Gamers: Writers, Artists and Programmers on the Pleasures of Pixels

By Shanna Compton

In Gamers, writers, artists, scholars, poets, and programmers talk about what gaming means to them and discuss the growing impact of video games on fashion, fiction, film, and music. Essays feature a glittering mix of topics from the esoteric to the purely entertaining: gender identity in relation to gaming, video golf as a meditative exercise, Ms. Pacman versus The Sims, the similarities between writing fiction and programming, the confessions of a video poker junkie, and much more.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1932360573
• ISBN13: 9781932360578
• Release Date: October 2004
• Publisher: Soft Skull
• Length: 280 Pages
• Weight: 0.97 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 7.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

The gamer in you

I love this book. Or, better, I love some chapters of it, and with few exceptions, I like the rest. It's a collection of essays by writers, artists, poets, etc. that describe how playing videogames has influenced them, or some particular moments in their lives. The essays are ordered to guide the reader through the history of videogames, form the very beginning to the golden age of the late eighties, with some spots on contemporary videogames. Some of the writings are perhaps too technical, but most of them are really fresh, enjoyable and - of course- well written. I was born in 1972, and I have spent a good fraction of my high school years playing wonderful videogames on a Commodore 64. This book gave me the chance to recollect some feelings of this teenager experience and it confirmed my feeling that videogames are much more than just entertainment.