An exploration of the relationship between games and art that examines the ways that both gamemakers and artists create game-based artworks. Games and art have intersected at least since the early twentieth century, as can be seen in the Surrealists' use of Exquisite Corpse and other games, Duchamp's obsession with Chess, and Fluxus event scores and boxes—to name just a few examples. Over the past fifteen years, the synthesis of art and games has clouded for both artists and gamemakers. Contemporary art has drawn on the tool set of videogames, but has not considered them a cultural form with its own conceptual, formal, and experiential affordances. For their part, game developers and players focus on the innate properties of games and the experiences they provide, giving little attention to what it means to create and evaluate fine art. In Works of Game, John Sharp bridges this gap, offering a formal aesthetics of games that encompasses the commonalities and the differences between games and art. Sharp describes three communities of practice and offers case studies for each. “Game Art,” which includes such artists as Julian Oliver, Cory Arcangel, and JODI (Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans) treats videogames as a form of popular culture from which can be borrowed subject matter, tools, and processes. “Artgames,” created by gamemakers including Jason Rohrer, Brenda Romero, and Jonathan Blow, explore territory usually occupied by poetry, painting, literature, or film. Finally, “Artists' Games”—with artists including Blast Theory, Mary Flanagan, and the collaboration of Nathalie Pozzi and Eric Zimmerman—represents a more synthetic conception of games as an artistic medium. The work of these gamemakers, Sharp suggests, shows that it is possible to create game-based artworks that satisfy the aesthetic and critical values of both the contemporary art and game communities.

A comprehensive introduction to the latest research and theory on learning and instruction with computer games. This book offers a comprehensive introduction to the latest research on learning and instruction with computer games. Unlike other books on the topic, which emphasize game development or best practices, Handbook of Game-Based Learning is based on empirical findings and grounded in psychological and learning sciences theory. The contributors, all leading researchers in the field, offer a range of perspectives, including cognitive, motivational, affective, and sociocultural. They explore research on whether (and how) computer games can help students learn educational content and academic skills; which game features (including feedback, incentives, adaptivity, narrative theme, and game mechanics) can improve the instructional effectiveness of these games; and applications, including games for learning in STEM disciplines, for training cognitive skills, for workforce learning, and for assessment. The Handbook offers an indispensable reference both for readers with practical interests in designing or selecting effective game-based learning environments and for scholars who conduct or evaluate research in the field. It can also be used in courses related to play, cognition, motivation, affect, instruction, and technology. Contributors Roger Azevedo, Ryan S. Baker, Daphne Bavelier, Amanda E. Bradbury, Ruth C. Clark, Michele D. Dickey, Hamadi Henderson, Bruce D. Homer, Fengfeng Ke, Younsu Kim, Charles E. Kinzer, Eric Klopfer, James C. Lester, Kristina Loderer, Richard E. Mayer, Bradford W. Mott, Nicholas V. Mudrick, Brian Nelson, Frank Nguyen, V. Elizabeth Owen, Shashank Pawar, Reinhard Pekrun, Jan L. Plass, Charles Raffale, Jonathon Reinhardt, C. Scott Rigby, Jonathan P. Rowe, Richard M. Ryan, Ruth N. Schwartz, Quinnipiac Valerie J. Shute, Randall D. Spain, Constance Steinkuehler, Frankie Tam, Michelle Taub, Meredith Thompson, Steven L. Thorne, A. M. Tsaasan

From the New York Times bestselling author of Start With Why and Leaders Eat Last, a bold framework for leadership in today’s ever-changing world. How do we win a game that has no end? Finite games, like football or chess, have known players, fixed rules and a clear endpoint. The winners and losers are easily identified. Infinite games, games with no finish line, like business or politics, or life itself, have players who come and go. The rules of an infinite game are changeable while infinite games have no defined endpoint. There are no winners or losers—only ahead and behind. The question is, how do we play to succeed in the game we’re in? In this revelatory new book, Simon Sinek offers a framework for leading with an infinite mindset. On one hand, none of us can resist the fleeting thrills of a promotion earned or a tournament won, yet these rewards fade quickly. In pursuit of a Just Cause, we will commit to a vision of a future world so appealing that we will build it week after week, month after month, year after year. Although we do not know the exact form this world will take, working toward it gives our work and our life meaning. Leaders who embrace an infinite mindset build stronger, more innovative, more inspiring organizations. Ultimately, they are the ones who lead us into the future.

An accessible guide to what really goes on in the world of finance.

A study of Everquest that provides a snapshot of multiplayer gaming culture, questions the truism that computer games are isolating and alienating, and offers insights into broader issues of work and play, gender identity, technology, and commercial culture. In Play Between Worlds, T. L. Taylor examines multiplayer gaming life as it is lived on the borders, in the gaps—as players slip in and out of complex social networks that cross online and offline space. Taylor questions the common assumption that playing computer games is an isolating and alienating activity indulged in by solitary teenage boys. Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), in which thousands of players participate in a virtual game world in real time, are in fact actively designed for sociability. Games like the popular Everquest, she argues, are fundamentally social spaces. Taylor's detailed look at Everquest offers a snapshot of multiplayer culture. Drawing on her own experience as an Everquest player (as a female Gnome Necromancer)—including her attendance at an Everquest Fan Faire, with its blurring of online—and offline life—and extensive research, Taylor not only shows us something about games but raises broader cultural issues. She considers "power gamers," who play in ways that seem closer to work, and examines our underlying notions of what constitutes play—and why play sometimes feels like work and may even be painful, repetitive, and boring. She looks at the women who play Everquest and finds they don't fit the narrow stereotype of women gamers, which may cast into doubt our standardized and preconceived ideas of femininity. And she explores the questions of who owns game space—what happens when emergent player culture confronts the major corporation behind the game.

A theoretical and practical guide to integrating human values into the conception and design of digital games, with examples from Call of Duty, Journey, World of Warcraft, and more. All games express and embody human values, providing a compelling arena in which we play out beliefs and ideas. “Big ideas” such as justice, equity, honesty, and cooperation—as well as other kinds of ideas, including violence, exploitation, and greed—may emerge in games whether designers intend them or not. In this book, Mary Flanagan and Helen Nissenbaum present Values at Play, a theoretical and practical framework for identifying socially recognized moral and political values in digital games. Values at Play can also serve as a guide to designers who seek to implement values in the conception and design of their games. After developing a theoretical foundation for their proposal, Flanagan and Nissenbaum provide detailed examinations of selected games, demonstrating the many ways in which values are embedded in them. They introduce the Values at Play heuristic, a systematic approach for incorporating values into the game design process. Interspersed among the book's chapters are texts by designers who have put Values at Play into practice by accepting values as a design constraint like any other, offering a real-world perspective on the design challenges involved.

Japan is the world power in video games, producing the most popular video hardware and software in the world that has won countless fans worldwide. Now these fans can take a look at the making of their favorite games in Japanese Game Graphics, which goes behind-the-scenes of the most-talked about and popular titles released for Playstation 2 and other consumer videogame hardware. Each of the 26 games covered (including Final Fantasy X2, Soulcalibur 2, and Oni Musha 2) gets its own fully illustrated chapter to describe the game and take readers beyond what is seen on the screen.The artists, illustrators, and creators of each game are extensively interviewed and they themselves describe what is unique about their game, what challenges they had to overcome to create the game, and how the characters and stories were created. They also describe what software and digital techniques (often invented especially for the game) were used to create the look and feel of each game and game world.