Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Tom Bissell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 8, 2010

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Grand Theft Auto IV is both a waste of time and the most colossal creative achievement of the last 25 years, according to this scintillating meditation on the promise and discontents of video games. Journalist Bissell (Chasing the Sea) should know; the ultraviolent car-chase-and-hookers game was his constant pastime during a months-long intercontinental cocaine binge. He's ashamed of his video habit, but also ashamed of being ashamed of the dominant art form of our time; by turning the eye of a literary critic on the gory, seemingly puerile genre of ultraviolent, open-ended shooter games, he finds unexpected riches. Bissell bemoans the uncompromising stupidity of their story lines, wafer-thin characters, and the moronic dialogue, but celebrates the button-pushing, mesmeric qualities and the subtle, profound depths these conceal—the catharses of teamwork and heroism in the zombie-fest Left for Dead, the squirmy moral dilemmas of Mass Effect, the mood of wistful savagery suffusing the rifles-and-chainsaws-bedecked denizens of Gears of War. Bissell excels both at intellectual commentary and evocative reportage on the experience of playing games, while serving up engrossing mise-en-scène narratives of the mayhem. If anyone can bridge the aesthetic chasm between readers and gamers, he can. (June 8)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Might as well get this out of the way: Bissell is addicted to video games. So much so that he pretty much missed the last presidential election because he was playing a new and highly anticipated game. Here he explores not just his own affection for video games but also the games themselves. What separates good games from bad? Where do video games fit on the sliding scale of art? A video game, Bissell tells us, is a form a self-surrender, but a different form than, say, a movie. We have no influence over what happens in a movie, but we do in a video game. In playing a video game, we are, in a sense, the authors of the stories we’re acting out. Bissell explores the key elements of video games: dialogue, character design, voice performance, visual appearance. Do the best games approach something akin to virtual (or perhaps alternate) reality? Not just for gamers, the book should also appeal to readers who have some serious questions about the nature and impact of video games and their increasing popularity. --David Pitt

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon (June 8, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307378705
• ISBN-13: 978-0307378705
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (75 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #202,836 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book for all seasons, April 28, 2010

By 

Aaron C. Brown (New York, New York United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

This is a book that tries to be four different things and, surprisingly, manages to succeed at all of them. Bart Motes took it as a series of essays to be read for enjoyment and insight into the experience and meaning of video games. I agree with what he wrote from that perspective.

My interest is broader and shallower. I am interested in games and play in general, and also in the technology used to create deeply interactive computer software. I only dabble at games at low difficulty levels and short attention span, more to satisfy curiosity than for enjoyment. I have never been stirred by in-game events, it's all pixels to me. Nevertheless, I see their great power, and respect that they are an important part of our evolving culture. You don't understand the world today unless you have at least nodding acquaintance with these games, and this book offers considerably more than a nodding acquaintance. The less you know about video games, the more you need this book.

The ostensible topic of the book is critical analysis of video games. It is an exploration, not a conclusion, and as such it is tentative and dialectical at many points, but can suddenly switch to positive certainty, backed by the authority of the native speaker. I disagree with Bart Motes that the author is apologetic, he is a rigorous advocate for both the games and traditional standards of criticism. The two often conflict, and the book makes only suggestions about potential resolutions. You won't find the answer here, but you will find the question poked hard from a lot of non-obvious angles.

Finally this book is a fascinating piece of autobiographical fiction. I don't mean that I disbelieve the personal anecdotes, only that they are clearly chosen for dramatic effect rather than illumination of the author's personality or career. I was strongly reminded of one of my favorite works, A Drifting Life. The parallel is not obvious, as Yoshihiro Tatsumi wrote his explanation of what fascinated him with manga and how it fit into the world as a whole after a 60-year career of extraordinary achievement in what is now universally acknowledged as a serious art form. At one third the age, with zero achievement in creating video games, which are still more often classified as silly or dangerous commercial toys for kids and slackers than culturally important art; Bissell is no grandmaster. But the Bissell-point-of-view that narrates this book gripped me in the same way that the young Tatsumi did. Tatsumi draws a cherry blossom to describe how he felt trashing his university entrance exams, and goes brilliantly outside panel to evoke the facial expression of the older waitress who tries to seduce the drunk and inexperienced teenager. Bissell uses his exceptional writing talents to make running a virtual semi truck over a helpless virtual derelict or diving into a virtual pool in a desperate search for a virtual sword (inadvertently virtually dropped) convey both personal and general meaning. I remain more impressed by the former than the latter, but Bissell is young yet. There are also echoes of the disruptive cultural analysis of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

I won't argue with anyone who gives four stars from any of the individual perspectives, but I think it takes a five-star book to do this many things, this well.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not worth reading, August 13, 2011

By 

mistermrp - See all my reviews

This review is from: Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter (Vintage) (Paperback)

I'm surprised that this book is rated (relatively) highly by reviewers. In my opinion, the writing is slapdash, the research non-existent, and valuable insights few.

As other reviewers have noted, the title was a problem for me. "Why video games matter" implied to me a thoughtful discussion of video games as an art form, instead I found the book to be a disconnected, meandering series of personal observations about specific titles. It's like titling a book "why film matters" and then filling it with essays about how you really, really liked "back to the future" and "titanic." Yes, it felt that random.

The writing quality seemed contrived to me as well. The second chapter (about "Resident Evil" (aka "Biohazard")) switches to second person for no particularly good reason. It feels forced- like a precocious junior high school student showing off in an essay contest. I also made the mistake of reading the comments on the dust jacket of the hard cover edition. Bisell is described as an "award winning" author. While I read, I was haunted by the question "what awards? Can you take them back?"

There's much better writing out there about games- see the New Yorker magazine's 2011 profile on Shigeru Miyamoto for an example of good writing. That single article contains more insight and research than this entire book.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great read on the emotion and theory of gaming, May 3, 2010

By 

D. Greenbaum "DoctorDave™" (Lawrence, KS) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Are video games art? Or, perhaps more importantly, is it possible for an author to write a book about video games that might appear interesting to someone who doesn't play games and could care less about them? Reviewing a book about video games is kind of like review a book about sports. Most sports books are written for fans, and it is rare the sports book that even a non-fan can enjoy. The same holds true here.

If you have enjoyed playing video games at all, whether you are a hard-core fanboy or merely an occasional Wii dabbler, you will likely greatly enjoy this book. Bissell writes with a keen eye for the zeitgeist of the video game world, as well as a sarcastic sense of humor that should appeal to both the gamer and non-gamer alike. His descriptions of the artistic creativity and the "theory of play" that goes into the games, as well as the sublime experience actually playing will strike a chord. Bissell writes in an accessible style that can be followed even by those who are not versed in the arcana of the gaming world.

In addition to gamers themselves, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in creative development, as well as those who are friends (or relatives) of gamers and wonder how people can get so lost in these artificial worlds. Even if you have no interest in games, you might still find the book an interesting look at a how entertainment is created and what the experiencing of gaming is like for those who play.