Nick Dyer-Witheford was kind enough to send me a copy of his recently published book, “Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture and Marketing“. And, I didn’t even ask him for it :) But, included with the book was a short note saying something to the effect of “…not sure if you’ll like it, it is critical of the games industry.”

With a relatively open mind I took to reading the book. And, despite Nick’s warnings, I enjoyed it very much. Sure, they make a few mistakes, like calling Wipeout XL a flight simulator or stating that Half-Life is just another shooter. But, these are minor and excusable. I particularly like the model they put forth to help explore the game industry, its history and current issues.

As the sub-title of the book hints, they propose a “three circuits” model, with the circuits representing the interaction of technology, culture and marketing. It is a nice filter by which to investigate games, where the circuits compliment each other, and where friction occurs.

Some of the friction points they look at are things like piracy, violence, gender, labor issues, risk aversion, etc. In particular, I thought that the description of the industry’s drive toward narrowly genred, reproducible hit titles based on on franchises and licenses was insightful (ie, how the three circuits interact (or interacted in the past) to bring about the current situation).

So yes, the book is a critical look at games and the digital play industry. But, it was an honest and (mostly) unbiased exploration (as opposed to the usual “games are evil, let’s write a book that proves it” approach). And, in the end, they make it quite clear that they reason why they are exposing the issues is because they see great hope/potential for the medium of games. Nice.