This book aims to deconstruct the "positive discourses about video games", that helped it to be regarded in a less negative way as the time went by. While the topic is very interesting, the extremely small size of this book (96 pages in very small A6 format) prevents him to reach this goal. Instead of a rigorous analysis that such a topic requires, the authors limit themselves to some broad and bold critics (such as the french university being under the order of the video game industry
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Keywords : critic, video game, positive discourse, media
This book is dedicated to level design, i.e. the design of levels, maps and other "playing spaces" for video games. Written as an introductory book, it first details the basis of level design, before discussing how it can be used to "embody" the mechanisms defined by game rules, to tell a story, or even to spark off emotions in player's mind. An interesting book for beginners discovering this topic.
Keywords : level design, introduction
A book introducing the so-called "game theory", which explains the numerous aspects of this research domain halfway between maths and economy. The author presents different kinds of "games", i.e. problems that allow him to introduce the various components of the game theory: zero-sum games and non zero-sum games, games with rational or irrational players, with or without collaboration, etc. While this book is exhaustive and while the author seems to master this topic, this bo
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Keywords : game theory, introduction, maths, economy, expert
Over a series of 7 books, Florent Gorges wrote the most complete history of Nintendo. The texts are easy to read and full of unique information, and are illustrated with many pictures of all the games and toys created by the company. This second book in the series is focused on the "Game & Watch", a series of portable electronic games that all kids over the worlds used to enjoy. An absolute must-read book.This book was translated into English in 2012 under the title "The Hi
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Keywords : history, nintendo, game & watch
The french written reference about the history of videogames. This must-have book has know five different editions between 1997 and 2012. It details the story of many famous videogames thanks to interviews with their designers: Pong, Tomb Raider, Tetris, Doom, Myst, Sim City, etc. The book also have a background story with the life of Philippe Ulrich, famous french game designer and founder of Cryo, who have lived through all the stages of the videogames history. A very interesting read wi
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Keywords : history, france, world of warcraft
A scientific book gathering 28 contributions from researchers who are specialized on Serious Games, over 530 pages. The covered topics are wide, ranging from the definition of "Serious Games" to the advantages, limits, and practical use of games for education and social change. An interesting book featuring the work of some recognized researches in the field: James Paul Gee, Henri Jenkins, Yasmin Kafai, Debra Lieberman, Joost Rassens, etc.
Keywords : serious game, scientific research
This book is dedicated to arcade video games in Japan. Each of the 9 chapters of this book is dedicated to a specific kind of arcade game: UFO Catchers (mechanical games where you have to catch objects with a grip), Puriruka (improved photo booths loved by teenagers girls), rhythm games, shoot'em ups, fighting games, games of chance (Pachinko, Mahjong...), dedicated arcade games (for those seeking adrenaline through Taikan games), retrogaming (arcade games from the 80's and 90's still played tod
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Keywords : arcade, japan, versus fighting, shoot'em up, ufo catcher, rythm game, purikura, players
This bible is dedicated to the Nintendo DS portable console. The first part of the book briefly tells you the story of this console through about 20 pages featuring a lot of pictures. The second and main part of the book is dedicated to the presentation of 888 games for the console (the complete list of games released in Europe when this book was written). Each game is presented through a couple of picture alongside with a short text describing it. While it was first intended to be a b
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Keywords : history, encyclopedia, nintendo ds
Kaisha (a.k.a Kompany) is a Serious Game, available on social networks such as Facebook, that enables students in 8th and 9th grade to discover Corporate life through gameplay! The game helps teenagers learn the essential vocabulary used in the workplace and the principal mechanisms that underlie corporate activity. This project is initiated and coproduced with the French Ministry of Education.
Keywords : serious game, job orientation, corporate
IG Magazine is a journal, issued every 2 months, with a format that is half-way between a book and a regular journal. Each issue comes with more than 250 pages dedicated to the current trends, the economy, the culture and the history of videogames. IG magazine was published between March 2009 and July 2013, for a total of 27 regular issues and 10 additional "special issues." It was an excellent journal, the only french journal that was able to talk about current videogames topics while
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Keywords : journal, news, economy, culture, history, analysis