Playing Nature

Playing Nature
Author: Alenda Y. Chang
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2019-12-31
Genre: Games & Activities
ISBN: 145296226X

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A potent new book examines the overlap between our ecological crisis and video games Video games may be fun and immersive diversions from daily life, but can they go beyond the realm of entertainment to do something serious—like help us save the planet? As one of the signature issues of the twenty-first century, ecological deterioration is seemingly everywhere, but it is rarely considered via the realm of interactive digital play. In Playing Nature, Alenda Y. Chang offers groundbreaking methods for exploring this vital overlap. Arguing that games need to be understood as part of a cultural response to the growing ecological crisis, Playing Nature seeds conversations around key environmental science concepts and terms. Chang suggests several ways to rethink existing game taxonomies and theories of agency while revealing surprising fundamental similarities between game play and scientific work. Gracefully reconciling new media theory with environmental criticism, Playing Nature examines an exciting range of games and related art forms, including historical and contemporary analog and digital games, alternate- and augmented-reality games, museum exhibitions, film, and science fiction. Chang puts her surprising ideas into conversation with leading media studies and environmental humanities scholars like Alexander Galloway, Donna Haraway, and Ursula Heise, ultimately exploring manifold ecological futures—not all of them dystopian.

Playing Smart

Playing Smart
Author: Julian Togelius
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2019-01-15
Genre: Games & Activities
ISBN: 0262039036

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A new vision of the future of games and game design, enabled by AI. Can games measure intelligence? How will artificial intelligence inform games of the future? In Playing Smart, Julian Togelius explores the connections between games and intelligence to offer a new vision of future games and game design. Video games already depend on AI. We use games to test AI algorithms, challenge our thinking, and better understand both natural and artificial intelligence. In the future, Togelius argues, game designers will be able to create smarter games that make us smarter in turn, applying advanced AI to help design games. In this book, he tells us how. Games are the past, present, and future of artificial intelligence. In 1948, Alan Turing, one of the founding fathers of computer science and artificial intelligence, handwrote a program for chess. Today we have IBM's Deep Blue and DeepMind's AlphaGo, and huge efforts go into developing AI that can play such arcade games as Pac-Man. Programmers continue to use games to test and develop AI, creating new benchmarks for AI while also challenging human assumptions and cognitive abilities. Game design is at heart a cognitive science, Togelius reminds us—when we play or design a game, we plan, think spatially, make predictions, move, and assess ourselves and our performance. By studying how we play and design games, Togelius writes, we can better understand how humans and machines think. AI can do more for game design than providing a skillful opponent. We can harness it to build game-playing and game-designing AI agents, enabling a new generation of AI-augmented games. With AI, we can explore new frontiers in learning and play.

Games People Play

Games People Play
Author: Eric Berne
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1978
Genre: Interpersonal relations
ISBN:

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The Effects of Video Games on Children

The Effects of Video Games on Children
Author: Barrie Gunter
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 186
Release: 1998-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781850758334

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The rapid growth in popularity of computer and video games, particularly among children and teenagers, has given rise to public concern about the effects they might have on youngsters. The violent themes of many of these games, coupled with their interactive nature, have led to accusations that they may be worse than televised violence in affecting children's antisocial behaviour. Other allegations are that they have an addictive quality and that excessive playing results in a diminished social contact and poorer school performance. But how bad are video games? There are strong methodological reasons for not accepting the evidence for video games effects at face value. There are also positive signs that playing these games can enhance particular mental competencies in children. This book provides an up-to-date review and critique of research evidence from around the world in an attempt to put the issue of video game effects into perspective.

How Computer Games Help Children Learn

How Computer Games Help Children Learn
Author: David Williamson Shaffer
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2006-12-26
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 9781403975058

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Classical Antiquity in Video Games

Classical Antiquity in Video Games
Author: Christian Rollinger
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2020-01-09
Genre: Games & Activities
ISBN: 1350066656

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From gaming consoles to smartphones, video games are everywhere today, including those set in historical times and particularly in the ancient world. This volume explores the varied depictions of the ancient world in video games and demonstrates the potential challenges of games for scholars as well as the applications of game engines for educational and academic purposes. With successful series such as “Assassin's Creed” or "Civilization” selling millions of copies, video games rival even television and cinema in their role in shaping younger audiences' perceptions of the past. Yet classical scholarship, though embracing other popular media as areas of research, has so far largely ignored video games as a vehicle of classical reception. This collection of essays fills this gap with a dedicated study of receptions, remediations and representations of Classical Antiquity across all electronic gaming platforms and genres. It presents cutting-edge research in classics and classical receptions, game studies and archaeogaming, adopting different perspectives and combining papers from scholars, gamers, game developers and historical consultants. In doing so, it delivers the first state-of-the-art account of both the wide array of 'ancient' video games, as well as the challenges and rewards of this new and exciting field.

Video Games

Video Games
Author: Kevin Hile
Publisher: Greenhaven Publishing LLC
Total Pages: 106
Release: 2009-10-26
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction
ISBN: 1420503065

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The evolution of the video game is incredible; from a two-colored screen with paddle and pong to fully immersive alternate playing worlds, it is one technology that seems to be constantly evolving. This volume explains the history of video games, the considerations of their impact on players and society, and how they can be used as educational tools. Readers will learn about the future of video games as well.

Ethics and Game Design: Teaching Values through Play

Ethics and Game Design: Teaching Values through Play
Author: Schrier, Karen
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2010-02-28
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1615208461

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"This book addressing an emerging field of study, ethics and gamesand answers how we can better design and use games to foster ethical thinking and discourse in classrooms"--Provided by publisher.

Computer Games and the Social Imaginary

Computer Games and the Social Imaginary
Author: Graeme Kirkpatrick
Publisher: Polity
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2013-10-07
Genre: Games & Activities
ISBN: 0745641105

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Computer games have fundamentally altered the relation of self and society in the digital age. Analysing topics such as technology and power, the formation of gaming culture and the subjective impact of play with computer games, this text will be of great interest to students and scholars of digital media, games studies and the information society.