Lost in a Good Game: Why we play video games and what they can do for us

Description

'Etchells writes eloquently ... A heartfelt defence of a demonised pastime' - The Times 'Once in an age, a piece of culture comes along that feels like it was specifically created for you, the beats and words and ideas are there because it is your life the creator is describing. Lost In A Good Game is exactly that. It will touch your heart and mind. And even if Bowser, Chun-li or Q-Bert weren't crucial parts of your youth, this is a flawless victory for everyone' - Adam Rutherford. When Pete Etchells was 14, his father died from motor neuron disease. In order to cope, he immersed himself in a virtual world - first as an escape, but later to try to understand what had happened. Etchells is now a researcher into the psychological effects of video games, and was co-author on a recent paper explaining why WHO plans to classify 'game addiction' as a danger to public health are based on bad science and (he thinks) are a bad idea. In this, his first book, he journeys through the history and development of video games - from Turing's chess machine to mass multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft- via scientific study, to investigate the highs and lows of playing and get to the bottom of our relationship with games - why we do it, and what they really mean to us. At the same time, Lost in a Good Game is a very unusual memoir of a writer coming to terms with his grief via virtual worlds, as he tries to work out what area of popular culture we should classify games (a relatively new technology) under.

Pete Etchells is a Reader in Psychology and Science Communication at Bath Spa University, whose field of research is the behavioural effects of videogames on the human brain. This is his first book.

An anecdotal survey that is enriching and touching, while issuing a challenge to the bad science surrounding the subject. -- New Statesman Etchells writes eloquently ... A heartfelt defence of a demonised pastime * The Times * Once in an age, a piece of culture comes along that feels like it was specifically created for you, the beats and words and ideas are there because it is your life the creator is describing. Lost In A Good Game is exactly that. It will touch your heart and mind. And even if Bowser, Chun-li or Q-Bert weren't crucial parts of your youth, this is a flawless victory for everyone -- Adam Rutherford Pete Etchells' debut book Lost in a Good Game takes the reader on a much needed, highly informative, but still intriguingly personal journey through the much maligned yet increasingly beloved and influential world of video games -- Dean Burnett, neuroscientist and author of The Happy Brain