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Fun, Taste, & Games: An Aesthetics of the Idle, Unproductive, and Otherwise Playful (Playful Thinking) Hardcover – March 12, 2019

by John Sharp (Author), David Thomas (Author)
5.0 5.0 out of 5 stars 4 ratings
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Reclaiming fun as a meaningful concept for understanding games and play.

“Fun” is somewhat ambiguous. If something is fun, is it pleasant? Entertaining? Silly? A way to trick students into learning? Fun also has baggage—it seems inconsequential, embarrassing, child's play. In Fun, Taste, & Games, John Sharp and David Thomas reclaim fun as a productive and meaningful tool for understanding and appreciating play and games. They position fun at the heart of the aesthetics of games. As beauty was to art, they argue, fun is to play and games—the aesthetic goal that we measure our experiences and interpretations against.

Sharp and Thomas use this fun-centered aesthetic framework to explore a range of games and game issues—from workplace bingo to Meow Wolf, from basketball to Myst, from the consumer marketplace to Marcel Duchamp. They begin by outlining three elements for understanding the drive, creation, and experience of fun: set-outsideness, ludic forms, and ambiguity. Moving from theory to practice and back again, they explore the complicated relationships among the titular fun, taste, and games. They consider, among other things, the dismissal of fun by game journalists and designers; the seminal but underinfluential game Myst, and how tastes change over time; the shattering of the gamer community in Gamergate; and an aesthetics of play that goes beyond games.

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  1. Part of series
    Playful Thinking
  2. Print length
    256 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    The MIT Press
  5. Publication date
    March 12, 2019
  6. Dimensions
    5.69 x 0.84 x 8.31 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0262039354
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0262039352
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

[A] revelatory account of an essential element of our lives.—TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION—

About the Author

John Sharp is Associate Professor in the School of Art, Media, and Technology at Parsons School of Design at the New School. He is the author of Works of Game: On the Aesthetics of Games and Art (MIT Press) and coauthor (with Colleen Macklin) of Games, Design, and Play: A Detailed Approach to Iterative Game Design and (with David Thomas) Fun, Taste, & Games: An Aesthetics of the Idle, Unproductive, and Otherwise Playful (MIT Press). Sharp and Macklin are Codirectors of the PETLab (Prototyping Education and Technology Lab) at Parsons.

David Thomas is Assistant Professor in the College of Architecture and Planning at the University of Colorado Denver. A former game journalist, he runs the website Buzzcut.com.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ The MIT Press; 1st edition (March 12, 2019)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0262039354
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0262039352
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.69 x 0.84 x 8.31 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    5.0 5.0 out of 5 stars 4 ratings

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  1. John Sharp

    John Sharp

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    John Sharp is a game designer, graphic designer, art historian and curator. He makes games, teaches game design, and researches and writes about games, play, art and creative process.

    He is the Professor of Games and Learning in the School of Art, Media and Technology at Parsons School of Design at The New School. He is co-director of PETLab (Prototyping, Education and Technology Lab), a research group focused on games and game design as a form of social discourse. John is also member of the game design collective Local No. 12, which makes games out of culture, including Dear Reader, The Metagame, and Backchatter.

    See more on the author's page
  2. David Thomas

    David Thomas

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    Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

    David Thomas is a retired videogame critic, part-time professor and full-time university administrator.

    His game writing appeared over the years in outlets such as Wired, The Denver Post, Electronic Gaming Monthly and Next Gen.

    As a scholar he studies the aesthetics of fun. His current work looks at fun as applied to the emerging creative practices of immersive art and entertainment and as well as the concept of ludic form in architecture. He has a PhD in planning and design from the College of Architecture and Planning at the University of Colorado Denver.

    More at: www.buzzcut.com

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