Research Catalog

Play anything : the pleasure of limits, the uses of boredom, and the secret of games

Title
Play anything : the pleasure of limits, the uses of boredom, and the secret of games / Ian Bogost.
Author
Bogost, Ian
Publication
New York : Basic Books, [2016]

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StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
TextUse in library JFE 16-12280Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Description
xii, 266 pages; 25 cm
Summary
"The gold standard of our culture is 'fun.' Companies want their offices to feel more playful, schools want learning to be entertaining, programmers want their products to feel as intuitive and addictive as playing Tetris or AngryBirds. Trying to make life like playing a game sounds like a good idea--who doesn't want to have fun while working or commuting, parenting or cleaning?--but what's often overlooked in the rush to make everything 'fun' is that games are hard. Playing a sport requires concentration, repetition, and physical pain; playing a musical instrument demands shockingly boring practice and patience; even playing video games requires hours and hours of study, determination, and drive. Making our ideas about 'play' sound a whole lot like 'work.' Where's the fun in that? In Play Anything, Ian Bogost--the Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies and Professor of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology--shows that our common understanding of games--that they are always fun, and always juvenile--is dead wrong. And that that's a good thing, both for how we play and how we conduct our days"--
Subject
  • Creative ability
  • Popular culture > Social aspects
  • SOCIAL SCIENCE / Popular Culture
  • PHILOSOPHY / Ethics & Moral Philosophy
  • PSYCHOLOGY / Creative Ability
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (pages 239-250) and index.
Contents
Machine generated contents note: Preface: Life is Not a Game -- 1. Everywhere, Playgrounds -- 2. Ironoia, the Mistrust of Things -- 3. Fun Isn't Pleasure, It's Novelty -- 4. Play Is in Things, Not in You -- 5. From Restraint to Constraint -- 6. The Pleasure of Limits -- 7. The Opposite of Happiness -- Conclusion: Living with Things.
Call Number
JFE 16-12280
ISBN
  • 9780465051724
  • 0465051723
LCCN
2016019144
OCLC
2016019144
Author
Bogost, Ian, author.
Title
Play anything : the pleasure of limits, the uses of boredom, and the secret of games / Ian Bogost.
Publisher
New York : Basic Books, [2016]
Type of Content
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 239-250) and index.
Research Call Number
JFE 16-12280
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