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More Than a Game: The Computer Game as Fictional Form
 
 
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More Than a Game: The Computer Game as Fictional Form (Paperback)

by Barry Atkins (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
RRP: £11.99
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More Than a Game: The Computer Game as Fictional Form + The Video Game Theory Reader + Videogames (Routledge Introductions to Media and Communications)
Price For All Three: £55.07

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Product details

  • Paperback: 176 pages
  • Publisher: Manchester University Press (8 May 2003)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0719063655
  • ISBN-13: 978-0719063657
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 13 x 1.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 325,441 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #24 in  Books > Computing & Internet > PC & Video Games > History & Culture

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  • See Complete Table of Contents

Product Description

Product Description
Whether you love them or loathe them, look back with wistful nostalgia to the days of Pong and Space Invaders, or regard the whole phenomenon with blank incomprehension, there is no doubt that computer and video games now occupy a significant place in contemporary popular culture. The economics alone are staggering, with unit sales counted in the millions. The frequency of assertions in the popular press about the dangerous influence of their violent subject matter and "immersive" potential imply a startling level of influence. To disregard the computer game is to refuse to engage fully with contemporary popular culture. This text is dedicated to the study of computer games in terms of the stories they tell and the manner of their telling. Taking its cue from practices of reading texts in literary and cultural studies, it considers the computer game as an emerging mode of contemporary storytelling in a fashion that is accessible and readable, recognizing the excitement and pleasure that has made the computer game such a massive global phenomenon. Barry Atkins discusses in detail questions of narrative and realism in four of the most significant games of the last decade: "Tomb Raider", "Half-Life", "Close Combat" and "SimCity". This is a work for both the student of contemporary culture and those game-players who are interested in how computer games tell their stories.
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More Than a Game: The Computer Game as Fictional Form
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars More Than A Game, 17 Dec 2003
By A Customer
The title of Barry Atkins’ new book, MORE THAN A GAME responds directly to the ‘just a game’ with which many people dismiss the computer game and its place in our cultural history. Except of course when the same people find it useful to lay the blame for society’s ills on the computer game, at which point the pixelated bloodshed and mayhem are seen to be much more than a game. The claims of this new book are nowhere near as bold as to posit a relationship between computer gaming and acts of senseless violence - although I don’t doubt that in some quarters they will be met with at least as much scepticism. Barry Atkins’ claim, almost a request, is that computer games deserve the status of fictional narratives.

What follows is one of the first, and I hope that it will be the first of many, academic works dedicated to the study of computer games. Through readings of Tomb Raider, Half-Life, Close Combat and SimCity Atkins develops a compelling argument about the types of narrative offered by the current crop of computer games from the closely defined world that is typified by Lara Croft’s oft repeated ‘no’ to the apparent open-endedness, and seeming pointlessness, of the world of SimCity.

What guarantees the success of MORE THAN A GAME is Atkins’ enthusiasm for his subject, he’s clearly played a lot of games, and despite the complexity of the issues it covers the book is a brilliantly lucid and entertaining read. I highly recommend this book for its thought provoking study of narrative, its brilliant discussion of computer gaming and its extremely enjoyable style. If you’ve ever thought there might be more to playing games than shuffling the mouse this is the book for you.

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