Experimental games : critique, play, and design in the age of gamification

In our unprecedentedly networked world, games have come to occupy an important space in many of our everyday lives. Digital games alone engage an estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide as of 2020, and other forms of gaming, such as board games, role playing, escape rooms, and puzzles, command an ever-expanding audience. At the same time, “gamification”—the application of game mechanics to traditionally nongame spheres, such as personal health and fitness, shopping, habit tracking, and more—has imposed unprecedented levels of competition, repetition, and quantification on daily life. Drawing from his own experience as a game designer, Patrick Jagoda argues that games need not be synonymous with gamification. He studies experimental games that intervene in the neoliberal project from the inside out, examining a broad variety of mainstream and independent games, including __StarCraft__, __Candy Crush Saga__, __Stardew Valley__, __Dys4ia__, __Braid__, and __Undertale__. Beyond a diagnosis of gamification, Jagoda imagines ways that games can be experimental—not only in the sense of __problem solving__, but also the more nuanced notion of __problem making__ that embraces the complexities of our digital present. The result is a game-changing book on the sociopolitical potential of this form of mass entertainment. "Few human pastimes absorb as much money and attention as games, and digital games alone engage more than two billion people worldwide. At the same time, the forms of experiment and behavior modification known as "gamification" have imposed unprecedented levels of competition, repetition, and quantification on daily life. Drawing from his own experience as a game designer, Patrick Jagoda shows that games need not be synonymous with gamification and reveals the ways in which experimental games can disrupt the logic of gamification itself. Games can, indeed, help us think beyond existing systems and intervene in neoliberal ideology from the inside out. Addressing game designers and new media artists as well as the growing field of game studies, Jagoda takes up a broad variety of games, including mainstream "AAA" games such "StarCraft, "widespread casual mobile games such as "Candy Crush Saga, "popular independent games such as "Stardew Valley, "formally experimental games such as "Luxuria Superbia, "and more personal auteur games such as "Dys4ia."He ranges over many genres including single-player, multi-player, and networked real-time strategy, platformers, simulators, first-person shooters, role-playing games, and puzzle games. The result is a game-changing book on the sociopolitical potential of this form of mass entertainment"-- Provided by publisher In our unprecedentedly networked world, games have come to occupy an important space in many of our everyday lives. Digital games alone engage an estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide as of 2020, and other forms of gaming, such as board games, role playing, escape rooms, and puzzles, command an ever-expanding audience. At the same time, "gamification"-the application of game mechanics to traditionally nongame spheres, such as personal health and fitness, shopping, habit tracking, and more-has imposed notable levels of competition, repetition, and quantification on daily life. Drawing from game studies and experience in game design, this book argues that games need not be synonymous with gamification