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

Author: Pete Etchells

Narrator: Ryan Burke

Unabridged: 9 hr 50 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/11/2019


Synopsis

'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 RutherfordWhen Pete Etchells was 14, his father died from motor neurone 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.

About Pete Etchells

Dr Pete Etchells is a lecturer in psychology at Bath Spa University, whose field of research is the behavioural effects of videogames on the human brain. He writes the acclaimed Headquarters blog for the Guardian and blogs for cosmicshambles.com. Lost in a Good Game is his first book.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Nelson

I would have loved to have liked this book, but it wasn't possible for two reasons: 1. 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......more

Goodreads review by Richard

I have liked and played video games since the old ASCII games in my college computer lab in the mid-70s, followed shortly therafter by Pong and then Space Invaders, Defender, Asteroids and PacMan at the local hamburger joints and arcades. I have gone on to waste an inordinate amount of time on vario......more

Actual rating: 2.5 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......more