LudoScience

Studies & Analysis (videogames)

Author(s) : Mathieu Triclot
Editor : Zones
Publication date : 05-16-2011
Language : french

An excellent book featuring a deep analysis of the experiences offered to players by videogames. Being at the same time a gamer and a scholar, the author provides us with his very thoughtful and stimulating ideas on this topic. The first three chapters are tackling the issue of defining games, video games, and the relation between games and movies / storytelling. As they are full of concepts and references, these chapters are a bit harder to read than the others. The three following chapters are dedicated to a critical analysis and summary of the history of videogames. This part of the book is absolutely brilliant. Mathieu Triclot introduces his "game genealogies", based on the kind of playful experiences offered by videogames. For example, the core experience of most arcade videogames is "putting yourself voluntarily in danger" and the search for extreme situations, which is in direct opposition to home console videogames focused on the exploration of an unknown universe at your own pace through a set of progressive learning steps. The last part of the book is dealing with a more philosophical topic: the growing digitization of our society and its relation to videogames, which leads the author to talk about gamification. A extremely brilliant and passionating book that any researcher and student working on videogames should read.