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Everything to Play For:How Videogames Are Changing the World
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An insider’s account of the videogame industry telling how gaming can become a force for good
Everything To Play For asks if videogames can achieve egalitarian goals instead of fuelling hyper-materialist, reactionary agendas. Combining cultural theory and materialist critiques with accessible language and personal anecdotes, industry insider Marijam Did engages both novices and seasoned connoisseurs. From the innovations of Pong and Doom to the intricate multiplayer or narrative-driven games, the author highlights the multifaceted stories of the gaming communities and the political actors who organise among them. Crucially, the focus also includes the people who make the games, shedding light on the brutal processes necessary to bring titles to the public.
The videogame industry, now larger than the film and music industries combined, has a proven ability to challenge the status quo. With a rich array of examples, Did argues for a nuanced understanding of gaming’s influence so that this extraordinary power can be harnessed for good.
Reviews
Destroys the gamers who moan about politics ruining their video games. Did shows that games have always been deeply political and asserts the often overlooked radical potential of a medium that means so much to billions of players worldwide.'
A breathtaking history of the games industry not just as an economical or cultural force, but as an unacknowledged political power. Backed by clear passion for the medium and a boundless expertise, Did examines how everything can be games, and how games touch everything about our world today.
Did has achieved a rare, fresh thing. She has enough perspective to give the industry a necessarily critical overview but she's close enough to celebrate the moments that make games worthwhile - and she makes a strong case that there is still much more to fight for.
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Impassioned, fiercely intelligent, proudly left-wing
EDGE Magazine -
Videogame critic Did debuts with a blistering critique of the gaming industry's ethical and political shortcomings. With nuanced analysis, Did offers a damning portrait of the gaming industry that nonetheless finds reasons for hope. This one's a winner.
Publishers Weekly -
An engaging read ... Everything to Play For is a good contribution to the discourse about video games and I hope it proves to be a successful step in the process of getting video games as an industry, and as a subject for criticism, resistance and improvement out of the lefty sin bin and into the mainstream.
Organise Magazine -
In this well-researched and convincing work, Did presents not a history of video games so much as a look at their political elements and potential ... an obvious choice for gamers, but its large picture approach will intrigue many curious readers.
, Booklist -
After years spent in the field of video games, Marjam Did is here to argue that video games can be used for good. From the early days of Pong to the current world of online gaming, Did believes the role of video games is more than entertainment. Video games can illustrate and bring out the best in humanity.
Book Riot -
A passionate, supremely well-informed and intensely thoughtful investigation of one of the key areas of contemporary cultural production
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A much-needed diagnosis of how videogames need to change for the sake of both players and producers ... Did's book asks, with infectious pragmatism, can this social and economic power be turned towards something more sustainable, equitable and generous than the simple pursuit of profit?
, ArtReview -
For anyone who takes video games seriously as an artistic medium, Everything to Play For is an eye-opener. It confronts some ugly realities - but only after that confrontation can there be the possibility of positive change.
Winnipeg Free Press -
Everything to Play For makes for an excellent starting point for anyone wanting to engage in a nuanced, materialist understanding of videogames.
Socialist Worker -
A cultural critique of the gaming industry’s ethical and political shortcomings come together in this inquiry into the politics of video games and entertainment technologies (both on the screen and in their dehumanizing labour practices), with ideas about how to save the industry from itself.
The Globe and Mail -
Engagingly idiosyncratic
, Guardian Best Books of 2024 -
There are lots of criticisms — some valid, some less so — lobbied against video games, but rarely do people see them as a site of hope. In Marijam Did’s book Everything to Play For: An Insider's Guide to How Videogames are Changing Our World, we explore a new idea: What if video games could help produce a better world? The book is full of insider info on the industry and tales contextualizing exciting and potentially transformative moments in game history.
AskMen -
For those with even a flicker of interest in video games, this is among the best books on the subject. Everything to Play For takes its subject and the perilous time we live in seriously. It is a wake-up call for those ignorant of the titanic importance gaming has in the modern world. Yet it does not discourage but instead galvanizes. Ignore Did’s words at your peril.
, PopMatters -
Everything to Play For is a necessary wake-up call ... [Did's] writing is by turns playful and personal, optimistic and indignant, but never lost in despair.
, Culture Matters