Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction [Hardcover]

The fifth edition of this pioneering textbook takes video game studies into the next decade, highlighting changes in mobile, social, and casual gaming. Drawing from examples, the text explores the aesthetics of games, evaluates the cultural position of video games, and considers the potential effects of both violent and serious games.

Praise for the fourth edition::

Understanding Video Games: The Essential Introduction?is a must-read primer for any student considering game studies. A handbook that is clear, precise, up-to-date and extremely useful for tackling video games, a cultural and technical phenomenon of great complexity and full of nuances. -- Belen Mainer Blance, Professor and Director of the Videogames Department at University Francisco de Vitoria

Praise for the third edition:

A user-friendly, eminently readable account that has something to offer to both the neophyte and the specialist,?Understanding Video Games?is the text that is needed to secure a durable place for game studies in the academic curriculum. -- Marie-Laure Ryan, author of?Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media

As the core text for my introductory games course,?Understanding Video Games?has remained an essential guide since its first edition. Ever attentive to the practicalities of classroom needs, this superb update presents its most complete and accessible overview of game studies yet. -- Soraya Murray, University of California, Santa Cruz

Understanding Video Games?is an admirably comprehensive treatment of the video game industry, history, culture, and theory. This new edition remains the best general textbook I've found for teaching video games in the college classroom. -- Alf Seegert, University of Utah<lÎ