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Virtual Ascendance: Video Games and the Remaking of Reality de Devin C. Griffiths

Virtual Ascendance: Video Games and the Remaking of Reality

Autor Devin C. Griffiths
en Limba Engleză Hardback – 19 sep 2013

În contextul studiilor media contemporane și al teoriei informației, Virtual Ascendance de Devin C. Griffiths se poziționează ca o resursă esențială pentru înțelegerea modului în care jocurile video au încetat să fie o activitate marginală pentru a deveni un pilon central al culturii globale. Remarcăm abordarea autorului care, spre deosebire de textele pur teoretice, ancorează analiza în studii de caz concrete, de la clinici universitare unde se utilizează consola Wii pentru pacienții cu Parkinson, până la sălile de presă de la Casa Albă. Această lucrare completează perspectiva oferită de Video Games and Gaming Culture de Mark Wolf, adăugând o dimensiune narativă și jurnalistică ce lipsește adesea din antologiile academice rigide.

Structura volumului propune o progresie logică, pornind de la rădăcinile istorice ale industriei — marcate de momentul „1972: A Pong Odyssey” — și evoluând către complexitatea socială a MMO-urilor și a sporturilor electronice. Apreciem în mod deosebit capitolele dedicate „jocurilor serioase”, unde Griffiths demonstrează cum algoritmii de divertisment sunt recalibrați pentru antrenamente militare sau intervenții în sănătatea publică. Cartea nu ignoră nici dimensiunea estetică, dedicând secțiuni întregi fuziunii dintre jocurile video și cinematografia de la Hollywood sau impactul acestora asupra muzicii contemporane.

Prin cele 12 capitole, Virtual Ascendance reușește să sintetizeze tranziția de la „coin-op” la realitatea virtuală, oferind un tablou detaliat al unei industrii de miliarde de dolari. Credem că valoarea acestui text rezidă în capacitatea de a demonstra că jocurile video nu sunt doar un produs de consum, ci o forță care remodelează interacțiunea umană și structurile profesionale moderne.

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Specificații

ISBN-13: 9781442216945
ISBN-10: 1442216948
Pagini: 234
Dimensiuni: 159 x 234 x 23 mm
Greutate: 0.5 kg
Ediția:New.
Editura: Bloomsbury Publishing
Colecția Rowman & Littlefield
Locul publicării:New York, United States

De ce să citești această carte

Această carte este ideală pentru studenții la comunicare, sociologie sau design de jocuri care doresc să înțeleagă impactul societal al tehnologiei. Cititorul câștigă o perspectivă panoramică asupra modului în care mecanicile de joc influențează medicina și politica. Este o recomandare solidă pentru oricine vrea să vadă dincolo de ecran, înțelegând jocurile video ca pe un motor de inovare socială și economică, nu doar ca pe un simplu hobby.

Descriere

From school lunchrooms to the White House press room, video games are an integral part of our popular culture, and the industry behind them touches all aspects of our lives, gamer and non-gamer alike. Business and entertainment, health and medicine, politics and war, social interaction and education, all fall under its influence.

Virtual Ascendance tells the story of a formerly fringe enterprise that, when few were paying attention, exploded into a multi-billion dollar industry affecting the very way we live. Griffiths paints a thorough and vivid picture of the video game industry, illuminating the various, and often bizarre, ways it's changing how we work, play and live. He brings readers along on his own journey of discovery, from the back room of a small Irish pub where members of the second-largest industry enclave meet each month, to a university clinic where the Wii is being used to treat Parkinson's sufferers - and everywhere in between.

Virtual Ascendance is more than just a story about video games, though. It's the story of an awakening, of a realization that a childhood pastime has exploded into a thriving enterprise - one rooted in entertainment but whose tendrils reach into virtually all aspects of life and society.

Cuprins

Introduction
1: Down The Rabbit Hole
I Am Therefore I Game
2: From The Coin-op To The Console: How Did We Get Here?
Let The Games Begin
1972: A Pong Odyssey
3: Let The Games Begin: Competitive Videogaming And The Birth Of The Cyberathlete
Cyberathletes And The Leagues Who Love Them
4: Alphabet Soup: MMOs, MUDs, And RPGs-D&D In The 21st Century
5: No Console Required: Casual Games (or, Gaming For The Rest Of Us)
6: Dressed For The Symphony: Videogames Take Center Stage
7: From The Flat Screen To The Big Screen: Videogames
Invade Hollywood
Star Wars 1313: The Empire Strikes Back
8: Virtual Life
9: And We Are Merely Players: Videogames And Society
Good Enough For Government Work: CDC Gets Into The Game
10: Games For Health
From Rehab to Wii-hab:Using Videogames to Heal
11: War Games: Combat Evolved
12: It's William Gibson's World, We're Just Living In It
Bibliography

Recenzii

This slim volume (171 pages of text) will be an eye-opener for anyone wanting to understand the world of gaming from a sociological viewpoint. Griffiths (who runs his own business communication company) is quick to both acknowledge and dispel cultural clichés surrounding gamers (geeks and dorks, socially maladjusted young males), and in a sense, this is the key to the book. While providing a concise popular history of computer and console gaming, the author demonstrates that gamers and gaming are pervasive in contemporary society-to an extent that few are aware of. He points to the money generated by the industry, to its emerging champion players, and to its prominence in all forms of media. This book should be required reading for legislators as they grapple with violence and attempt to link it to video gaming, if only to force them to look at the phenomenon in its entirety. It is an excellent primer on video gaming and its present place in culture. Summing Up: Essential. All readers.
His brief history of gaming time periods is well-researched, and never once do you question his enthusiasm....he clearly has an affection and wistfulness for his subject, and a desire to see their wonders go even further mainstream than they already are. At best, Virtual Ascendance is an enthusiastic piece, perfect for the gamers and open-minded parents of gamers who don't understand the background behind their favorite flashing lights and sounds.
Virtual Ascendance is an excellent descriptive account of the increasingly widespread use of digital games in our lives, from serious games to playful entertainment.
Videogames matter. Probably more than you even realize. And here Devin Griffiths sets out, in an informed and engaging manner, exactly why and how they matter. From hardcore gamers, to those with a passing interest, or even for those with no knowledge of gaming at all, this book will tell you what you need to know, and why you need to know it.
Reading Virtual Ascendence is like playing a great videogame - the paths taken are often surprising, the environment is rendered in engaging detail, and the characters are richly drawn. From casual games to war games, Devin Griffiths writes with a warmly intellectual sense of wonder, purpose and play.