A01=Arthur Asa Berger
Action Adventure Computer Games
adventure
Adventure Video Game
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Analyzing Video Games
Attention Deficit Disorders
Author_Arthur Asa Berger
automatic-update
Bio-psycho Social Perspective
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=JHB
Cd Rom Technology
Christian Dior
COP=United Kingdom
croft
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
digital narrative theory
DVD Disk
Electronic Narratives
electronic storytelling research
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Fairy Tales
fiction
Flashing Lights
game design evolution
gender representation in gaming
heroes
Independent Women
interactive
Interactive Fictions
Interactive Narratives
Language_English
lara
PA=Available
PC Gamer
PlayStation II
popular
popular culture analysis
Popular Culture Phenomenon
Price_€100 and above
Print Narratives
PS=Active
psychoanalytic media studies
raider
seeker
Seeker Heroes
Sega Dreamcast
softlaunch
tomb
Tomb Raider
video game cultural impact study
Video Game Phenomenon
Video Game Playing
Video Games
Weak Linearity
Product details
- ISBN 9781138540309
- Weight: 240g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 03 Nov 2017
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
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From their inception, video games quickly became a major new arena of popular entertainment. Beginning with very primitive games, they quickly evolved into interactive animated works, many of which now approach film in terms of their visual excitement. But there are important differences, as Arthur Asa Berger makes clear in this important new work. Films are purely to be viewed, but video involves the player, moving from empathy to immersion, from being spectators to being actively involved in texts. Berger, a renowned scholar of popular culture, explores the cultural significance of the expanding popularity and sophistication of video games and considers the biological and psychoanalytic aspects of this phenomenon.Berger begins by tracing the evolution of video games from simple games like Pong to new, powerfully involving and complex ones like Myst and Half-Life. He notes how this evolution has built the video industry, which includes the hardware (game-playing consoles) and the software (the games themselves), to revenues comparable to the American film industry. Building on this comparison, Berger focuses on action-adventure games which, like film and fiction, tell stories but which also involve culturally important departures in the conventions of narrative. After defining a set of bipolar oppositions between print and electronic narratives, Berger considers the question of whether video games are truly interactive or only superficially so, and whether they have the potential to replace print narratives in the culture at large.A unique dimension of the book is its bio-psycho-social analysis of the video game phenomenon. Berger considers the impact of these games on their players, from physical changes (everything from neurological problems to obesity) to psychological consequences, with reference to violence and sexual attitudes. He takes these questions further by examining three enormously popular games-Myst/Riven, Tomb Raider, and Half-Life-for their attitudes toward power, gender, violence, and guilt. In his conclusion, Berger concentrates on the role of violence in video games and whether they generate a sense of alienation in certain addicted players who become estranged from family and friends. Accessibly written and broad-ranging in approach, Video Games offers a way to interpret a major popular phenomenon.
