Customer Reviews

This Gaming Life: Travels in Three Cities

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This book is a basic overview of different aspects of gaming. It discusses some cultural differences in the way Westerners game vs. those from the East (with the possible general exception of Japan). It is interesting to note the difference not only in game style preferences, but the way gamers are perceived in Western vs. South Korean culture, specifically.

The author also examines what he calls emergent gaming. These are methods of gaming and actions within the game that the designers did not anticipate. He goes on, at length, about the evolution of EVE Online and how it is the players that have largely driven that change rather than developers. He also waxes philosophical when it comes to what games mean in a larger context. Are games merely a waste of time and energy better spent on other endeavors or do they ultimately represent something else? This discussion is not very deep, but he does give reference to some other works that delve deeper into this debate.

Besides the few annoying grammatical errors, the tone is kept fairly light, yet you can tell Jim Rossignol is passionate about his current chosen focus in life. There is some good information here, but it really is best for someone who is looking for a PC-gaming biased overview of what gaming has been, is in its current state, and could possibly be. Console gaming is touched upon, but not discussed in any great detail. Those looking for minute detail and insights into the gaming industry won't find them here. But he does point the way to others who discuss his more philosophical points at length. This Gaming Life is certainly worth a read if you're interested in gaming no matter what level you wish to explore, unless you've already delved into this field.

I'm a gamer and I found this to be a unique global view on gaming and its culture from a very good writer. Sure, not for everyone, but for gamers that like to read, I'd say this is one of the best books out there.

There is much about this book which I liked, particularly the fairly in-depth look at the Korean gaming culture and how it differs from that in the west. It was also interesting to read about the political movements within games and how they have been used as protest platforms. I feel that as a person who is both a gamer and a person who works in the gaming industry, This Gaming Life brings to light many of the reasons why people play video games - for the challenges, social experiences or to simply escape the stresses of every day life. One of the other reasons given by the author is that gamers game to stave off boredom.

Jim Rossignol raises some very valid points on how the activity of playing video games has grown to become a central part of today's culture, such as the social components in today's games and the scientific studies being conducted to better understand the effect of video games on the human countenance. He examines at length the pros and cons of becoming engrossed in games, as well as some of the educational aspects. Topics also covered are the varying levels of importance some game development studios put on gamer interaction with development through gamer-made mods or playing the game in ways not expected by the developers. This is something which I have heard discussed at many game development conferences - that gamers will always find some way to play the game that was outside of the project vision.

The one aspect of this book which I didn't enjoy was the amount of time spent discussing the game play and player experience in EVE Online. In some ways I felt that due to this, the book became more about EVE than about the lives of gamers on a whole. While the book is meant to speak about Mr. Rossignol's own experiences in the game world, the first chapter or so of This Gaming Life leads the reader to believe that the book will look at the inner psyche of the gamer community. In this aspect I was somewhat disappointed in the book's content, as there was so much material left uncovered.

All in all, though, this is still a book I would recommend, particularly to those who are or want to be game developers. Through the coverage of such topics as Second Life and the EVE Online convention in Iceland, This Gaming Life does bring to the forefront the importance of games to the people who play them. Also of importance are the possibilities of becoming involved in the game development industry by beginning as a modder, an activity which carries its own importance within the gaming community, and which Mr. Rossignol demonstrated through the founding and growth of the UK studio, Splash Damage.

Right from the start, you can tell that Jim is a talented writer who succeeds in vividly describing the settings and the people he encounters in his travels to the three major cities in the book (London, Seoul, and Reykjavik). The stories he tells serve to illustrate his points and provide a vivid backdrop for his personal quest to better understand the hobby, passion, or obsession that we call gaming, a major theme of the text.

While the book is written in a way that's meant to initiate the non-gamer into the world of gaming, I think that it's gamers themselves (and particularly those of us who dissect, analyze, think, and write about games) who will most benefit from considering the issues he examines and asking ourselves the questions he raises. The most compelling question that the book tackles, in my opinion, is whether or not we're wasting our time with the thousands upon thousands of hours that we sink into gaming. It's certainly a question I've asked myself on numerous occasions.

The book is an odd mix of travel narrative, journal, and philosophical examination on the purpose of gaming (which it readily admits to being, if you glance at the inside cover). While the individual personal examples and discussions of gaming sub-culture are well-written, the parts I enjoyed the most were the sections towards the end of each chapter and the book's concluding chapter, "The Window," wherein Rossignol ties everything together and discusses the relevance of the medium from a number of different angles.

There are times when the book seems like it's trying to pull in too many directions at once or tackle too many topics in rapid succession, and much of the discussion of EVE Online in the later chapters seems unnecessarily detailed and ponderous. Even for someone like me, who lives and breathes this stuff, there's only so much I care to read about the intricacies of one specific, complicated game whose purpose in the text is to illustrate a larger point about player creativity.

Still, This Gaming Life is well worth reading for anyone interested in what it means to be a gamer and what purpose gaming might have in both a personal and larger social context. The international examples provide some much-needed multicultural perspective on the phenomenon of the universal attraction of electronic entertainment, the personal stories give insight and encouragement for those interested in striking out into the games industry themselves, and the philosophical meanderings of a traveling lifelong gamer scratch the surface of issues that could easily be spun off into entire books or academic dissertations in their own right. If you're serious about games and the culture of gaming, the read is worth the price of admission.

Rossignol has crafted a nice little book that exudes the feel of a series of expanded magazine articles. The stories he tells of his travels related to gaming and how these stories address his larger theses and sub-theses are engaging and insightful. Even though many "gamers" of today's ilk think more of the living room console when they consider their beloved activity, This Gaming Life centers on PC gaming. This is a fair enough choice as these are the experiences Rossignol has the largest revelations about and they do drive the points home.

The way the book is promoted makes one think that it will be an autobiographical look at one person's adventures with games, but really the personal tales are just a nice starting point for his larger arguments. The book is well written and enjoyable. It is quite an easy read and its short length keeps it from really losing any punch as you continue through it.

The only quibbles I have with the book are largely technical ones. As the book progresses and it begins to refer to its own previous sections, the choice was made to place parenthetical references back to those sections. Although this doesn't sound like a big issue, it is quite the distraction and somewhat insulting. An additional technical gripe is the misuse of the phrase "begs the question." This is a common mistake, but it shouldn't show up in a book from a professional writer, reviewed by professional editors. It just looks sloppy and detracts from Rossignol's authority. The concluding bits of the book are a tad meandering and don't really tie together the previous sections that were overall well thought out and almost poignant.

All in all, this is a good read for anyone who enjoys gaming or tech and pondering the effect they have on our lives. There isn't an "inside baseball" feel to the book that should scare off non-gamers, but it is still unlikely that many who aren't gamers will pick it up and read it. This is another book, like Chris Kohler's Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life, that is working to create a discourse on games beyond screenshots and history lessons. This Gaming Life is a fun step in the right direction.

I received an advanced reading copy of this book through LibraryThing recently. While I am most definitely NOT a gamer (except for the occasional game of Cake Mania 2), I was looking forward to reading this book since both of my sons are gamers. In fact, I would classify my older son as a hard-core gamer. I have always wanted someone to explain to me what was so wonderful about these games, and I was hoping this book would enlighten me. Well, it didn't satisfy my curiosity very much. The conclusion that the author comes to is that basically, games are there to alleviate boredom, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. In the first part of the book, I detected a very defensive attitude, as if Rossignol wanted to justify his life's passion with gaming. Towards the end of the book, there is some discussion about some practical applications of games, including education and the defense industry; I was hoping to see more of this. I learned a great deal about the gaming culture in South Korea, which I actually found interesting. I also learned way more about the game EVE than I ever, ever wanted to know. I understand that there are some social aspects to these games and that it takes a certain level of intelligence to play them, but I still don't get it! While I did learn some things in this book, for the uninitiated gamer, it was tedious reading at times.