An impassioned look at games and game design that offers the most ambitious framework for understanding them to date. As pop culture, games are as important as film or television—but game design has yet to develop a theoretical framework or critical vocabulary. In Rules of Play Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman present a much-needed primer for this emerging field. They offer a unified model for looking at all kinds of games, from board games and sports to computer and video games. As active participants in game culture, the authors have written Rules of Play as a catalyst for innovation, filled with new concepts, strategies, and methodologies for creating and understanding games. Building an aesthetics of interactive systems, Salen and Zimmerman define core concepts like "play," "design," and "interactivity." They look at games through a series of eighteen "game design schemas," or conceptual frameworks, including games as systems of emergence and information, as contexts for social play, as a storytelling medium, and as sites of cultural resistance. Written for game scholars, game developers, and interactive designers, Rules of Play is a textbook, reference book, and theoretical guide. It is the first comprehensive attempt to establish a solid theoretical framework for the emerging discipline of game design.

Over 2500 illustrations in full color, including 400 events, over 150 sports American Football; Basketball; Baseball; Ice Hockey; Volleyball; Soccer; Team Handball; Softball; Rounders; Cricket; Lacrosse; Hurling; Shinty; Synchronized Swimming; Water Polo; Surfing; Diving; Rowing; Yacht Racing; Speed Skating; Figure Skating; Alpine Skiing; Downhill Racing; Tobogganing; Greyhound Racing; Horse Racing; Polo; Roller Skating; Cycle Racing; Motorcycling; Stock Car Racing; Hang Gliding; Steeplechase; Javelin; Shot Put; Discus; High Jump; Pole Vault; Long Jump; Triple Jump; Modern Pentathlon; Triathlon; Gymnastics; Trampolining; Weightlifting; Boxing; Wrestling; Judo; Karate; Aikido; Fencing; Jiu Jitsu; Horseshoe Pitching; Darts; Crossbow Archery; Rifle Shooting; Pistol Shooting; English Billiards; Snooker; Pool; Skittles; Tenpin Bowling; Curling; Croquet; Golf; Court Handball; Squash; Paddleball; Badminton; Lawn Tennis; Table Tennis; Jai'alai ...AND MANY MORE!

The book analyzes the process by which the collective image of professional baseball was formed. It traces both the negation and the affirmation of ideas in the sports press that would impede or promote the growth of baseball from a recreational pastime to a team sport spectacle in the mid-19th century. The American collective image grew as a result of sports reportage, conversations about baseball in social and work groupings, game attendance (and changing values toward work and play), and reports of gambling. Newspaper editorials and news stories and letters to the editor are studied as to shifting and complex and inter-related sentiments toward playing baseball. Much of this interactive complex was influenced by the English sports ideal and newly formed attitudes toward recreation. Above all, the sports press was the primary shaper of the image of professional baseball.