Extra Lives is in many ways the book about video games I have been waiting for. Forget Bogost’s procedurality or Gee’s 36 theses about why they matter. What Bissel does is articulate — exactly — a fact about video games that I have always found to be a great contradiction for me. I know the writing is almost always terrible; I know the games’ maturity level are lucky to reach even the sophomoric; I know video games have decades, maybe centuries to go before they mature as an art form. Yet right now, as they are, I love them. I am drawn to them compulsively. I crave them. But with all the ways in which they fail as art, why?
Tom Bissel’s book provides one answer, an answer I find extremely compelling. There is absolutely no underestimating the immersive value of games, their ability to allow players to embody their experience in an alternate world. That single fact trumps, at least for Bissel and me, almost every other aesthetic principle that has existed heretofore. In other words, I would prefer to be in a game world than almost anywhere else.
Our website includes a collection of resources on using games in teaching and learning, as well as examples of pedagogical games. Visit the Using Games section to find games you can use in your classroom. Interested in research or publishing your own scholarly work? Head to Publish Your Research to find out about scholarly journals that publish on games-based learning.
What’s coming next?
Here are some features we’re planning for the future:
More guidelines for using games in your teaching, including choosing the right lesson for your game and choosing the right game mechanic for your lesson
Search for games by discipline, subject, or game mechanic
The next meeting of the CUNY Games Network will be (“First Friday”) Friday October 1st, from 3-6pm at the CUNY Graduate Center, room 7209.
Rather than having any formal presentation, we will welcome the fabulous Fall by playing a host of board games with interesting mechanics, as well as possibly revisiting Joe’s WHAT’S YOUR GAME PLAN?, a game that teaches you how to add interactive game pedagogy to any lesson plan.
Sincerely,
The CUNY Games Steering Group
Joe Bisz
Francesco Crocco
Carlos Hernandez
Leah Potter
Maura Smale
Educators coming together to explore how the principles of games promote learning
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Extra Lives is in many ways the book about video games I have been waiting for. Forget Bogost’s procedurality or Gee’s 36 theses about why they matter. What Bissel does is articulate — exactly — a fact about video games that I have always found to be a great contradiction for me. I know the writing is almost always terrible; I know the games’ maturity level are lucky to reach even the sophomoric; I know video games have decades, maybe centuries to go before they mature as an art form. Yet right now, as they are, I love them. I am drawn to them compulsively. I crave them. But with all the ways in which they fail as art, why?
