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New

Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism

by Ian Bogost
$8.90
Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism
Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism

Bridging literary theory with game criticism.

If you're fascinated by games beyond their entertainment value, "Unit Operations" can broaden your perspective. It connects literary analysis with the digital world, pointing out the shared DNA between classic literature and modern video games. Your appreciation for both mediums might deepen as you explore how storytelling and mechanics come alive in ways that Ian Bogost masterfully unpacks. It's an intellectual endeavor that promises to enhance how you engage with various forms of art and media.

Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.
New

Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism

by Ian Bogost
$8.90
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ISBN: 9780262524872
Authors: Ian Bogost
Publisher: MIT Press
Date of Publication: 2008-01-25
Format: Paperback
Related Collections: Sociology, Philosophy, Science
Related Topics: Theory
Goodreads rating: 3.68
(rated by 216 readers)

Description

In Unit Operations, Ian Bogost argues that similar principles underlie both literary theory and computation, proposing a literary-technical framework that can be used to analyze particular video games. The book suggests that this approach can be applied across media—from video games to poetry, literature, cinema, or art—read as configurative systems of discrete, interlocking units of meaning, and Bogost illustrates this method with examples from these fields. He contends that the marriage of literary theory and information technology will help humanists take technology more seriously and help technologists better understand software and video games as cultural artifacts. The approach is especially useful for the comparative analysis of digital and nondigital artifacts and enables scholars from other fields who are studying video games to avoid the esoteric isolation of game studies. The richness of Bogost's comparative approach is shown in his discussions of philosophers and theorists such as Plato, Badiou, Žižek, and McLuhan, and in his analyses of games including Pong, Half-Life, and Star Wars Galaxies. Bogost draws on object technology and complex adaptive systems theory for his method of unit analysis, underscoring the configurative aspects of a wide variety of human processes. His extended analysis of freedom in large virtual spaces examines Grand Theft Auto III, The Legend of Zelda, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, and Joyce's Ulysses. In Unit Operations, Bogost not only offers a new methodology for videogame criticism but argues for the possibility of real collaboration between the humanities and information technology.
 

Bridging literary theory with game criticism.

If you're fascinated by games beyond their entertainment value, "Unit Operations" can broaden your perspective. It connects literary analysis with the digital world, pointing out the shared DNA between classic literature and modern video games. Your appreciation for both mediums might deepen as you explore how storytelling and mechanics come alive in ways that Ian Bogost masterfully unpacks. It's an intellectual endeavor that promises to enhance how you engage with various forms of art and media.

Note: While we do our best to ensure the accuracy of cover images, ISBNs may at times be reused for different editions of the same title which may hence appear as a different cover.