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Computer games have become a major cultural and economic force, and a subject of extensive academic interest. Up until now, however, computer games have received relatively little attention from philosophy. Seeking to remedy this, the present collection of newly written papers by philosophers and media researchers addresses a range of philosophical questions related to three issues of crucial importance for understanding the phenomenon of computer games: the nature of gameplay and player experience, the moral evaluability of player and avatar actions, and the reality status of the gaming environment. By doing so, the book aims to establish the philosophy of computer games as an important strand of computer games research, and as a separate field of philosophical inquiry. The book is required reading for anyone with an academic or professional interest in computer games, and will also be of value to readers curious about the philosophical issues raised by contemporary digital culture.
The play element at the heart of our interactions with computers—and how it drives the best and the worst manifestations of the information age. Whether we interact with video games or spreadsheets or social media, playing with software shapes every facet of our lives. In Playing Software, Miguel Sicart delves into why we play with computers, how that play shapes culture and society, and the threat posed by malefactors using play to weaponize everything from conspiracy theories to extractive capitalism. Starting from the controversial idea that software is an essential agent in the information age, Sicart considers our culture in general—and our way of thinking about and creating digital...
Glossalaliais not a conventional glossary or dictionary. Although arranged alphabetically, it is a cutting-edge introduction to the state of theory today. Here 26 newly commissioned "definitions" of theoretical keywords are presented in a playful A-Z format, ranging from "Animality" to "Zero." Leading theorists and critics including J. Hillis Miller, Gayatri Chavkravorty Spivak, Simon Critchley, Ernesto Laclau, and many others provide unusual and insightful interpretations of a range of unexpected terms such as "Zero," "X," and "Yarn." They also reflect with renewed vigor upon such familiar concerns as "Difference," "Jouissance," "Nation," and "Otherness." Like a standard glossary, the volume invites the reader to start almost anywhere. ButGlossala liasteps far beyond the parameters of a standard reference work that is simply "about theory" by encouraging readers to actively engage with and enjoy theory, and to consider the future possibilities of theory in the twenty-firstcentury.
An investigation into computer game interfaces, both naturalistic and symbolic, and the distinction between gameworlds and other kinds of fictional worlds. Computer games usually take one of two approaches to presenting game information to players. A game might offer information naturalistically, as part of the game's imaginary universe; or it might augment the world of the game with overlays, symbols, and menus. In this book, Kristine Jørgensen investigates both kinds of gameworld interfaces. She shows that although the naturalistic approach may appear more integral to the imaginary world of the game, both the invisible and visible interfaces effectively present information that players ne...
Finland is internationally known as one of the leading centers of twentieth century analytic philosophy. This volume offers for the first time an overall survey of the Finnish analytic school. The rise of this trend is illustrated by original articles of Edward Westermarck, Eino Kaila, Georg Henrik von Wright, and Jaakko Hintikka. Contributions of Finnish philosophers are then systematically discussed in the fields of logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, history of philosophy, ethics and social philosophy. Metaphilosophical reflections on the nature of philosophy are highlighted by the Finnish dialogue between analytic philosophy, phenomenology, pragmatism, and critical theory.
Contributors from a range of disciplines explore boundary-crossing in videogames, examining both transgressive game content and transgressive player actions. Video gameplay can include transgressive play practices in which players act in ways meant to annoy, punish, or harass other players. Videogames themselves can include transgressive or upsetting content, including excessive violence. Such boundary-crossing in videogames belies the general idea that play and games are fun and non-serious, with little consequence outside the world of the game. In this book, contributors from a range of disciplines explore transgression in video games, examining both game content and player actions. The co...
Do you find yourself contemplating the imminent end of the world? Do you wonder how society might reorganize itself to cope with global cataclysm? (Have you begun hoarding canned goods and ammunition...?) Visions of an apocalypse began to dominate mass media well before the year 2000. Yet narratives since then present decidedly different spins on cultural anxieties about terrorism, disease, environmental collapse, worldwide conflict and millennial technologies. Many of these concerns have been made metaphorical: zombie hordes embody fear of out-of-control appetites and encroaching disorder. Other fears, like the prospect of human technology's turning on its creators, seem more reality based. This collection of new essays explores apocalyptic themes in a variety of post-millennial media, including film, television, video games, webisodes and smartphone apps.
This first volume of the DIGAREC Series holds the proceedings of the conference The Philosophy of Computer Gamesʺ, held at the University of Potsdam from May 8-10, 2008. The contributions of the conference address three fields of computer game research that are philosophically relevant and, likewise, to which philosophical reflection is crucial. These are: ethics and politics, the action-space of games, and the magic circle. All three topics are interlinked and constitute the paradigmatic object of computer games: Whereas the first describes computer games on the outside, looking at the cultural effects of games as well as on moral practices acted out with them, the second describes computer games on the inside, i.e. how they are constituted as a medium. The latter finally discusses the way in which a border between these two realms, games and non-games, persists or is already transgressed in respect to a general performativity.
There are three themed parts to this book: values, ethics and emotions in the first part, epistemology, perception and consciousness in the second part and philosophy of mind and philosophy of language in the third part. Papers in this volume provide links between emotions and values and explore dependency between language, meanings and concepts and topics such as the liar’s paradox, reference and metaphor are examined. This book is the second of a two-volume set that originates in papers presented to Professor Kevin Mulligan, covering the subjects that he contributed to during his career. This volume opens with a paper by Moya, who proposes that there is an asymmetrical relation between t...
Game streamers and live commentators are producing increasingly comprehensive analyses of gameplay, yet scholarship still tends to flatten the experiential media of video games into text for close reading. By shifting focus toward the immersiveness of video games, Playthrough Poetics makes the case for gameplay as a necessary, alternate method. Contributors to this volume engage widely with the activity of play through autoethnographies, meta-analyses of self-broadcasting, new procedural methods like gamespace soundwalking, as well as the affective aspects of games research. In doing so, they model new possibilities for academic players and gamers alike. Rigorous scholarship meets cultural p...