Synopses & Reviews
Video and computer games in their cultural contexts.
As the popularity of computer games has exploded over the past decade, both scholars and game industry professionals have recognized the necessity of treating games less as frivolous entertainment and more as artifacts of culture worthy of political, social, economic, rhetorical, and aesthetic analysis. Ken McAllister notes in his introduction to Game Work that, even though games are essentially impractical, they are nevertheless important mediating agents for the broad exercise of socio-political power.
In considering how the languages, images, gestures, and sounds of video games influence those who play them, McAllister highlights the ways in which ideology is coded into games. Computer games, he argues, have transformative effects on the consciousness of players, like poetry, fiction, journalism, and film, but the implications of these transformations are not always clear. Games can work to maintain the status quo or celebrate liberation or tolerate enslavement, and they can conjure feelings of hope or despair, assent or dissent, clarity or confusion. Overall, by making and managing meanings, computer gamesandmdash;and the work they involve and the industry they spring fromandmdash;are also negotiating power.
This book sets out a method for andquot;recollectingandquot; some of the diverse and copious influences on computer games and the industry they have spawned. Specifically written for use in computer game theory classes, advanced media studies, and communications courses, Game Work will also be welcome by computer gamers and designers.
Ken S. McAllister is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English at the University of Arizona and Co-Director of the Learning Games Initiative, a research collective that studies, teaches with, and builds computer games.
Review
“McAllister has a clear vision of the medium, a vision that spans the technological, generational gap. In this book, he analyzes and investigates the historical forces that brought video games from concept to market, and he does this with economic, technical, and sociological perspectives in mind. . . . Stands as one of the finest studies of its kind.”—Choice
Review
“A serious look at a growing business.”—Communications Booknotes Quarterly
Review
"Ken McAllister's work explores an important dimension of popular culture, the creation and reception of video games. Theoretically sophisticated and methodologically sound, it fills a void in the current research literature."--Barry Brummett, author of Rhetorical Dimensions of Popular Culture
Synopsis
*Selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title Ken S. McAllister is Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English at the University of Arizona and Co-Director of the Learning Games Initiative, a research collective that studies, teaches with, and builds video games.
Synopsis
Video and computer games in their cultural contexts
About the Author
Ken S. McAllister is Assistant Professor of Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English at the University of Arizona and Co-Director of the Learning Games Initiative, a research collective that studies, teaches with, and builds computer games.