An in-depth visual guide presenting the detailed creative journeys behind the development of the world’s leading videogames. Making Videogames is an extraordinary snapshot of modern interactive entertainment, with insight from pioneers about the most important games in the industry. Illustrated with some of the most arresting in-game images ever seen in print, this book explores the unique alchemy of a technical and artistic endeavor striking a captivating balance between insider insight and accessibility. Across twelve chapters, each focusing on a specific game from AAA blockbusters such as Control and Half-Life: Alyx to cult breakthrough games including No Man’s Sky and Return of the Obra Dinn, this volume documents the incredible craft of videogame worldbuilding. These chapters present masterful visual storytelling via the world’s most popular, but seldom fully understood, entertainment medium. Demonstrating the magic and method behind each studio’s work, the book includes enlightening text by Alex Wiltshire complementing specially created imagery “photographed” in-engine by screen capture artist Duncan Harris. A book for die-hard videogame fanatics, aspiring designer-creatives, video game developers, and the visually curious alike, Making Videogames will showcase the boundless creativity of this thrilling industry.

The greatest trick the videogame industry ever pulled was convincing the world that videogames were games rather than a medium for making metagames. Elegantly defined as “games about games,” metagames implicate a diverse range of practices that stray outside the boundaries and bend the rules: from technical glitches and forbidden strategies to Renaissance painting, algorithmic trading, professional sports, and the War on Terror. In Metagaming, Stephanie Boluk and Patrick LeMieux demonstrate how games always extend beyond the screen, and how modders, mappers, streamers, spectators, analysts, and artists are changing the way we play. Metagaming uncovers these alternative histories of play by exploring the strange experiences and unexpected effects that emerge in, on, around, and through videogames. Players puzzle through the problems of perspectival rendering in Portal, perform clandestine acts of electronic espionage in EVE Online, compete and commentate in Korean StarCraft, and speedrun The Legend of Zelda in record times (with or without the use of vision). Companies like Valve attempt to capture the metagame through international e-sports and online marketplaces while the corporate history of Super Mario Bros. is undermined by the endless levels of Infinite Mario, the frustrating pranks of Asshole Mario, and even Super Mario Clouds, a ROM hack exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art. One of the only books to include original software alongside each chapter, Metagaming transforms videogames from packaged products into instruments, equipment, tools, and toys for intervening in the sensory and political economies of everyday life. And although videogames conflate the creativity, criticality, and craft of play with the act of consumption, we don’t simply play videogames—we make metagames.

What impact can video games have on us as players? How does psychology influence video game creation? Why do some games become cultural phenomena? The Psychology of Video Games introduces the curious reader to the relationship between psychology and video games from the perspective of both game makers and players. Assuming no specialist knowledge, this concise, approachable guide is a starter book for anyone intrigued by what makes video games engaging and what is their psychological impact on gamers. It digests the research exploring the benefits gaming can have on players in relation to education and healthcare, considers the concerns over potential negative impacts such as pathological gaming, and concludes with some ethics considerations. With gaming being one of the most popular forms of entertainment today, The Psychology of Video Games shows the importance of understanding the human brain and its mental processes to foster ethical and inclusive video games.

A chronicle of the people, matches, and world events that shaped the South American mens Argentine soccer team known as Boca Juniors, from its founding in 1905 to today.

Video games are a popular form of media, and today it is easier than ever for people to create their own. This title explores the history and future of gaming technology, as well as the equipment, skills, challenges, and marketing strategies involved in designing and releasing video games. It also looks at the differences between big-budget developers and independent developers. Features include a glossary, references, websites, source notes, and an index. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Essential Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

If you know nothing about game development, you're basically me before I started working on my first game DARQ. This book assumes no knowledge of game development on the reader's part. As a first-time developer with no prior experience in coding, modeling, texturing, animation, game design, etc., I managed to launch DARQ to both commercial success and critical acclaim. With zero dollars spent on marketing, it was featured in major media outlets, such as IGN, Kotaku, PC Gamer, GameSpot, Forbes, and hundreds of others. Ultimately, DARQ became #42 Most Shared PC Video Game of 2019, according to Metacritic, with the average user rating of 9 out of 10. In my book, I'm sharing with you exactly how I did it. The book guides you through a step-by-step process of making a game: from downloading a game engine to releasing your first commercial title. The book features advice from 15 industry professionals, including Mark Kern (team lead of World of Warcraft), Quentin De Beukelaer (game designer of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Assassin's Creed Unity, Ghost Recon Breakpoint), Bjorn Jacobsen (sound designer of Cyberpunk 2077, Divinity: Fallen Heroes, Hitman), Austin Wintory (Grammy-nominated composer of Journey, ABZÛ, Assassin's Creed: Syndicate), and others. The foreword is written by my mentor John Corigliano, Oscar, Pulitzer Prize, and 5-time Grammy Award-winning composer.

Making it HUGE in Video Games recounts the astonishing journey of an unassuming, middle-of-the-bell-curve young man, rising from mundane beginnings to scale the dizzying heights of artistic distinction and financial success in the worldwide video game industry. This is the story of Chance Thomas, a moderately talented musician who struggled and grew to compose original scores for some of the most well-known entertainment properties in the world. Detailed personal accounts and instructive side bars carry readers across the jagged peaks and valleys of an absolutely achievable career in video games. World-famous IP’s get personal treatment here – The Lord of the Rings, Marvel, Avatar, Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer, DOTA 2, King Kong, The Settlers, and many more. Readers will discover unvarnished true stories about starting out, pitching and pursuing gigs, negotiating contracts, composing and producing scores, multinational corporations and personalities, funny anecdotes, daunting challenges, glorious successes, and instructive failures. Autobiographical details throughout provide intimate perspective, vibrant color, and inspiration. The book is written in a comfortable, conversational style. Think of this as a career guidebook wrapped around a personal retrospective; a professional how-to manual woven into a memoir.

Great guide for making a great video game. It primes the game maker before they start, it provides things they need to know while making a game, and contains 20 pages of free and original ideas. It is a book of ideas- of what was before and what could be. It brings all sorts of things to mind that the game maker should know. It covers every little thing that makes a good video game and things that ruin them too. It is a book that helps a game maker make the best game possible.

"Anna Anthropy is a key personality in the ongoing paradigm shift that is slowly changing the way videogames are understood, by creators and players, and by the wider culture." —Patrick Alexander, Eegra.com "Equal parts autobiography, ethnography, and how-to manual, this book concisely makes the case for the unique power of 'zinester' games." —Adam Parrish, NYU's Interactive Telecommunication Program (Tisch School of the Arts), and author of the ZZT game "Winter" "These days, everybody can make and distribute a photograph, or a video, or a book. Rise of the Videogame Zinesters shows you that everyone can make a videogame, too. But why should they? For Anna Anthropy, it's not for fame or for profit, but for the strange, aimless beauty of personal creativity.” —Ian Bogost, Director, Graduate Program in Digital Media, Georgia Institute of Technology "Rise is a great guidebook to understanding—and more importantly, participating in—this dynamically evolving culture." —Jim Munroe, co-founder of the Hand Eye Society and the Difference Engine Initiative “Here, Anna Anthropy demonstrates how people from every background and walk of life are breaking free of the commercial cowardice of major publishers, and bringing their individual visions of the game to life. . . . If game design is to be an art, as those of us who love games fervently hope, it must be rescued from its crushing commercial pressures. You can be a part of its future.” —Greg Costikyan, author of I Have No Mouth and I Must Design "Anna gives the world of video games a crucial perspective from her seat of authority within outsider culture, and illustrates how essential it is for the space to empower voices of all kinds if it is to evolve." —Leigh Alexander, editor-at-large of Gamasutra

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Videogame Sciences and Arts, VJ 2019, held in Aveiro, Portugal, in November 2019. The 20 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 50 submissions. They were organized in topical sections named: Games and Theories; Table Boards; eSports; Uses and Methodologies; Game Criticism.