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Lost in a Good Game
- Why We Play Video Games and What They Can Do for Us
- Narrated by: Ryan Burke
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
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Publisher's Summary
'Etchells writes eloquently ... A heartfelt defence of a demonised pastime' --The Times
'Once in an age, a piece of culture comes along that feels like it was specifically created for you, the beats and words and ideas are there because it is your life the creator is describing. Lost In A Good Game is exactly that. It will touch your heart and mind. And even if Bowser, Chun-li or Q-Bert weren't crucial parts of your youth, this is a flawless victory for everyone' --Adam Rutherford
When Pete Etchells was 13, his father died from motor neurone disease. In order to cope, he immersed himself in a virtual world - first as an escape, but later to try to understand what had happened. Etchells is now a researcher into the psychological effects of video games, and was co-author on a recent paper explaining why WHO plans to classify "game addiction" as a danger to public health are based on bad science and (he thinks) are a bad idea.
In this, his first book, he journeys through the history and development of video games - from Turing’s chess machine to mass multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft or Fortnite - via scientific study, to investigate the highs and lows of playing and get to the bottom of our relationship with games - why we do it, and what they really mean to us.
At the same time, Lost in a Good Game is a very unusual memoir of a writer coming to terms with his grief via virtual worlds, as he tries to work out what area of popular culture we should classify games (a relatively new technology) under.
What listeners say about Lost in a Good Game
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 14-02-2022
Just ok.
The author's personal stories on how games have played a part in the good and bad times of his life are quite engaging and the best part of this book.
The majority of the book though discusses the psychology and science of why we play games and their affect on us, which seems interesting, but I found these sections pretty dry and dull with not that many interesting examples or case studies.
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- GeekListener
- 06-06-2022
An exploration of video games befitting the diversity of its subject
I’m a listener who doesn’t much play video games, and never plays the sort of lengthy, immersive games that we may think of as the province of “gamers”. And yet I am fascinated by them from a distance.
I found this book a very interesting listen: a tour of the history and diversity of video games, and a sceptical interrogation of the psychological science that has studied them so far, interspersed with the author’s own personal video game journey. I thought the writing was very successful, let down as an audiobook just a little by narration that was not convincing as the voice of an English academic psychologist.
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