Extra Lives : : why Video Games Matter

Locations
Call Number: Adult Book / Nonfiction / Sports & Recreation / Games / Bissell, Tom
On Shelf At: Pittsfield Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Sports & Recreation / Games / Bissell, Tom	4-week checkout	On Shelf

Includes index.
Fallout -- Headshots -- The unbearable lightness of games -- The grammar of fun -- Littlebigproblems -- Braided -- Mass effects -- Far cries -- Grand thefts.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

CHOICE Review
Booklist Review
Publishers Weekly Review
Summary / Annotation
Table of Contents
Fiction Profile
Excerpt
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Essentially a Gamer's Memoirs submitted by calinescus on June 17, 2016, 11:18am Overall, this is a humorous book about the author's experiences playing games and his conversations with people who make them. Tom Bissell prefers action games, sci-fi, and shooters, and he talks about these types of games the most.

The subtitle of the book "Why video games matter" seemed a little misleading. It seemed more like a series of memoirs and opinions than any solid thesis on the importance and state of games, but this is not an academic text. Perhaps a subtitle like "My personal explorations in gaming" might be more appropriate.

The author has interviewed and interacted with a lot of important people within the industry, as well as attended conferences- so these experiences and insights certainly give the book substance. The author has obviously a passion for games and often remarks on the large number of hours he has spent on certain games. His spends a good amount of time describing the plot, interface, and gameplay of a few different games (around 9 chapters, and each focuses around a single game).

One recurring idea that kind of bothered me was his constant comparison of games to other mass media such as Hollywood movies. He doesn't include references to any literature, or fact-citing, so these constant comparisons come off as assumptive, unscientific, and biased. But of course, he presents these opinions as being quite true and never takes the time to retract and qualify what he's saying , or emphasize that these statements are just personal opinion. People with interests in video games might benefit from looking at all the non-fiction writing about games in the fields of anthropology, psychology, game studies, and cultural studies, etc.

Good book, but not exactly what's advertised submitted by pixel gamer 3000 on August 13, 2017, 10:41am This is a great book about one man's experience with video games, and how they have affected his life. It is not, however, a book about how video games are essential to society, or even why they really matter in the grand scheme of things. If you're planning on getting this book to read about examples of what video games are, then you're in luck. Otherwise, it's just a personal narrative that doesn't have much outside effect.

A Great Investigation submitted by jibkidder on July 19, 2022, 9:02am Here, Tom Bissell, a very talented writer, makes an impassioned attempt to defend video games as the art of our times. This is, in large part, a case he is trying to make to himself, and I would add, a case he fails to make. Nabokov described "Lolita" as something like a person attempting to sketch the bars of his own cage, and that admirable act is what Bissell seems up to here - he is pushing up against that which he is locked inside. While up to the last moment, he begs the reader to believe him that video games have offered him valuable life experiences, his narrative points towards the opposite, reifying the common assumptions about gamers - e.g. he seems sexist, increasingly alone and unproductive, cross-addicted, etc. The more he plays, the less he is able to not play and the rest of his life takes a hit accordingly. What he does reveal, is that thinking deeply is rewarding, and his document of his own descent leaves one with much to think about.