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\"A comprehensive guide to the classic card game of bridge, including an overview of the basics, tips and techniques how to play--and strategies to win; perfect for new bridge players and experienced pros alike. Bridge is all about memory, bidding, and skill. It is one of the most popular card games in the world, and is played by millions of people worldwide in tournaments, clubs, and cruises, as well as online. New to the world of bridge? No problem! Learning any new game can be challenging, especially one as complicated as bridge. But mastering a complex game can be very rewarding. Whether you are a complete novice or a casual player looking to brush up on your skills and techniques, The Little Book of Bridge can help you play your cards right and get ahead in this classic game. With a comprehensive breakdown of all the cards involved in the game, detailed information on scoring, tips on how to improve your skills, strategies for winning, and a tear-away cheat sheet, this guide will have even the newest bridge enthusiast winning in no time flat\"-- Provided by publisher.

A gaming academic offers a \"fascinating\" exploration of why we play video games--despite the unhappiness we feel when we fail at them ( Boston Globe ) We may think of video games as being \"fun,\" but in The Art of Failure , Jesper Juul claims that this is almost entirely mistaken.

In the mid 2000s, online gaming was a robust and thriving culture, with dedicated participants around the world. A decade later, mobile games had spawned billion-dollar franchises, and e-sports had earned a viewership rivaling the audiences of blockbuster films. As online gaming grew into a pop culture industry, new questions were raised about the role of video games in business, politics, education, and culture. The articles in this collection showcase the development of this multi-faceted industry, and features such as media literacy terms and questions will engage readers beyond the text.

The impulse toward play is very ancient, not only pre-cultural but pre-human; zoologists have identified play behaviors in turtles and in chimpanzees. Games have existed since antiquity; 5,000-year-old board games have been recovered from Egyptian tombs. And yet we still lack a critical language for thinking about play. Game designers are better at answering small questions (\"Why is this battle boring?\") than big ones (\"What does this game mean?\"). In this book, the game designer Brian Upton analyzes the experience of play -- how playful activities unfold from moment to moment and how the rules we adopt constrain that unfolding. Drawing on games that range from Monopoly to Dungeons & Dragons to Guitar Hero, Upton develops a framework for understanding play, introducing a set of critical tools that can help us analyze games and game designs and identify ways in which they succeed or fail.Upton also examines the broader epistemological implications of such a framework, exploring the role of play in the construction of meaning and what the existence of play says about the relationship between our thoughts and external reality. He considers the making of meaning in play and in every aspect of human culture, and he draws on findings in pragmatic epistemology, neuroscience, and semiotics to describe how meaning emerges from playful engagement. Upton argues that play can also explain particular aspects of narrative; a play-based interpretive stance, he proposes, can help us understand the structure of books, of music, of theater, of art, and even of the process of critical engagement itself.

Gaming magazine authors from around the globe present a chronological yet qualitative history of the video game, with insight into the development, popularity, and influence of games that can't be missed.

The odyssey of a group of \"refugees\" from a closed-down online game and an exploration of emergent fan cultures in virtual worlds.Play communities existed long before massively multiplayer online games; they have ranged from bridge clubs to sports leagues, from tabletop role-playing games to Civil War reenactments. With the emergence of digital networks, however, new varieties of adult play communities have appeared, most notably within online games and virtual worlds. Players in these networked worlds sometimes develop a sense of community that transcends the game itself. In Communities of Play, game researcher and designer Celia Pearce explores emergent fan cultures in networked digital worlds-actions by players that do not coincide with the intentions of the game's designers. Pearce looks in particular at the Uru Diaspora-a group of players whose game, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, closed. These players (primarily baby boomers) immigrated into other worlds, self-identifying as \"refugees\"; relocated in There.com, they created a hybrid culture integrating aspects of their old world. Ostracized at first, they became community leaders. Pearce analyzes the properties of virtual worlds and looks at the ways design affects emergent behavior. She discusses the methodologies for studying online games, including a personal account of the sometimes messy process of ethnography. Pearce considers the \"play turn\" in culture and the advent of a participatory global playground enabled by networked digital games every bit as communal as the global village Marshall McLuhan saw united by television. Countering the ludological definition of play as unproductive and pointing to the long history of pre-digital play practices, Pearce argues that play can be a prelude to creativity.

Serious Games provides a thorough exploration of the claim that playing games can provide learning that is deep, sustained and transferable to the real world. \"Serious games\" is defined herein as any form of interactive computer-based game software for one or multiple players to be used on any platform and that has been developed to provide more than entertainment to players. With this volume, the editors address the gap in exisiting scholarship on gaming, providing an academic overview on the mechanisms and effects of serious games. Contributors investigate the psychological mechanisms that take place not only during gaming, but also in game selection, persistent play, and gaming impact. The work in this collection focuses on the desirable outcomes of digital game play. The editors distinguish between three possible effects -- learning, development, and change -- covering a broad range of serious games’ potential impact. Contributions from internationally recognized scholars focus on five objectives: Define the area of serious games Elaborate on the underlying theories that explain suggested psychological mechanisms elicited through serious game play, addressing cognitive, affective and social processes Summarize the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of serious games, Introduce innovative research methods as a response to methodological challenges imposed through interactive media Discuss the possibilities and limitations of selected applications for educational purposes. Anchored primarily in social science research, the reader will be introduced to approaches that focus on the gaming process and the users’ experiences. Additional perspectives will be provided in the concluding chapters, written from non-social science approaches by experts in academic game design and representatives of the gaming industry. The editors acknowledge the necessity for a broader interdisciplinary study of the phenomena and work to overcome the methodological divide in games research to look ahead to a more integrated and interdisciplinary study of digital games. This timely and singular volume will appeal to scholars, researchers, and graduate students working in media entertainment and game studies in the areas of education, media, communication, and psychology. Ute Ritterfeld , Professor for Media Psychology, received her education in the Health Sciences (Academy of Rehabilitation in Heidelberg) and in Psychology (University of Heidelberg), completed her Ph.D. in Psychology (Technical University in Berlin), and habilitated at the University of Magdeburg, Germany. She was Assistant Professor at the University of Magdeburg, Adjunct Professor at the Universities of Berlin (Humboldt) and Hannover, and Associate Professor at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles, Annenberg School for Communication. At USC, Ritterfeld directed an interdisciplinary research team devoted to the studies of digital games and hosted the inaugural academic conference on serious games. In 2007, Ritterfeld joined the faculty of Psychology and Education at the VU University Amsterdam and co-founded the Center for Advanced Media Research Amsterdam (CAMeRA@VU) where she serves as director of interdisciplinary research. Ritterfeld co-edits the Journal of Media Psychology published by Hogrefe. Michael Cody is Professor of Communication at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication. He earned his Ph.D. in Communication at Michigan State University in 1978, where he focused on research methods and face to face social influence processes. He has authored or edited books in persuasion, interpersonal communication and entertainment education. He is the editor of the Journal of Communication (2009-2012). Peter Vorderer (Ph.D., Technical University of Berlin), is Scientific Director of the Center for Advanced Media Research Amsterdam (CAMeRA) and head of the Department of Communication Science, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He specializes in media use and media effects research with a special focus on media entertainment and digital games. Together with Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant, he has edited three well-recognized volumes on media entertainment and video games.

|a Mary Flanagan examines alternative games-games that challenge the accepted norms embedded within the gaming industry-and argues that games designed by artists and activists are reshaping everyday game culture.-Publisher's description. Summary reprinted by permission of MIT Press