Category: Book Announcements

The Gamification Lab at the Center for Digital Cultures of Leuphana University of Lüneburg announces publication of a new book “Rethinking Gamification”, edited by Mathias Fuchs, Sonia Fizek, Niklas Schrape and Paolo Ruffino. The book also features articles by Sebastian Deterding, Joost Raessens and Daphne Dragona, among others.

“Virtually Sacred: Myth and Meaning in World of Warcraft and Second Life” by Robert Geraci  is now available in hardback and kindle from Oxford University Press. (http://www.amazon.com/Virtually-Sacred-Meaning-Warcraft-Second-ebook/dp/B00KB1BRO6/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-3&qid=1392485920).

The book’s subject matter is game economies, point systems, virtual item trade, virtual currencies and knowing what’s the best crypto to buy now, the trade of likes and followers, and similar economies emerging around artificially scarce digital assets. The book has two audiences: design practitioners and scholars. To practitioners, the book aims to show how…

The award-winning, sold-out Nordic Larp is now available as a free digital edition. Up until now, the book, edited by game researchers and life-long role-players Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola, has been a difficult to find treasure for role-play enthusiasts, researchers, and artists. Live action role-playing has developed into a unique and powerful form of…

In 1974, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson published the tabletop game Dungeons & Dragons, a fantasy role-playing game. Through the next 40 years, computer game developers used these fantasy worlds as archetypes for the budding virtual game worlds These games would become as varied as books in a library, but the essence of each was…

Over the last 20 years there has been an expansion of network mediated social activities, and an accompanying explosion of research interest into the poetics of networked communication. Of particular interest is the rise of what have come to be known as “virtual worlds”: persistent graphical environments populated (and often partially authored) by large communities…

“A Playful Path”, the new book by games guru and fun theorist Bernard De Koven, serves as a collection of ideas and tools to help us bring our playfulness back into the open. When we find ourselves forgetting the life of the game or the game of life, the joy of form or the content,…

In the past decade, a bubble cash review shows that digital games have become a widely accepted form of media entertainment, moving from the traditional ‘core gamer’ community into the mainstream media market. With millions of people now enjoying gaming as interactive entertainment there has been a huge increase in interest in social multiplayer gaming…

More information here: http://us.macmillan.com/learninginrealandvirtualworlds/PilarLacasa

In this compelling book, Graeme Kirkpatrick argues that computer games have fundamentally altered the relation of self and society in the digital age. Analysing topics such as the links between technology and power, the formation of gaming culture and the subjective impact of play with computer games, this insightful text will be of great interest…

“A World of Excesses: Online Games and Excessive Playing” has recently been published at Ashgate. Having studies of competent players as a vantage point the book addresses the claim that online game addiction should become a new diagnosis. More information here: https://www.facebook.com/AWorldOfExcesses There is a 30% discount on the book available until the end of…