Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter
(Libby/OverDrive eBook, Kindle)

"Bissell successfully dissects key aspects of the medium with razor-sharp sense and artfully crafted analysis. A thought-provoking, thorough, and ultimately personal study of the industry and its denizens."---Cliff Bleszinski, design director, Epic Games"The last thing I ever thought I'd do in this life is read a book about video games. And yet Extra Lives is sharp, critical, and very funny, and ---Tom Bissell's description of killing zombies in the first iteration of Resident Evil is simply a tour de force. If you've ever wanted to know what Grand Theft Auto actually is, why a highly intelligent person would be interested intelligent perosn would be intersted in it, and whether it is in fact `art,'you will really like this book." ---Keith Gessen, author of All the Sad Young Literary Men"The best long-form writing about games I've read. No one else has written an experiential consideration of games that so carefully and lovingly examines their blossoms and warts. No one else has written such an astute personal account of the push and pull of games, both in terms of their meaning in our lives and in the many ways they infiltrate our consciousness and drive us bananas. No one has given me more reason to believe I'm not crazy when I say I cherish-and I don't casually use that word-the experiences video games have given me."---Michael Abbott, brainygamer.comTom Bissell is a prizewinning writer who published three widely acclaimed books before the age of thirty-four. He is also an obsessive gamer who has spent untold hours in front of his various video game consoles, playing titles such as Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead, BioShock, and Oblivion for, literally, days. If you are reading this flap copy, the same thing can probably be said of you, or of someone you know.Until recently, Bissell was somewhat reluctant to admit to his passion for games. In this, he is not alone. Millions of adults spend hours every week playing video games, and the industry itself now reliably outearns Hollywood. But the wider culture seems to regard video games as, at best, well designed if mindless entertainment.Extra Lives is an impassioned defense of this assailed and misunderstood art form. Bissell argues that we are in a golden age of gaming-but he also believes games could be even better. He offers a fascinating and often hilarious critique of the ways video games dazzle and, just as often, frustrate. Along the way, we get firsthand portraits of some of the best minds (Jonathan Blow, Clint Hocking, Cliff Bleszinski, Peter Molyneux) at work in video game design today, as well as a shattering and deeply moving final chapter that describes, in searing detail, Bissell's descent into the world of Grand Theft Auto IV, a game whose themes mirror his own increasingly self-destructive compulsions.Blending memoir, criticism, and first-rate reportage, Extra Lives is like no other book on the subject ever published. Whether you love video games, loathe video games, or are merely curious about why they are becoming the dominant popular art form of our time, Extra Lives is required reading.

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