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- Publisher
- Brill
- Copyright
- © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
- Subject
- Book Reviews
- ISSN
- 2214-2304
- eISSN
- 2214-2312
- DOI
- 10.1163/22142312-12340025
- Publisher site
- See Article on Publisher Site
Abstract
How to Do Things with Videogames . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press (2011). 180 pp. isbn : 978-0-8166-7647-7 $18.95. Ian Bogost begins How to Do Things with Videogames with a short introduction that attempts to dispel dualistic notions concerning critical approaches to video games. 1 Video games, he argues, are neither wholly medium, nor wholly message; neither wholly gameplay, nor wholly narrative; neither wholly leisure activities, nor wholly training tools. Bogost proposes ‘to reveal a small portion of the many uses of videogames, and how together they make the medium broader, richer, and more relevant’ through the twenty essays that constitute this volume (7). His ultimate goal is to demonstrate how the individual strands of visual tropes, narrative patterns, and modes of procedural rhetoric associated with video games have become tightly woven into the fabric of our non-digital lives. Each of the book’s short chapters focuses on a particular use to which video games can be put, typically using three to five titles as illustrative examples. In addition to concrete applications, some of these uses might better be described as sensations such as titillation, relaxation, habituation, and disinterest. Other essays focus on a particular internal aspect of video
Journal
Asiascape: Digital Asia – Brill
Published: Jan 15, 2015