Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Life Is a Game: What Game Design Says about the Human Condition

Life Is a Game: What Game Design Says about the Human Condition

Castronova, Edward

Hardcover

Games & Activities GeneralGeneral ComputersProgramming

ISBN10: 1501359185
ISBN13: 9781501359187
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: Sep 17 2020
Pages: 232
Weight: 1.05
Height: 0.56 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

For centuries, thinkers of all stripes have said that life is a game. What if that is true? What if life really is a game? What if our presence here is part of a vast and beautiful interactive machine?

Edward Castronova urges readers to think about the human condition in the same way that a player thinks about a game. So many of the mechanics we see in games are present in daily life, from role-playing and levelling up, to investing, diplomacy, and the sublime tension between the risk of loss and the thrill of victory.

What is 'victory, ' though? We all have our own ideas about how to win this game. Some say the point is to feel good. Others say it is all about God, with Heaven as the win condition. However we envision our lives, game designs tells us how best to play. We decide what it means to win this game; game thinking tells us the most sensible way to do it.

Thus, though it is new, the field of game design has much to say about the fundamental questions of human existence. Philosophy asks why we are here. Game Design answers: To interact, to choose, to play.

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