Playing Video Games: Motives, Responses, and Consequences

Description

From security training simulations to war games to role-playing games, to sports games to gambling, playing video games has become a social phenomena, and the increasing number of players that cross gender, culture, and age is on a dramatic upward trajectory. Playing Video Games: Motives, Responses, and Consequences integrates communication, psychology, and technology to examine the psychological and mediated aspects of playing video games. It is the first volume to delve deeply into these aspects of computer game play. It fits squarely into the media psychology arm of entertainment studies, the next big wave in media studies. The book targets one of the most popular and pervasive media in modern times, and it will serve to define the area of study and provide a theoretical spine for future research. This unique and timely volume will appeal to scholars, researchers, and graduate students in media studies and mass communication, psychology, and marketing.

"...highly informative 400 page read...each chapter is packed full of juicy information that'll improve your debates concerning the virtues and pitfalls of gaming and beyond..." --CiN Weekly "The collection is a veritable candy store for students of human behavior at all levels. Because it covers so many different facets of gaming, it will be appealing to man types of audiences...This volume will get anyone up to speed who wants familiarity with the field and will provide an excellent synthesis for experts in one area who would like to expand their conceptualization of the entire field." --PsycCRITIQUES