Synopses & Reviews
How filling life with play — whether soccer or lawn mowing, counting sheep or tossing Angry Birds — forges a new path for creativity and joy in our impatient age
"Play Anything is nothing short of brilliant... I will be recommending this provocative and entertaining book to everyone I know." — Jane McGonigal, bestselling author of Reality is Broken and SuperBetter
Life is boring: filled with meetings and traffic, errands and emails. Nothing we'd ever call fun. But what if we've gotten fun wrong? In Play Anything, visionary game designer and philosopher Ian Bogost shows how we can overcome our daily anxiety; transforming the boring, ordinary world around us into one of endless, playful possibilities.
The key to this playful mindset lies in discovering the secret truth of fun and games. Play Anything, reveals that games appeal to us not because they are fun, but because they set limitations. Soccer wouldn't be soccer if it wasn't composed of two teams of eleven players using only their feet, heads, and torsos to get a ball into a goal; Tetris wouldn't be Tetris without falling pieces in characteristic shapes. Such rules seem needless, arbitrary, and difficult. Yet it is the limitations that make games enjoyable, just like it's the hard things in life that give it meaning.
Play is what happens when we accept these limitations, narrow our focus, and, consequently, have fun. Which is also how to live a good life. Manipulating a soccer ball into a goal is no different than treating ordinary circumstances — like grocery shopping, lawn mowing, and making PowerPoints — as sources for meaning and joy. We can "play anything" by filling our days with attention and discipline, devotion and love for the world as it really is, beyond our desires and fears.
Ranging from Internet culture to moral philosophy, ancient poetry to modern consumerism, Bogost shows us how today's chaotic world can only be tamed — and enjoyed — when we first impose boundaries on ourselves.
Review
"Part personal meditation, part guide to living a happier life, Play Anything is a Walden for the 2010s." New Scientist
Review
"I can tell you that a great way to have fun with the job of writing a book review — to play while writing it — is by pursuing it earnestly and seriously as a book review. A humble, highly constrained genre. You tell people about the book. You tell them whether you think it's worth reading. (Yes.) And then, instead of allowing your ego to ruin everything by trying to make it cool, you move on in search of the next playground." Slate
Review
"Proposing an aesthetic of play, [Bogost] draws on myriad examples, from golf to the task of watering his lawn to his daughter's self-directed rules of 'step on a crack, break your mother's back.' ... [the] idea-driven prose of Play Anything might remind you of the applied-philosophy tactics of an Alain de Botton ... demonstrate[s] the importance of thoughtful, serious criticism on gaming and play." New York Times Book Review
Review
"Play Anything isn't really just an argument for turning dull tasks into games. It's a manifesto for a different attitude to the world." The Guardian
Review
"Play Anything is a profound book: both a striking assessment of our current cultural landscape, and at the same time a smart self-improvement guide, teaching us the virtues of a life lived playfully." Steven Johnson, author of How We Got To Now and Everything Bad Is Good For You
Review
"An essential read for those seeking to understand how a new idea of play can be positive for our lives." Library Journal (Starred Review)
About the Author
Ian Bogost is the Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in media studies and a professor of interactive computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, a founding partner at Persuasive Games, and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. Bogost lives in Atlanta, Georgia.