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A review by saroz162
This Gaming Life: Travels in Three Cities by Jim Rossignol
4.0
This one really livened up a boring, early-early-morning desk shift, two days in a row. This book didn't arrive in my mail until months after I requested it, and I admit I resisted reading for yet a further period of time because of my own stupid error. When I requested a review copy, I thought it was about tabletop gaming, something many of my friends love, and I was interested in learning more about the subject. I was therefore a little bit dispirited when I found the book to be about video gaming, something I engage in very, very infrequently, and haven't had any significant interest in since I was about 12. Again, I've got friends who love video games, but I figured any examination of the topic would be more about the trends of development and marketing than any sort of social study. Boy, was I wrong.
Although I had to just sort of nod my way through Rossignol's initial anecdotes of sabotaging his job to take up gaming journalism, once he got into actually examining the culture I was hooked. The section on London was probably the most pedestrian, yet necessary to offer some comparisons with the more unexpected gaming cultures of both Reykjavik and (especially) Seoul. Since I did, as an early teen, dabble with text-based MMORGs, I was really interested to read about their development into full-on graphical communities, and I found the development of "alternative" gaming - such as gaming designed to educate or propagandize - really, really interesting. I completely sped through the book.
Perhaps my biggest disappointment was how, as a journalist, Rossignol asks some questions about our social development into gaming communities, without either answering some of those questions or even proposing theories. I got the definite impression he didn't *want* to answer some of those questions, because they would work against his own belief that giving your life over to gaming is completely natural and worthwhile. (And I'm speaking mostly of his own choices, here; he never confronts the idea that allowing his gaming habit to ruin his stable job is an incredibly childish thing to do.) As a result, the book - while a fascinating social snapshot - is significantly one-sided. Overall, however, I found it a quick and pleasantly surprising read, if demanding of a little more realistic contemplation than the author was willing to give.
Although I had to just sort of nod my way through Rossignol's initial anecdotes of sabotaging his job to take up gaming journalism, once he got into actually examining the culture I was hooked. The section on London was probably the most pedestrian, yet necessary to offer some comparisons with the more unexpected gaming cultures of both Reykjavik and (especially) Seoul. Since I did, as an early teen, dabble with text-based MMORGs, I was really interested to read about their development into full-on graphical communities, and I found the development of "alternative" gaming - such as gaming designed to educate or propagandize - really, really interesting. I completely sped through the book.
Perhaps my biggest disappointment was how, as a journalist, Rossignol asks some questions about our social development into gaming communities, without either answering some of those questions or even proposing theories. I got the definite impression he didn't *want* to answer some of those questions, because they would work against his own belief that giving your life over to gaming is completely natural and worthwhile. (And I'm speaking mostly of his own choices, here; he never confronts the idea that allowing his gaming habit to ruin his stable job is an incredibly childish thing to do.) As a result, the book - while a fascinating social snapshot - is significantly one-sided. Overall, however, I found it a quick and pleasantly surprising read, if demanding of a little more realistic contemplation than the author was willing to give.