Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution

The Edge calls Trigger Happy a "seminal piece of work." For the first time ever, an aficionado with a knowledge of art, culture, and a real love of gaming takes a critical look at the future of our videogames, and compares their aesthetic and economic impact on society to that of film. Thirty years after the invention of the simplest of games, more videogames are played by adults than children. This revolutionary book is the first-ever academically worthy and deeply engaging critique of one of today's most popular forms of play: videogames are on track to supersede movies as the most innovative form of entertainment in the new century.

Steven Poole's substantial examination of the world inside your console combines an exhaustive history of the games industry with a subtle look at what makes certain kinds of games more engaging than others. For example, what works in which genres--the RPG (role-playing game) versus the god game--and the relationship of video games to other forms of media.

A writer and composer, Poole makes the case that video games--like films and popular music--deserve serious critical treatment: "The inner life of video games--how they work--is bound up with the inner life of the player. And the player's response to a well-designed video game is in part the same sort of response he or she has to a film, or to a painting: it is an aesthetic one." Trigger Happy is packed with references not just to games and game history but also to writers and theorists who may never have played a video game in their lives, from Adorno and Benjamin to Plato. At times this approach verges on the pedantic, dwelling at length on points that will seem obvious to serious gamers ("We don't want absolutely real situations in video games. We can get that at home"; "The fighting game, like fighting itself, will always be popular"). Nonetheless, Poole's book may be favored bedside reading for both the keen gamer and the armchair philosopher looking to understand this cultural phenomenon. --Liz Bailey, Amazon.co.uk