Created by Matt Zoller Seitz
Directed by Judith Carter
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
Haruki Murakami
Photo by Carlos Torres on Unsplash

The State of Play: Creators and Critics on Video Game Culture (Hardcover, NEW)

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"A groundbreaking anthology that all video game players should read and ponder." —Library Journal, starred review

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Product Details

The State of Play is a call to consider the high stakes of video game culture and how our digital and real lives collide. Here, video games are not hobbies or pure recreation; they are vehicles for art, sex, and race and class politics.

The sixteen contributors are entrenched—they are the video game creators themselves, media critics, and Internet celebrities. They share one thing: they are all players at heart, handpicked to form a superstar roster by Daniel Goldberg and Linus Larsson, the authors of the bestselling Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus "Notch" Persson and the Game that Changed Everything.

The State of Play is essential reading for anyone interested in what may well be the defining form of cultural expression of our time.

"If you want to explain to anyone why videogames are worth caring about, this is a single volume primer on where we are, how we got here and where we're going next. In every way, this is the state of play." —Kieron Gillen, author of The Wicked + the Divine, co-founder of Rock Paper Shotgun

Review

"Editors Daniel Goldberg and Linus Larsson are interested in the way in which writing about the video game medium has grown from product criticism to social and political commentary. This broadening of scope is due not only to maturation, they argue. It is also the result of the democratization of game-making, which has allowed independent creators to release games on personal and seemingly noncommercial topics, in that way stimulating critical conversation." —The New York Times Book Review

"A groundbreaking anthology that all video game players should read and ponder." —Library Journal, starred review

"If you want to explain to anyone why videogames are worth caring about, this is a single volume primer on where we are, how we got here and where we're going next. In every way, this is the state of play." —Kieron Gillen, author of The Wicked + The Divine

"This should be a mainstay in media theory classrooms. Overall, this book presents a much-needed alternative look at the state and stakes of video game culture, today and tomorrow." —Angela Washko, artist and founder of The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft

"Through a combination of deeply personal narratives and academic analyses State of Play effectively illuminates the social and cultural relevance of gaming. We see games as cultural representations reflecting societal tensions and priorities, social systems with insiders/outsiders and ethical dilemmas where conflicts can be worked out or not, opportunities for exploration and tools for presentation of counter narratives. The authors do not simply discuss what games are technically, but what they are, can and should be culturally." —Ellen Middaugh, San José State University, author of The Civic Potential of Video Games

"We are past the era when it was surprising to learn that video games are more than just pleasurable power fantasies. Video games are emotional explorations of race, gender, sex and love. Video games gives us intense experiences of being others, or finding ourselves, alone with the computer or surrounded by crowds, in physical or virtual spaces. The State of Play is a key collection of writings to understand why playing video games matters more than ever." —Miguel Angel Sicart, author of Play Matters and The Ethics of Computer Games, Associate Professor at the Center for Computer Game Research at IT University Copenhagen

"The State of Play gathers essential voices who are trying to make a more just, more true, more playful gamespace, one that's fun for everybody." —McKenzie Wark, author of Gamer Theory

"The thoughtful, articulate essays recursively confirm the importance of gaming to society, the book's key theme. Beautifully written in workmanlike, accessible prose, and highly recommended." —Bonnie Nardi, author of My Life as a Night Elf Priest: An Anthropological Account of World of Witchcraft

"This diverse collection demonstrates the deep power of anchoring our design theories in the lived experiences of players and creators. It offers a kaleidoscopic view of the possibility space of games, providing exciting new perspectives on play and the construction of play spaces." —Brian Upton, author of The Aesthetic of Play

About the Author

LINUS LARSSON and DANIEL GOLDBERG are two of Sweden's most important writers on new technology and the Internet. They have been published in Wired, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and American Computer World, and quoted by BBC News, The New York Times, and The Sydney Morning Herald. Their first book, Swedish Hackers, was published in 2011 in Sweden. In 2013, Minecraft followed with Seven Stories Press as their bestselling English-language debut.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Seven Stories Press; Illustrated edition (October 20, 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1609806395
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1609806392
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.1 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.52 x 0.87 x 7.29 inches

About Our Store

MZS.Press is the online arts bookstore founded by author, critic, and filmmaker Matt Zoller Seitz and Directed by Judith Carter. It offers new, used, signed, collectible, and rare books on film, TV, music, photography, and the visual arts. The store was launched in 2019 on a different platform and has expanded to incorporate arts books published by MZSPress's private imprint: titles currently include Seitz's The Deadwood Bible: A Lie Agreed Upon and Dreams of Deadwood, about the HBO Western, and Walter Chaw's A Walter Hill Film.

Our deepest wish is to promote, encourage, and distribute work by small presses, academic presses, and individuals. Extraordinary work tends to get swallowed up on giant platforms like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The titles featured here are personally selected by a group of curators and advisors, including Seitz and an array of critics, artists, journalists, educators, publishers, and arts mavens who are known for their ability to suss out what Seitz's jazz musician dad liked to call "the good sh*t."

About the Partners

Matt Zoller Seitz

Critic, Author, Filmmaker, MZS Press Creator

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large and film critic of RogerEbert.com; Features Writer for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, Contributing Writer for D Magazine and Texas Highways as well as finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism. His writing on film and TV has appeared in Sight and Sound, The New York Times, Salon.com, The New Republic and Rolling Stone. Seitz is the founder and original editor of the influential film blog The House Next Door, now a part of Slant Magazine.

Seitz has written, narrated, edited or produced over a hundred hours’ worth of video essays about cinema history and style for The Museum of the Moving Image, Salon.com and Vulture, among other outlets such as Texas Highways and AARP. His five-part 2009 video essay Wes Anderson: The Substance of Style was spun off into the hardcover book The Wes Anderson Collection. This book and its follow-up, The Wes Anderson Collection: Grand Budapest Hotel were New York Times bestsellers.

Other Seitz books include the New York Times bestsellers The Sopranos Sessions and Mad Men Carousel; TV (The Book), The Deadwood Bible: A Lie Agreed Upon, The Wes Anderson Collection: The French Dispatch and the new The Wes Anderson Collection: Asteroid City. He is also an interviewer, moderator, and film programmer who has curated and hosted film and TV presentations for the Museum of the Moving Image, IFC Center, San Francisco's Roxie Cinema, and other venues. In October 2024 he brought the legendary filmmaker Oliver Stone back to Dallas for a historic return to the city and the Texas Theatre, considered the biggest film event of Dallas in 2024 by Dallas Observer!

Judith Carter was in the Upscale and Luxury Hospitality Industry for most of her life. In 2004 she had a beautiful baby boy with Special Needs and put the pause on her career until 2017 to dedicate herself to him and then others, assisting and volunteering as a legal advocate ensuring the best medical care, evaluations and educations for Special Needs children and their families.

Matt and Judith were family friends for over 20 years. She was there with her family in support when his wife Jen passed away suddenly in 2006. Then just 6 weeks later while Matt was in Dallas; he and his Father, Dave, and Step-Mother, Genie, were there as support, when Judith was alone and her son received the first of many diagnoses that changed the trajectory of their lives. So it made sense in the turbulent year of 2020, Matt asked Judith to take over running the online store that has become MZS.press. The rest as they say is, "Their"-story.

The Arts Bookstore of the Internet

The Arts Bookstore of the Internet

Created by Matt Zoller Seitz
Directed by Judith Carter
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
Haruki Murakami
Photo by Carlos Torres on Unsplash

The State of Play: Creators and Critics on Video Game Culture (Hardcover, NEW)

Review

About the Author

The Arts Bookstore of the Internet

The Arts Bookstore of the Internet

Created by Matt Zoller Seitz Directed by Judith Carter“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”Haruki MurakamiPhoto by Carlos Torres on Unsplash

The State of Play: Creators and Critics on Video Game Culture (Hardcover, NEW)

Review

About the Author

About Our Store

About the Partners

Created by Matt Zoller Seitz
Directed by Judith Carter
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
Haruki Murakami
Photo by Carlos Torres on Unsplash