like this one might better be titled Loss and a Good Game,
I found some points of interest here, but it didn't give me quite what I was expecting, I had hoped for more of a academic or even pop science exploration of the psychology of how players experience games, This was in parts a very personal book as the author wove into it his own experiences with games while dealing with loss, The book also examines the state of scientific inquiry into gaming, and the concerns around the harmful nature of games, I found the science and the questions around harm, somewhat interesting, but largely disappointing, The personal parts received more attention than I'd like,
This book will be received differently from different people, just as the author explains different games have an impact on people who play them.
When I saw the title I didnt know what to expect, I actually was looking for a good fictional read at the time, Once I started I was drawn into the perspective of the author as he not only explained the history of games, but told personal stories of his life, losing his father and how games helped him deal with the loss.
As a PhD and researcher, he walks through the methodologies used for scientific studies and how theres potential for poor conclusions to be drawn and amplified.
He goes into many of the flawed gaming studies and news reports that talk about dangers of games and gives a measured approach and supporting evidence for his claims.
This section is useful to learn about as it can help you understand how many scientific studies are filtered by the time you read them.
He also gets into some of the serious problems with games and downsides of playing certain types of games, Whats interesting is hes able to cover what seems like it will be a relatively dry subject in an immersive way, He tells stories of nostalgia and classic games he played and interweaves it with moments in his life in a way where I found myself lost in a good book.
I really wish I had loved this book, but it was not possible, for two reasons:
, In the academic domain, while agreeing that in science everything is provisional and nothing absolute exists I cannot agree with an approach that throws everything behind human complexity and bias.
Yes, the world is much more complex than we would like it to be, The variables are far greater in number than we can control, or even get to know, But using that as a subterfuge to sit back and watch life go by makes no sense, There are plenty of problems with video game studies, but that's no reason to pull up the rug and throw everything under there, On the other hand, using the idea that everything we want to study in the human will be contaminated by the bias of those who study along with the bias of those who are analysed, while a reality, cannot be used to not do anything either.
There are many ways to deal with bias, and in psychology, this ends up being the work par excellence of researchers,
. Being no worse than discrediting science, trying to write a book that is simultaneously a memoir, a novel and a scientific essay is not a task within everyone's reach.
It would be difficult enough to write in one of these registers and make a good book, To be able to jump between the various registers, connecting everything and keeping the reader focused is something that does not happen here, You can't be talking about your father's illness, and then talk about the irrelevance of player profiles, and then move on to anecdotes about historical technologies.
Wow! This book is the only smart content I've encountered on the topic of gaming, It has the perfect balance of science and story,
Unfortunately, a good chunk of the book is focused on dispelling negative views relating to gaming, This is necessary now because it's poorly understood, but hopefully in the future we will have more science to work with, Actual .stars. There's nothing really wrong with this book so I feel bad giving it a low rating, but honestly, I was a little bored by it.
This book is much more psychological research focused than I was expecting, The only thing I really learned here was that it's incredibly difficult to do any kind of psychological research whether because of unconscious or blatant bias and that all findings should be taken with a grain of salt.
Although the attempt to weave a narrative in a sort of travel/memoir style, this doesn't really mesh well with the deeper studies, which are very informative and one of the few books to take gaming seriously.
The switches between academic study and emotive writing are quite jarring and unbalanced, they do however a passable job of drawing into the core investigations and arguments.
Having said that, the investigations themselves were very interesting, as were the discussions of problems surrounding games and gaming culture, Overall, a mature and thought provoking book which I enjoyed reading, Closer to.stars.
This book is a little bit of a lot of things, One part memoir. One part history book. One part psychological study/theory,
Each of them are written okay, There really isnt much special to point out, however, The historic part was probably the most interesting to me, I would have liked to know more about the inspiration for games or how they had an effect on history, etc,
But there is very little of that here,
The psychological part would be interesting if only the author Pete Etchells dove deeper into it than simple theories he comes up with.
The memoir portions are alright, They are more or less short stories about how important events in Etchells life occurred and what video games coincided with said memories, Thats about it.
I will give it this: its an easy listen,
My big point of confusion is that Etchell is a UK writer, but the audiobook has an American narrator Ryan Burke Im not sure why.
Anyway, not for everyone, but currently free on audible via their plus catalog, Pete Etchells is in love with gaming, video games to be specific, He has a deep understanding of video games on an emotional level, personally, I don't say that as a friend of Etchells, but it bleeds through his words in the piece of work, Getting lost in a great video game is a personal matter for most gamers, and Etchells is not the exception, Video games helped him through difficult moments in his life, which is why his approach to such a topic is handled carefully, methodically, and thoroughly.
Although Etchells has a written a great bit of research and proves a point extremely well, the dichotomy between video games and mental health is a difficult topic to find entertaining as a reader.
I did not thoroughly enjoy Etchells work, but I certainly have a hard time condemning it in any form, Based on how the piece began, I thought that it would not be as much of research literature, as a work of nonfiction opinion pieces.
That is my error. In no way is this book presented as such or deceiving, so I cannot fault it in that manner, The only fault I can ascertain is that several chapters lose the pace of the overall thesis in an effort to draw out his research base analytical approach to the problem.
It is wonderfully knowledgable, but a difficult to enjoy reading in your free time, At points, it felt more like work to read, than entertainment, Again, that is my fault for not understanding Etchells point before I started reading,
Alas, I still would recommend this to anyone that has thoughts on video games and mental health, Etchells presents a clear picture and nearly paints a dichotomy between each of the subjects, He does not deny that video games do not play a factor in a person's mental health, but he also questions the many theories the tend to swirl about society in modern times concerning such.
Pete Etchell loves video games, much as I do, He understands the important factor that they have played for many and wants to preserve that pasttime, He does not want to preserve it,
I fully recommend it, As a parent of a child who will inevitably love gaming read it, As a gamer read it, As a curious person that doesn't want to buy what researchers and the government say read it, I'm on my way to the Edinburgh Book Festival and as the mother of a gamer I've booked a ticket to the "Game On" session by Pete Etchells.
Reading his book "Lost in a Good Game" was part of my preparation, And I'm so glad I've read it,
Pete is a psychologist and science writer, A PhD who specialises in the world of gaming as a researcher and a gamer and someone who also specialises in the quality of research generally.
This book does two things: it provides well written and research counterpoint to public opinion about the impact of video gaming and it introduces the reader to the mindset of one gamer him and how he interacts with games, and why.
As someone who doesn't like games much of any kind I've never been drawn to the world of gaming so have found it hard to understand my son's world.
This book has given me an insight to that world and has helped me have a number of in depth conversations about games with my son which I've greatly appreciated and grown from.
A couple of years ago I started to tire of the "screens are bad" and "gaming is bad" tropes perpetuated by parents I know.
It stopped making sense to me in our technology filled world, And it didn't make sense that gaming was bad but eg, binge watching The Bachelor or Game of Thrones was acceptable, Or that gaming was an unacceptable pastime but concerning parent and child behaviours in organised sport didn't result in warnings about that activity, But I didn't have any knowledge to explain my thoughts, Now, in conjunction with great discussions with my son, I feel I do,
And over the last couple of years I've become aware of the poor state of some elements of the scientific community, "It's science" is another justification used by all manner of poor scientists with poor methodology or even none, The number of books out aimed at parents backed up by poor or nonexistent scientific method is astounding, When a topic is hot it seems publishers and other media will grasp at anything,
This book brings all the issues together
in well explained and interesting chapters,
I have come away realising that research in this field is immature at best and that there seems to be a lot of hype about the impacts of gaming that doesn't stand up to the hype.
I am more curious about gaming and the world my son loves, And I look forward to a more sensible discourse about the field in the future,
The one area that was touched on lightly that I have more questions on is inclusion in gaming, I will save my questions on that one for Pete's session in late August,
I highly recommend this book to anyone who knows someone who loves gaming, It will help you think about the issue in a more mature way,
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