Experimental Games

Critique, Play, and Design in the Age of Gamification

Experimental Games
Patrick Jagoda
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NZ$ 76.00
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NZ$ 60.80
Paperback
Not defined - 320pg
7 Dec 2020 US
International import eta 10-30 days
9780226629971
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In our unprecedentedly networked world, games have come to occupy an important space in many of our everyday lives. Digital games alone engage an estimated 2. 5 billion people worldwide as of 2020, and other forms of gaming, such as board games, role playing, escape rooms, and puzzles, command an ever-expanding audience. At the same time, "gamification"-the application of game mechanics to traditionally nongame spheres, such as personal health and fitness, shopping, habit tracking, and more-has imposed unprecedented levels of competition, repetition, and quantification on daily life. Drawing from his own experience as a game designer, Patrick Jagoda argues that games need not be synonymous with gamification. He studies experimental games that intervene in the neoliberal project from the inside out, examining a broad variety of mainstream and independent games, including StarCraft, Candy Crush Saga, Stardew Valley, Dys4ia, Braid, and Undertale. Beyond a diagnosis of gamification, Jagoda imagines ways that games can be experimental-not only in the sense of problem solving, but also the more nuanced notion of problem making that embraces the complexities of our digital present. The result is a game-changing book on the sociopolitical potential of this form of mass entertainment.
"Experimental Games brings together three primary areas of thinking: economics, affect theory, and game studies. Jagoda successfully argues that games in general, but primarily digital video games, ought to be considered as experimental objects and processes in their own right, relevant but not beholden to the usual discourses on the value of trial and error. This is original, nuanced, and well-researched work, noteworthy in its ability to join social science, art, and the humanities in an equally weighted conversation. "-- "Alenda Y. Chang, University of California, Santa Barbara" "Do we have a right to play? How about a right to fail? In this extensive meditation on the art of games, Jagoda shows how games are intricately intertwined with the logic of neoliberalism and the gamification of everyday life. From Starcraft to Dys4ia by way of Dwarf Fortress, Jagoda toys with a rich spectrum of games, paying particular attention to indie games and art games. What if the point of a game is not so much problem solving, but problem making? -- "Alexander R. Galloway, author of Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture"
Patrick Jagoda is professor of English and cinema and media studies at the University of Chicago. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and executive editor of Critical Inquiry. He is the author of Network Aesthetics, also published by the University of Chicago Press, and coauthor of The Game Worlds of Jason Rohrer.
Status: Active
ISBN-13: 9780226629971
Published: 7 Dec 2020
Published In: United States
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Format: Paperback
Height: 9mm
Width: 6mm
Spine: 1mm
Pages: 320

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