As a podcast evangelist, I’m happy to announce that a couple of my articles are now available for your iPod pleasure at industrybroadcast.com.
Category: Games
Understanding Video Games now in stores
The video games text-book which I have co-written with Susana Tosca and Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen has now left the printers and reached the virtual shelves of Amazon.com.
The book is so interesting that it actually has a (somewhat rudimentary) Companion Website featuring the book’s brief introduction chapter.
If you’re in Denmark, here’s a list of fine web book stores that will be happy to ship the book to you.
If you’re in the UK, you can get it directly from Routledge.
It’s 16.99 UK Pounds / 29.95 USD, took some time to write, and we do hope you buy it :-)
Persuasive Games reviewed
I’ve published my thoughts on Ian Bogost’s book Persuasive Games over at game-research.com.
Briefly, I found the book a bit light on theory but excellent as a survey of the explosively growing field.
Action game boosts spatial skills
Researchers at the University of Toronto report that action game play increased players’ spatial skills, also over time. Female players get the biggest boost. Professor Ian Spence notes that
Clearly, something dramatic is happening in the brain when we see marked improvements in spatial skills after only 10 hours of game playing and these improvements are maintained for many months
That does seem a very considerable effect…
More in The Economist
Game rhetoric
I didn’t see it coming a few years back but I’m taking an interest in the persuasive powers of games (but then who isn’t? :-))
In that regard, I’ve strewn a few thoughts across my research group blog.