
Critical Play
Radical Game Design
Mary Flanagan(Author)
MIT Press
Published on 1. September 2009
Book
Hardback
368 pages
978-0-262-06268-8 (ISBN)
Description
For many players, games are entertainment, diversion, relaxation, fantasy. But what
if certain games were something more than this, providing not only outlets for entertainment but a
means for creative expression, instruments for conceptual thinking, or tools for social change? In
Critical Play, artist and game designer Mary Flanagan examines alternative games
-- games that challenge the accepted norms embedded within the gaming industry -- and argues that
games designed by artists and activists are reshaping everyday game culture.
Flanagan provides a lively historical context for critical play through
twentieth-century art movements, connecting subversive game design to subversive art: her examples
of "playing house" include Dadaist puppet shows and The Sims. She looks
at artists' alternative computer-based games and explores games for change, considering the way
activist concerns -- including worldwide poverty and AIDS -- can be incorporated into game
design.
Arguing that this kind of conscious practice -- which now constitutes the
avant-garde of the computer game medium -- can inspire new working methods for designers, Flanagan
offers a model for designing that will encourage the subversion of popular gaming tropes through new
styles of game making, and proposes a theory of alternate game design that focuses on the reworking
of contemporary popular game practices.
if certain games were something more than this, providing not only outlets for entertainment but a
means for creative expression, instruments for conceptual thinking, or tools for social change? In
Critical Play, artist and game designer Mary Flanagan examines alternative games
-- games that challenge the accepted norms embedded within the gaming industry -- and argues that
games designed by artists and activists are reshaping everyday game culture.
Flanagan provides a lively historical context for critical play through
twentieth-century art movements, connecting subversive game design to subversive art: her examples
of "playing house" include Dadaist puppet shows and The Sims. She looks
at artists' alternative computer-based games and explores games for change, considering the way
activist concerns -- including worldwide poverty and AIDS -- can be incorporated into game
design.
Arguing that this kind of conscious practice -- which now constitutes the
avant-garde of the computer game medium -- can inspire new working methods for designers, Flanagan
offers a model for designing that will encourage the subversion of popular gaming tropes through new
styles of game making, and proposes a theory of alternate game design that focuses on the reworking
of contemporary popular game practices.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge, Mass.
United States
Publishing group
MIT Press Ltd
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Interest Age: From 18 years
Illustrations
116 Schaubilder
116 figures
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 178 mm
Thickness: 0 mm
Weight
454 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-262-06268-8 (9780262062688)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Book
02/2013
MIT Press
€28.10
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Person
Mary Flanagan, artist and game designer, is Founder and Director of Tiltfactor Laboratory and Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor of Digital Humanities at Dartmouth College. She is the coeditor (with Austin Booth) of Reload: Rethinking Women + Cyberculture (2002)and re:skin (2002), both published by the MIT Press.
Author
Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor in Digital Humanities; Professor, Film and Media StudiesDartmouth College