Appropriately enough, I read Jesper Juul’s Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds while on my way to academic/game conference.

I quite enjoyed the book. In part because it was nice and short (and not a massive verbose academic tome) and because it was very well structured. In short, Jesper attempts to define what a video games is, and is not. I particularly liked the thread about how folks place too much emphasis on the “video” aspects far beyond the “game” aspects of video games (which have a much broader and historical grounding in play/games in general). Then he goes on to discuss the game-ness of games (ie, the “rules” part of things) and then onto the story/narrative aspect of many games (ie, the fictional part).

Coincidentally enough, I was able to leverage some of the book’s logic during a conference dinner discussion when someone stated “games are all about the narrative”… Also, it is a good book to read in light of some of the industry listserv reactions to the debate between cinematics ruining games and captivating gamers.

Anyway, there’s more/better info on Half-Real via GTxA.