Gaming Matters: Art, Science, Magic, and the Computer Game Medium

by Judd Ethan Ruggill, Ken S. McAllister

In Gaming Matters , Judd Ethan Ruggill and Ken S. McAllister offer a playful and provocative look at the computer game medium, arguing that games  * Idiosyncratic, and thus difficult to apprehend using the traditional tools of media study* Irreconcilable, or complex to such a degree that developers, players, and scholars have contradictory ways of describing them* Boring, and therefore obligated to constantly make demandson players' attention* Anachronistic, or built on age-old tropes and forms of playwhile ironically bound to the most advanced technologies* Duplicitous, or dependent on truth-telling rhetoric even when they are about fictions, fantasies, or lies* Work, or are often better understood as labor rather than play* Alchemical, despite seeming all-too mechanical or predictableVideo games are now inarguably a major site of worldwide cultural production. In its assessments,  Gaming Matters  neither flatters game enthusiasts nor emboldens the medium's detractors. Instead, it provides a new set of lenses through which games can be examined, and in the process makes a significant contribution to the foundation of both computer game and new media studies.

Genres: Nonfiction

168 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2011

Reviews

[Simeon Berry · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a little frustrating throat-clearing ("We're telling you what argument we're going to make, but some arguments we refuse to make, because... well, we're too smart for that."), the authors illuminate some excellent aspects of gaming and play.

However, the book felt really short, and the structure was deeply unsatisfying, as the last two chapters were about the economics of the game industry (a depressing and necessary note to strike, but not exactly a deeply-examined or new perspective) and alchemy as a metaphor for video games and their making, which seemed like a bizarre turn in the argument, and arbitrarily added to a text in which it did not really belong.

As to be expected, I got a little weary of the tendency to resort to sky-high diction and multi-adjective phrases in order to signal that it was, indeed, an academic text. However, the authors avoided a common (and more profoundly unfortunate) failing of critical writing about pop culture: the habit of condescendingly approaching texts or items as artifacts that can be read into or interpreted without any respect for or acknowledgement of their first principles, parameters, or content. Beneath the bluster of clinical diction, a lot of academic writing cowers in fear of exposing its fascination and love for its subject matter, but Ruggill and McAllister clearly have greater ambitions, and for that, I am very grateful.

[Roxanne]

Interesting Rain Taxi rec, but I'm not sure I actually want to read this, despite my interest in the subject. http://www.raintaxi.com/online/2011wi...

[Renee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this for a class and it was very difficult to read.

[Cristina Portas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dense and not very conclusive.
I had trouble wanting to finish it.