{"product_id":"critical-play-radical-game-design-the-mit-press-9780262518659b","title":"Critical Play: Radical Game Design (The MIT Press)","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn examination of subversive games - games designed for political, aesthetic, and social critique.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor many players, games are entertainment, diversion, relaxation, fantasy. But what if certain games were something more than this, providing not only outlets for entertainment but a means for creative expression, instruments for conceptual thinking, or tools for social change? In Critical Play, artist and game designer Mary Flanagan examines alternative games - games that challenge the accepted norms embedded within the gaming industry - and argues that games designed by artists and activists are reshaping everyday game culture.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFlanagan provides a lively historical context for critical play through twentieth-century art movements, connecting subversive game design to subversive art: her examples of “playing house” include Dadaist puppet shows and The Sims. She looks at artists' alternative computer-based games and explores games for change, considering the way activist concerns - including worldwide poverty and AIDS - can be incorporated into game design.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eArguing that this kind of conscious practice - which now constitutes the avant-garde of the computer game medium - can inspire new working methods for designers, Flanagan offers a model for designing that will encourage the subversion of popular gaming tropes through new styles of game making, and proposes a theory of alternate game design that focuses on the reworking of contemporary popular game practices.","brand":"MIT Press","offers":[{"title":"Bargain","offer_id":42994339774544,"sku":"9780262518659B","price":12.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/bookoutlet.com\/fr\/products\/critical-play-radical-game-design-the-mit-press-9780262518659b","provider":"Book Outlet","version":"1.0","type":"link"}