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THE VIDEO GAME THEORY READER Mark Wolf and Bernard Perron, eds. New York: Routledge, 2003, 331 pp.
The Video Game Theory Reader serves as an excellent introduction to video game studies, the history of video game studies, the current positions in the field, and the current problems with video game studies. The Reader manages to argue for and present several important points while avoiding the pitfalls of homogenizing new or existing media forms, and it manages to analyze video games in their own right. In the introduction, after briefly covering the history of video game studies, editor Mark Wolf states that:
The video game is clearly a unique medium and worthy of attention and forms of theory that can address it specifically, narrative elements and conventions taken from other media are still present to a great degree in many games, and a spectrum of positions exist combining ideas and terminology from various movements, even as the terms and definitions are not always agreed upon (11).
Following Wolfs comments, the book is a productive attempt to present the most popular of these current positions and to tentatively define video game theory within the contexts of existing scholarship, while also declaring some of video games' unique and significant attributes. The fourteen essays approach video games from various positions in order to clarify both the nature of the games as a medium as well as current theoretical arguments over them. While the majority of these articles are well written and fruitful, some showcase the current problems with video game studies.
The most useful chapters are those that attempt to establish a critical vocabulary for video game studies; those that study video games for how they operate and the effects of these operations; and those that focus on current critical discussions. Wolfs introduction and his essay "Abstraction in the Video Game" serve to establish some critical vocabulary...