A Casual Revolution: Reinventing Video Games and Their Players - Softcover

Juul, Jesper

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0262517396 ISBN 13: 9780262517393

Publisher: MIT Press, 2012

Synopsis

How casual games like Guitar Hero, Bejeweled, and those for Nintendo Wii are expanding the audience for video games.

We used to think that video games were mostly for young men, but with the success of the Nintendo Wii, and the proliferation of games in browsers, cell phone games, and social games video games changed changed fundamentally in the years from 2000 to 2010. These new casual games are now played by men and women, young and old. Players need not possess an intimate knowledge of video game history or devote weeks or months to play. At the same time, many players of casual games show a dedication and skill that is anything but casual. In A Casual Revolution, Jesper Juul describes this as a reinvention of video games, and of our image of video game players, and explores what this tells us about the players, the games, and their interaction.

With this reinvention of video games, the game industry reconnects with a general audience. Many of today's casual game players once enjoyed Pac-Man, Tetris, and other early games, only to drop out when video games became more time-consuming and complex. Juul shows that it is only by understanding what a game requires of players, what players bring to a game, how the game industry works, and how video games have developed historically that we can understand what makes video games fun and why we choose to play (or not to play) them.

Important Notice: The digital edition of this book is missing some of the images found in the physical edition.

About this title

About the Author

Jesper Juul is Associate Professor in the School of Design at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. He is the author of Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds; A Casual Revolution: Reinventing Video Games and Their Players; and The Art of Failure: An Essay on the Pain of Playing Video Games, all published by the MIT Press.

Review

A Casual Revolution is a hard look at the unique characteristics of games outside of the hardcore. Juul pushes past the prejudice that casual games are somehow lesser experiences and presents a multifaceted view of 'casualness,' casual players and the non-trivial role of these deeply engaging games in our social and cultural lives.

―Tracy Fullerton, Director, USC Game Innovation Lab, USC School of Cinematic Arts, Interactive Media Division

Edition details

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0262517396
• ISBN 13: 9780262517393
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 260