rate collection of cutting edge, razor sharp video game scholarship and theory. Players and teachers interested in the ins and outs, ups and downs, overs and unders and arounds and throughs of game play will find this easy to pick up and impossible to put down. Taylor, Jensen and Castell work with the provocative "outside the box" metaphor to make some interesting observations on Diablo II (so good, in fact, that I'll forgive the title's obvious allusion to Cher's "Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves.") Boulter's Cyborgs are People Too makes excellent use of Donna Harway's The Cyborg Constituion to evaluate the popular game "The Simulations." The crown jewel in a well-guilded crown is the essay by Marc C. Santos and Sarah E. White. The essay is titled Playing With Ourselves, and it is highly enjoyable for its rhythmic, copious prose exploring Lacanian aspects of Resident Evil and Silent Hill. This hefty load of scholarship builds to a more than satisfying conclusion that exhausts and exhilerates the reader.