April 27, 2007
Gamer Theory 2.0
McKenzie Wark, author of A Hacker Manifesto, Dispositions and web version 1.1 of GAM3R 7H30RY (1 2) online at the Institute for the Future of the Book, has revised a version of the latter called Gamer Theory 2.0, published from Harvard University Press.
…McKenzie Wark contends, digital computer games are the emergent cultural form of the times. Where others argue obsessively over violence in games, Wark approaches them as a utopian version of the world in which we actually live. Playing against the machine on a game console, we enjoy the only truly level playing field–where we get ahead on our strengths or not at all.
Gamer Theory uncovers the significance of games in the gap between the near-perfection of actual games and the highly imperfect gamespace of everyday life in the rat race of free-market society. The book depicts a world becoming an inescapable series of less and less perfect games. This world gives rise to a new persona. In place of the subject or citizen stands the gamer…
May 9th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
I haven’t even opened my physical media copy yet, and won’t get to it (or much else) for a few months. But there’s an interesting non-review and some discussion over at Gameology.