Nonfiction about games

[Brown Rat]

This request is out of left field . . .

I teach a reading and composition class in college, and I want to use "Games" as the theme this fall. ("Games" includes board games, sports, card games, and so on--not just computer games.) I need to assign nonfiction reading about games, including scholarly articles that aren't too jargon-heavy. I want to avoid run-of-the-mill popular articles such as those that natter on about how video games are/aren't ruining kids; I'm interested in analysis of games and gamers and gaming communities (sociological, psychological, anthropological, historical, play theory, etc.). And I'd really like the articles to be well-written, so that they grab the students' interest.

Do you have any suggestions for nonfiction articles or books I could add to the reading list?

[ray gower]

Apart from card games like canasta, poker and pontoon, the only games I can think of that have prompted 'learned' articles are scrabble, mahjong and chess, both seem well represented on the net, the wikipedia being a good place to start:
Scrabble - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mahjong - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Chess - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[scalem X]

How about: fighting fantasy novels?
These are novels that are games. They are fun to play, (unless you get trapped in a maze for hours and end up using mathematical calculations so you get out )
linkage!!!
if you can get the books themselves, it would be fun to play one in class.

They are really easy to play, yet fun.

[Brown Rat]

Ray, I see two potentially useful texts in the Wikipedia bibliographies for scrabble and for chess:

Fatsis, Stefan. Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players. ISBN 0-14-200226-7

Gobet, Fernand, de Voogt, Alex, & Retschitzki, Jean (2004). Moves in Mind: The Psychology of Board Games. Psychology Press. ISBN 1841693367

Thanks! Those look scholarly enough. I'll check them out and see what they've got to offer.


Scalem, thank you; the games-that-are-novels are interesting! But I'm looking for nonfiction about games, not fiction.

[McMurphy]

Originally Posted by Brown Rat

This request is out of left field . . .

I teach a reading and composition class in college, and I want to use "Games" as the theme this fall. ("Games" includes board games, sports, card games, and so on--not just computer games.) I need to assign nonfiction reading about games, including scholarly articles that aren't too jargon-heavy. I want to avoid run-of-the-mill popular articles such as those that natter on about how video games are/aren't ruining kids; I'm interested in analysis of games and gamers and gaming communities (sociological, psychological, anthropological, historical, play theory, etc.). And I'd really like the articles to be well-written, so that they grab the students' interest.

Do you have any suggestions for nonfiction articles or books I could add to the reading list?

Brown Rat, there is actually quite a bit nonfiction coming out in regards to video games relating to theory out there. Below is a list of some examples currently available on Amazon.com:

The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon--The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World

High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games, Second Edition

What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy by James Paul Gee

The Video Game Theory Reader by Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard Perron

Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research, and Public Policy by Craig A. Anderson, Douglas A. Gentile, and Katherine E. Buckley

Sex in Video Games by Brenda Brathwaite

Character Development and Storytelling for Games (Game Development Series) by Lee Sheldon

Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames (Charles River Media Game Development) by Chris Bateman

The Medium of the Video Game by Mark J. P. Wolf and Ralph H. Baer

Better Game Characters by Design: A Psychological Approach (The Morgan Kaufmann Series in Interactive 3D Technology) by Katherine Isbister