Gamer Theory

Gamer Theory

Uncovers the significance of games in the gap between the near-perfection of actual games and the highly imperfect gamespace of everyday life in the rat race of free-market society.

Publication date: 01 Apr 2007

ISBN-10: 0674025199

ISBN-13: n/a

Paperback: 240 pages

Views: 22,659

Type: N/A

Publisher: Harvard University Press

License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Generic

Post time: 21 Dec 2007 05:05:27

Gamer Theory

Gamer Theory Uncovers the significance of games in the gap between the near-perfection of actual games and the highly imperfect gamespace of everyday life in the rat race of free-market society.
Tag(s): Game Development and Multimedia
Publication date: 01 Apr 2007
ISBN-10: 0674025199
ISBN-13: n/a
Paperback: 240 pages
Views: 22,659
Document Type: N/A
Publisher: Harvard University Press
License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Generic
Post time: 21 Dec 2007 05:05:27
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Excerpts from the Book Description:

Ever get the feeling that life's a game with changing rules and no clear sides, one you are compelled to play yet cannot win? Welcome to gamespace. Gamespace is where and how we live today. It is everywhere and nowhere: the main chance, the best shot, the big leagues, the only game in town. In a world thus configured, McKenzie Wark contends, digital computer games are the emergent cultural form of the times. Where others argue obsessively over violence in games, Wark approaches them as a utopian version of the world in which we actually live. Playing against the machine on a game console, we enjoy the only truly level playing field--where we get ahead on our strengths or not at all.

Gamer Theory uncovers the significance of games in the gap between the near-perfection of actual games and the highly imperfect gamespace of everyday life in the rat race of free-market society. The book depicts a world becoming an inescapable series of less and less perfect games. This world gives rise to a new persona. In place of the subject or citizen stands the gamer. As all previous such personae had their breviaries and manuals, Gamer Theory seeks to offer guidance for thinking within this new character. Neither a strategy guide nor a cheat sheet for improving one's score or skills, the book is instead a primer in thinking about a world made over as a gamespace, recast as an imperfect copy of the game.

Reviews:

Christian Science Monitor

"Wark may be offering a glimpse into the future, where books - particularly nonfiction - become destinations for discussion rather than dog-eared possessions…"

LA Weekly

"In either case, together they’re inventing new ways to write that accommodate both new ways of reading and a culture that is busy rethinking ideas of creativity, collaboration and commodities."
 




About The Author(s)


McKenzie Wark teaches media and cultural studies at the New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College in New York City. He is the author of several books, most recently A Hacker Manifesto (Harvard University Press) and Dispositions (Salt Publishing).

McKenzie Wark

McKenzie Wark teaches media and cultural studies at the New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College in New York City. He is the author of several books, most recently A Hacker Manifesto (Harvard University Press) and Dispositions (Salt Publishing).


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