Gry

Journalist and poker fanatic Andy Bellin takes readers on a raucous journey into the shut-up-and-deal world of professional poker. From basement games to the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, you'll look over his shoulder as he learns to count cards, read a legendary player's body language, hang in there when the chips are down, and take his beatings like a man. Even if you don't know the difference between a flop and a river card, Bellin keeps you in the game with his portraits of the colorful players

With strict admission standards and a progressive curriculum, Brooklyn's Edward R. Murrow High School has long been one of New York's public-education success stories, serving a diverse neighborhood of immigrants and minorities and ranking among the nation's best high schools. At Murrow, there are no sports teams, and the closest thing to jocks are found on the school's powerhouse chess team, which annual

With strict admission standards and a progressive curriculum, Brooklyn's Edward R. Murrow High School has long been one of New York's public-education success stories, serving a diverse neighborhood of immigrants and minorities and ranking among the nation's best high schools. At Murrow, there are no sports teams, and the closest thing to jocks are found on the school's powerhouse chess team, which annual

"A Display of Lights (9)*" is not just a collection of classic puzzles, it is also a history of the crossword itself and a joint biography of six of its most talented practitioners.

Far from the closeted intellectuals you might expect, these puzzlers have had extraordinary lives, some tragic, some awe-inspiring; all are fascinating (one was arrested under suspicion of supplying secrets to the Nazis through his clues). Val Gilbert tells the life story of each alongside an explanation of what makes th

The Atari Video Computer System dominated the home video game market socompletely that "Atari" became the generic term for a video game console.The Atari VCS was affordable and offered the flexibility of changeable cartridges.Nearly a thousand of these were created, the most significant of which establishednew techniques, mechanics, and even entire genres. This book offers a detailed andaccessible study of this influential video game console from both computational andcultural perspectives. Studies of di

The phenomenal popularity of the Nintendo Wii, Guitar Hero, and smallergames like Bejeweled or Zuma, has turned the stereotype of the obsessed young malegamer on its head. Players of these casual games are not required to possess anintimate knowledge of video game history or to devote hours or days to play. At thesame time, many players of casual games show a dedication and skill that is anythingbut casual. In A Casual Revolution, Jesper Juul describes this as a reinvention ofvideo games, and of our imag

Journalism has embraced digital media in its struggle to survive. Butmost online journalism just translates existing practices to the Web: stories arewritten and edited as they are for print; video and audio features are produced asthey would be for television and radio. The authors of Newsgames propose a new wayof doing good journalism: videogames. Videogames are native to computers rather thana digitized form of prior media. Games simulate how things work by constructinginteractive models; journalism a

Digital games offer a vast range of engaging experiences, from the sereneexploration of beautifully rendered landscapes to the deeply cognitive challengespresented by strategic simulations to the adrenaline rush of competitive team-basedshoot-outs. Digital games enable experiences that are considerably different from areader's engagement with literature or a moviegoer's experience of a movie. InIn-Game, Gordon Calleja examines what exactly it is that makes digital games souniquely involving and offers a

In Game Theory and the Social Contract, Ken Binmore argues that gametheory provides a systematic tool for investigating ethical matters. Hisreinterpretation of classical social contract ideas within a game-theoreticframework generates new insights into the fundamental questions of socialphilosophy. He clears the way for this ambitious endeavor by first focusing onfoundational issues -- paying particular attention to the failings of recentattempts to import game -- theoretic ideas into social and politica

In Unit Operations, Ian Bogost argues that similar principles underlieboth literary theory and computation, proposing a literary-technical theory that canbe used to analyze particular videogames. Moreover, this approach can be appliedbeyond videogames: Bogost suggests that any medium--from videogames to poetry, literature, cinema, or art--can be read as a configurative system of discrete, interlocking units of meaning, and he illustrates this method of analysis withexamples from all these fields. The mar

Videogames are an expressive medium, and a persuasive medium; theyrepresent how real and imagined systems work, and they invite players to interactwith those systems and form judgments about them. In this innovative analysis, IanBogost examines the way videogames mount arguments and influence players. Drawing onthe 2,500-year history of rhetoric, the study of persuasive expression, Bogostanalyzes rhetoric's unique function in software in general and videogames inparticular. The field of media studies alr

Ten years after the groundbreaking From Barbie to Mortal Kombathighlighted the ways gender stereotyping and related social and economic issuespermeate digital game play, the number of women and girl gamers has risenconsiderably. Despite this, gender disparities remain in gaming. Women may bewarriors in World of Warcraft, but they are also scantily clad "boothbabes" whose sex appeal is used to promote games at trade shows.Player-generated content has revolutionized gaming, but few games marketed to girlsa

Play communities existed long before massively multiplayer online games;they have ranged from bridge clubs to sports leagues, from tabletop role-playinggames to Civil War reenactments. With the emergence of digital networks, however, new varieties of adult play communities have appeared, most notably within onlinegames and virtual worlds. Players in these networked worlds sometimes develop asense of community that transcends the game itself. In Communities of Play, gameresearcher and designer Celia Pearc

New media students, teachers, and professionals have long needed acomprehensive scholarly treatment of digital games that deals with the history, design, reception, and aesthetics of games along with their social and culturalcontext. The Handbook of Computer Game Studies fills this need with a definitivelook at the subject from a broad range of perspectives. Contributors come fromcognitive science and artificial intelligence, developmental, social, and clinicalpsychology, history, film, theater, and lite

When we play the ancient and noble game of chess, we grapple with ideasabout honesty, deceitfulness, bravery, fear, aggression, beauty, and creativity, which echo (or allow us to depart from) the attitudes we take in our daily lives.Chess is an activity in which we deploy almost all our available cognitiveresources; therefore, it makes an ideal laboratory for investigation into theworkings of the mind. Indeed, research into artificial intelligence (AI) has usedchess as a model for intelligent behavior si

In the many studies of games and young people's use of them, little hasbeen written about an overall "ecology" of gaming, game design andplay--mapping the ways that all the various elements, from coding to socialpractices to aesthetics, coexist in the game world. This volume looks at games assystems in which young users participate, as gamers, producers, and learners. TheEcology of Games (edited by Rules of Play author Katie Salen) aims to expand uponand add nuance to the debate over the value of games--

The ever-expanding capacities of computing offer new narrativepossibilities for virtual worlds. Yet vast narratives--featuring an ongoing andintricately developed storyline, many characters, and multiple settings--did notoriginate with, and are not limited to, Massively Multiplayer Online Games. ThomasMann's Joseph and His Brothers, J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Marvel'sSpiderman, and the complex stories of such television shows as Dr. Who, TheSopranos, and Lost all present vast fictional worlds.

In Play Between Worlds, T. L. Taylor examines multiplayer gaming life asit is lived on the borders, in the gaps--as players slip in and out of complexsocial networks that cross online and offline space. Taylor questions the commonassumption that playing computer games is an isolating and alienating activityindulged in by solitary teenage boys. Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), inwhich thousands of players participate in a virtual game world in real time, are infact actively designed for sociabi

The widely varying experiences of players of digital games challenge thenotions that there is only one correct way to play a game. Some players routinelyuse cheat codes, consult strategy guides, or buy and sell in-game accounts, whileothers consider any or all of these practices off limits. Meanwhile, the gameindustry works to constrain certain readings or activities and promote certain waysof playing. In Cheating, Mia Consalvo investigates how players choose to play games, and what happens when they can

This report focuses on the civic aspects of video game play among youth.According to a 2006 survey, 58 percent of young people aged 15 to 25 were civically"disengaged," meaning that they participated in fewer than two types of eitherelectoral activities (defined as voting, campaigning, etc.) or civic activities (forexample, volunteering). Kahne and his coauthors are interested in what role videogames may or may not play in this disengagement.Until now, most research in thefield has considered how video g

Videogames are an expressive medium, and a persuasive medium; theyrepresent how real and imagined systems work, and they invite players to interactwith those systems and form judgments about them. In this innovative analysis, IanBogost examines the way videogames mount arguments and influence players. Drawing onthe 2,500-year history of rhetoric, the study of persuasive expression, Bogostanalyzes rhetoric's unique function in software in general and videogames inparticular. The field of media studies alr

A video game is half-real: we play by real rules while imagining afictional world. We win or lose the game in the real world, but we slay a dragon(for example) only in the world of the game. In this thought-provoking study, JesperJuul examines the constantly evolving tension between rules and fiction in videogames. Discussing games from Pong to The Legend of Zelda, from chess to Grand TheftAuto, he shows how video games are both a departure from and a development oftraditional non-electronic games. The b

New media students, teachers, and professionals have long needed acomprehensive scholarly treatment of digital games that deals with the history, design, reception, and aesthetics of games along with their social and culturalcontext. The Handbook of Computer Game Studies fills this need with a definitivelook at the subject from a broad range of perspectives. Contributors come fromcognitive science and artificial intelligence, developmental, social, and clinicalpsychology, history, film, theater, and lite

World of Warcraft is the world's most popular massively multiplayeronline game (MMOG), with (as of March 2007) more than eight million activesubscribers across Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia, who play the game anastonishing average of twenty hours a week. This book examines the complexity ofWorld of Warcraft from a variety of perspectives, exploring the cultural and socialimplications of the proliferation of ever more complex digital gameworlds. Thecontributors have immersed themselves in the

It was a time when technology was king, status was determined by yourhigh score, and videogames were blitzing the world...From Pong to Pac-Man, Asteroidsto Zaxxon--more than fifty million people around the world have come of age withinthe electronic flux of videogames, their subconscious forever etched with imagesprojected from arcade and home videogame systems.From the first interactive blips ofelectronic light at Brookhaven National Labs and the creation of Spacewar at theMassachusetts Institute of Te

In Unit Operations, Ian Bogost argues that similar principles underlieboth literary theory and computation, proposing a literary-technical theory that canbe used to analyze particular videogames. Moreover, this approach can be appliedbeyond videogames: Bogost suggests that any medium--from videogames to poetry, literature, cinema, or art--can be read as a configurative system of discrete, interlocking units of meaning, and he illustrates this method of analysis withexamples from all these fields. The mar

In the many studies of games and young people's use of them, little hasbeen written about an overall "ecology" of gaming, game design andplay--mapping the ways that all the various elements, from coding to socialpractices to aesthetics, coexist in the game world. This volume looks at games assystems in which young users participate, as gamers, producers, and learners. TheEcology of Games (edited by Rules of Play author Katie Salen) aims to expand uponand add nuance to the debate over the value of games--