Sid Meiers Memoir A Life In Computer Games

Download or read book Sid Meier's Memoir!: A Life in Computer Games written by Sid Meier and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The life and career of the legendary developer celebrated as the “godfather of computer gaming” and creator of Civilization, featuring his rules of good game design. "Sid Meier is a foundation of what gaming is for me today." — Phil Spencer, head of Xbox Over his four-decade career, Sid Meier has produced some of the world’s most popular video games, including Sid Meier’s Civilization, which has sold more than 51 million units worldwide and accumulated more than one billion hours of play. Sid Meier’s Memoir! is the story of an obsessive young computer enthusiast who helped launch a multibillion-dollar industry. Writing with warmth and ironic humor, Meier describes the genesis of his influential studio, MicroProse, founded in 1982 after a trip to a Las Vegas arcade, and recounts the development of landmark games, from vintage classics like Pirates! and Railroad Tycoon, to Civilization and beyond. Articulating his philosophy that a video game should be “a series of interesting decisions,” Meier also shares his perspective on the history of the industry, the psychology of gamers, and fascinating insights into the creative process, including his rules of good game design.

Download or read book Fifty Key Video Games written by Bernard Perron and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-07-26 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines fifty of the most important video games that have contributed significantly to the history, development, or culture of the medium, providing an overview of video games from their beginning to the present day. This volume covers a variety of historical periods and platforms, genres, commercial impact, artistic choices, contexts of play, typical and atypical representations, uses of games for specific purposes, uses of materials or techniques, specific subcultures, repurposing, transgressive aesthetics, interfaces, moral or ethical impact, and more. Key video games featured include Animal Crossing, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, The Legend of Zelda, Minecraft, PONG, Super Mario Bros., Tetris, and World of Warcraft. Each game is closely analyzed in order to properly contextualize it, to emphasize its prominent features, to show how it creates a unique experience of gameplay, and to outline the ways it might speak about society and culture. The book also acts as a highly accessible showcase to a range of disciplinary perspectives that are found and practiced in the field of game studies. With each entry supplemented by references and suggestions for further reading, Fifty Key Video Games is an indispensable reference for anyone interested in video games.

Download or read book Videogames in the Indian Subcontinent written by Souvik Mukherjee and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-09-30 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Videogames in the Indian Subcontinent: Development, Culture(s) and Representations explores the gaming culture of one of the most culturally diverse and populous regions of the world-the Indian subcontinent. Building on the author's earlier work on videogame culture in India, this book addresses issues of how discussions of equality and diversity sit within videogame studies, particularly in connection with the subcontinent, thereby presenting pioneering research on the videogame cultures of the region. Drawing on a series of player and developer interviews and surveys conducted over the last five years, including some recent ones, this book provides a sense of how games have become a part of the culture of the region despite its huge diversity and plurality and opens up avenues for further study through vignettes and snapshots of the diverse gaming culture. It addresses the rapid rise of videogames as an entertainment medium in South Asia and, as such, also tries to better understand the recent controversies connected to gaming in the region In the process, it aims to make a larger connection between the development of videogames and player culture, in the subcontinent and globally, thus opening up channels for collaboration between the industry and academic research, local and global.

Download or read book Teaching the Middle Ages through Modern Games written by Robert Houghton and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2022-10-24 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Games can act as invaluable tools for the teaching of the Middle Ages. The learning potential of physical and digital games is increasingly undeniable at every level of historical study. These games can provide a foundation of information through their stories and worlds. They can foster understanding of complex systems through their mechanics and rules. Their very nature requires the player to learn to progress. The educational power of games is particularly potent within the study of the Middle Ages. These games act as the first or most substantial introduction to the period for many students and can strongly influence their understanding of the era. Within the classroom, they can be deployed to introduce new and alien themes to students typically unfamiliar with the subject matter swiftly and effectively. They can foster an interest in and understanding of the medieval world through various innovative means and hence act as a key educational tool. This volume presents a series of essays addressing the practical use of games of all varieties as teaching tools within Medieval Studies and related fields. In doing so it provides examples of the use of games at pre-university, undergraduate, and postgraduate levels of study, and considers the application of commercial games, development of bespoke historical games, use of game design as a learning process, and use of games outside the classroom. As such, the book is a flexible and diverse pedagogical resource and its methods may be readily adapted to the teaching of different medieval themes or other periods of history.

Download or read book Video Games and Comedy written by Krista Bonello Rutter Giappone and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-03-26 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Video Games and Comedy is the first edited volume to explore the intersections between comedy and video games. This pioneering book collects chapters from a diverse group of scholars, covering a wide range of approaches and examining the relationship between video games, humour, and comedy from many different angles. The first section of the book includes chapters that engage with theories of comedy and humour, adapting them to the specifics of the video game medium. The second section explores humour in the contexts, cultures, and communities that give rise to and spring up around video games, focusing on phenomena such as in-jokes, player self-reflexivity, and player/fan creativity. The third section offers case studies of individual games or game series, exploring the use of irony as well as sexual and racial humour in video games. Chapter “Emergence and Ephemerality of Humour During Live Coverage of Large-Scale eSports Events” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Download or read book Anatomy of Game Design written by Tom Smith and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2024-10-31 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: People have played games forever, but it’s only in the past few decades that people really started thinking about what games are, how they work, and how to make them better. Anatomy of Game Design takes some of the most popular and beloved games of all time and dissects them to see what makes them tick. By breaking down the systems and content of each game, the underlying systems of game design are laid bare. Eight games are analyzed – including Settlers of Catan; Centipede; Candy Crush Saga; Papers, Please; Magic: The Gathering; and more – each representing a different genre or era of game design. Each game is discussed in detail, using the same methods for each game. What are the verbs of the game that give the player agency? How do those verbs fit together to form a core loop that makes the game engaging? What are the systems that power the gameplay? What is the larger flow that makes the game interesting over and over again? Each game is then used as an example to tie back to one or more larger topics in game design, such as systems design, randomness, monetization, game theory, and iterative approaches to game development. Key Features: Uses well-known games to provide specific, discrete examples of broader game design theory Discusses eight popular games using the same methodology to allow comparison of different types of games Includes both high-level theory and academic perspective and practical, real-world guidance from a working game designer who has created these games for commercial release Provides clear direction for deeper inquiry into game design or related fields such as psychology, anthropology, game development, or systems thinking

Download or read book Gaming and Gamers in Times of Pandemic written by Piotr Siuda and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2024-01-11 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited collection brings in multiple scholarly perspectives to examine the impact of the pandemic and resulting government policies, especially lockdowns, on one particular cultural sphere: games. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted virtually every aspect of our lives, regardless of where we live. In the initial months, many industry reports noted the unexpected positive impact on online digital game sales. Games were not just lockdown-proof, but boosted by lockdowns. Stay-at-home orders triggered a rush toward games as an alternative form of entertainment, and the ubiquity of mobile phones allowed wider than ever participation. Gaming and Gamers in Times of Pandemic studies how the COVID-19 pandemic affected game players, game developers, game journalists and game scholars alike in many other ways, starting with the most direct – illness, and sometimes death. Some effects are temporary, others are here to stay.