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Half--Real: Video Games Between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds
 
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Half--Real: Video Games Between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds (Hardcover)

by J Juul (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
RRP: £26.95
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Frequently Bought Together

Half--Real: Video Games Between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds + Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture + Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 243 pages
  • Publisher: MIT Press (9 Dec 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0262101106
  • ISBN-13: 978-0262101103
  • Product Dimensions: 23 x 18.4 x 2.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 188,345 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review
""Half-Real" tackles key issues in games, from rules and structure to aesthetics and fiction to the complexities of player experience. Juul puts these topics in the context of current intellectual debates, making the book not just a playful exploration of games themselves but a celebration of the emerging fields of game studies and game design theory. Half-Real is essential reading for scholars, designers, and everyone in between." --Eric Zimmerman, Cofounder & CEO, gameLab

Product Description
Video games as both a departure from and a development of traditional games; an analysis of the interaction between rules and fiction in video games. A video game is half-real: we play by real rules while imagining a fictional world. We win or lose the game in the real world but we slay a dragon (for example) only in the world of the game. In this thought-provoking study, Jesper Juul examines the constantly evolving tension between rules and fiction in video games. Discussing games from Pong to The Legend of Zelda, from chess to Grand Theft Auto, he shows how video games are both a departure from and a development of traditional non-electronic games. The book combines perspectives from such fields as literary and film theory, computer science, psychology, economic game theory, and game studies, to outline a theory of what video games are, how they work with the player, how they have developed historically, and why they are fun to play. Locating video games in a history of games that goes back to Ancient Egypt, Juul argues that there is a basic affinity between games and computers. Just as the printing press and the cinema have promoted and enabled new kinds of storytelling, computers work as enablers of games, letting us play old games in new ways and allowing for new kinds of games that would not have been possible before computers. Juul presents a classic game model, which describes the traditional construction of games and points to possible future developments. He examines how rules provide challenges, learning, and enjoyment for players, and how a game cues the player into imagining its fictional world. Juul's lively style and eclectic deployment of sources will make Half-Real of interest to media, literature, and game scholars as well as to game professionals and gamers.

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Half--Real: Video Games Between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds
86% buy the item featured on this page:
Half--Real: Video Games Between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds 5.0 out of 5 stars (1)
£25.60
Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals
7% buy
Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals 3.0 out of 5 stars (2)
£33.20
The Video Game Theory Reader 2
6% buy
The Video Game Theory Reader 2
£26.59

 

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Wow, 16 April 2009
By B. Grewcock "Brook G" (Leicester, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I have read a few books on Ludology (the study of recreational games) and Half-Real is by far the best that I have read. It serves as an exceptional introduction to the subject matter and serves as good reference material.
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