Playing to Wiin: Nintendo and the Video Game Industrys Greatest Comeback Review

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Playing to Wiin: Nintendo and the Video Game Industrys Greatest Comeback ReviewLet me start by saying that I read this book right after finishing another book on the same topic, "Nintendo Magic: Winning the Videogame Wars" by Osamu Inoue. While I pretty much enjoyed "Nintendo Magic", and ended up giving it 4 stars in my review, I think that "Playing to wiin" is a much better book, and everyone who is debating between them should definitely pick Daniel Sloans's book.
"Playing to wiin" contains an historical perspective of Nintendo and the video games war. The book takes you chronologically from the first days of Nintendo as a Japanese cards manufacturer, its first deal with branded Disney characters on the cards, and all the way to the world of electronic games and video consoles and software. There are two main reasons to pick this book over the competitor: first, editing-wise, the book provides a chronological perspective of the history, which makes lots of sense and reads a lot better than the other (which goes back and forth in time and includes many repetitions). Second, we also get lots of information on Nintendo's competitors at different parallel time lines (Sega, Sony, Microsoft), which allow us to grasp the market in a more complete way.
However, one has to keep in mind that the video game market is rapidly changing and adapting, and I think the book might become dated in a year or two. For instance, currently it looks like that Nintendo will probably won't survive Apple's surge on its popular hand-hold devices. The first huge crack in its hand-hold market is starting to show with the recent amazing $80 reduction of the 3DS's lunch price, and the declining stock price in the last couple of months. I think Nintendo's immediate future should be as interesting as its history.
I think this book makes an interesting read for everyone who is interested in the industry, but also to young Business schools' graduates who can easily learn a thing or two about somewhat different style of managing a large international business (e.g. keep a large amount of liquid cash on the side for dark days). Overall, for me this is a 5 stars book.Playing to Wiin: Nintendo and the Video Game Industrys Greatest Comeback OverviewNintendo is a worldwide innovator in the creation of interactive entertainment. This fascinating look at one of Japan's most successful global companies, Nintendo: Playing to Wiin traces the company's humble origins to its stunning success with the DS and Wii consoles.

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Game Design Workshop: Designing, Prototyping, & Playtesting Games (Gama Network Series) Review

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Game Design Workshop: Designing, Prototyping, & Playtesting Games (Gama Network Series) ReviewFew people realize just how big a business digital gaming has become. Think of it this way: It's bigger than the domestic box office of the film industry. The amount of time spent playing games by young people now exceeds everything but television in time spent on entertainment. The main factor driving the development of the new extremely powerful computers is gaming, slower machines are capable of handling almost all office tasks.
The authors of this book have a great deal of experience in both designing games and teaching how to design games. This has given them an understanding of how beginning designers grasp the structured elements of games, common traps they fall into, and certain developmental exercises that help the student learn to make better games.
Note that this is not a programming manual, nor is it a graphics design manual. It is on game design. What are the characteristics that make a game, how can you prototype and play test the game without a horrendous programming expense, and finally some input on the game industry and how to decide on how you might like to be employeed in that industry.Game Design Workshop: Designing, Prototyping, & Playtesting Games (Gama Network Series) OverviewAs experienced teachers of novice game designers, the authors have discovered patterns in the way that students grasp game design - the mistakes they make as well as the methods to help them to create better games. Each exercise requires no background in programming or artwork, releasing beginning designers from the intricacies of electronic game production and allowing them to learn what works and what doesn't work in a game system. Additionally, these exercises teach important skills in system design: the processes of prototyping, playtesting, and redesigning. Teaches the fundamentals of game design through the study of classic systemsExercises will strengthen your understanding of how game elements work together

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Game Design: Principles, Practice, and Techniques - The Ultimate Guide for the Aspiring Game Designer Review

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Game Design: Principles, Practice, and Techniques - The Ultimate Guide for the Aspiring Game Designer ReviewRecently I started to entertain the idea for a game prototype I had in mind, since I was a bit green on the process I wanted to find a book that will cover the basics and make it all crystal clear for me. Unfortunately most books on the topic were severely out of date, unnecessarily complex or even too expensive to warrant a purchase. That's when I found Game Design: Principles, Practice, and Techniques and being recently published, it was an added bonus. This book not only takes the reader through the entire process of the production cycle, but it keeps everything light and entertaining with just the right balance of type and a wealth of colored illustrated pages, just the way I like it. And with illustrations on practically every page, it wasn't hard for a visual guy like me to read the book from cover to cover. (Why are there no programming books like this is beyond me)
Jim Thompson, Barnaby Berbank-Green, and Nic Cusworth keeps the book extremely consistent between the three of them, so well in fact that you won't realize when another author took over.
The book is broken up into 3 chapters; the first begins with a brief history in video games and takes you through the genres, styles and popular game mechanics used today, which are broken up with practical case studies.
The second chapter then moves unto elaborating on what you previously learnt and applying it to the real world. Everything from creating a game design document to gathering inspiration for concept art, level design and actually taking you through the process of creating a low poly solider from concept to completion. However keep in mind most of the topics are just the fundamentals to get you going, and rarely spans more than two pages since there's so much to cover, but it's all well written and flows like a gentle summer breeze. The third chapter then takes you through the pitching process, prototyping and a discussion on industry standard tools.
All in all it was a great book to read and money well spent, I've learnt quite a bit, and the only topics I wished they covered more was some programming and asset management, but as it stands the book still makes a great reference and resource.
Would I recommend it? Absolutely! Especially if you're a bit fuzzy on the process of taking a game from idea to prototype and beyond. Here's hoping for a 2nd edition expanding into more advanced discussions.
Game Design: Principles, Practice, and Techniques - The Ultimate Guide for the Aspiring Game Designer OverviewPractical, complete coverage of game design basics from design process to productionThis full-color, structured coursebook offers complete coverage of game design basics, focusing on design rather than computer programming. Packed with exercises, assignments, and step-by-step instructions, it starts with an overview of design theory, then progresses to design processes, and concludes with coverage of design production.Jim Thompson, Barnaby Berbank-Green, and Nic Cusworth (London, UK) are computer game designers and lecturers in animation and computer game design.

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All Your Base Are Belong to Us: How Fifty Years of Videogames Conquered Pop Culture Review

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All Your Base Are Belong to Us: How Fifty Years of Videogames Conquered Pop Culture ReviewHarold Goldberg's inappropriately titled All Your Base Are Belong To Us (AYB) - more on that later - is a comprehensive and thoroughly researched look into the people behind the last 50+ years of video games. From moving dots to bits and bytes, AYB provides readers with a fantastic dissertation on game development. With such an ambitious goal, there are bound to be successes and failures that mirror those of the geeky innovators who provided everything from Pong to World of Warcraft. For the most part, however, the book moves along pretty well for what amounts to a biographical compilation of programmers, investors, companies, and games.
While perfect for someone wanting to know the history behind the rise of gaming, and perhaps ideal for someone with dog-eared copies of old Nintendo Power magazines, I found the book a bit lacking for me, an actual geek. That is neither a slight upon this book nor Goldberg's work, merely a note for other game-playing, computer-programming geeks out there. Had a little more technical information been thrown in, I'm sure it would have satisfied my unfed cravings that were, for the most part, satisfied by the linear content. Two other faults, in my opinion, concern the book's title. First and foremost, the Engrish origin of AYB (FYI - Zero Wing) should have been explored, and could have seamlessly fit into any number of Japanese influences in gaming's rise in popularity. Second, as an avid gamer who has owned nearly every console from the Atari 2600 & Colecovision to Xbox and Wii, I felt there was a glaring omission of the fighting genre that swept the world in the late 80s and early 90s. The Street Fighter franchise alone has turned into a multimedia franchise, and several other titles such as Mortal Kombat gobbled up quarters at an unprecedented rate. Otherwise, the highlights covered in this book hit most of the significant steps of game development.
If searching for information about the games that made history is your goal, then: Game Over. On the other hand, if you want to know about the brilliant, daring minds who cultivated a world in which gaming is widely accepted, then it's probably worth the handful of quarters - regardless of a slightly unfocused connection to actual pop culture influence - required to play games in an arcade today.
Jason ElinAll Your Base Are Belong to Us: How Fifty Years of Videogames Conquered Pop Culture Overview

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Replay: The History of Video Games Review

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Replay: The History of Video Games ReviewFeaturing what has to be one of the worst covers of any book - ever - "Replay" easily overcomes that misstep by bringing forth a wealth of fantastic information. Even if you're already very familiar with the history of computers and video games, you'll find this book entertaining - and informative. Thanks to its UK origins, coverage of that region is plentiful, which is quite the change from the US slant seen in most books.
There are some criticisms to be had despite the 5-star rating I've given: the writing is, at times, awkward, even allowing for differences in UK English vs US English. It definitely could have used another read-through by an editor in places. In addition, like the cover, the pictures in the book are atrocious in quality and all black & white. This is a subject that cries out for quality photos and lots of color.
Still, these are minor quibbles. Pick this up today!Replay: The History of Video Games OverviewA riveting account of the strange birth and remarkable evolution of the most important development in entertainment since television, Replay is the ultimate history of video games. Based on extensive research and over 140 exclusive interviews with key movers and shakers from gaming's past, Replay tells the sensational story of how the creative vision of game designers gave rise to one of the world's most popular and dynamic art forms.

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Game Design Workshop, Second Edition: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games (Gama Network Series) Review

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Game Design Workshop, Second Edition: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games (Gama Network Series) ReviewThe top rating is well-deserved -- this book is both thorough and well-written. Fullerton provides in-depth discussion and a progressive approach to introducing the material. It begins with the absolute basics, discussing the basics of where game ideas come from, and ends with a treatise on the inner-workings of the game publishing industry.
I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to learn more about game development, as a trade, and especially for anyone looking to do it as a profession.
There were so many things to love about this book, but three things really stand out in my mind as being particularly awesome:
1. The "Designer Perspective" sidebars (insight into how some famous game designers got started and some behind-the-scenes knowledge about the industry)
2. The focus on iterative-design (prototype and test early and often)
3. The Exercises (real application exercises that hold your hand through the development of games, and of yourself as a career designer)
There were basically only two things I *didn't* like about this book, and they are purely circumstantial.
The first thing is that this book is college-textbook dense. Seriously. The page-count is just shy of 450 pages, and each page is divided into two columns, with a relatively small font-size. It was a beast to get through. There were many times when finishing the book felt like a daunting task, particularly towards the end.
The second thing that I wished was different was that the book's focus changes almost completely to digital game development (video games). The first half of the book was about basic game development, and so it could apply to either tabletop games or digital games; but as the book progresses, it makes a clear shift towards digital game development.
Realistically, this is not surprising -- the video game industry is gigantic, with revenues exceeding Box Office sales, and it keeps growing. The market for tabletop games is vastly smaller, domestically, and although it enjoys a much larger market share in Europe, particularly Germany, it is still comparatively diminuitive. So this particular nitpick is purely arbitrary, on my part -- I don't begrudge the authors for their decision regarding the content.Game Design Workshop, Second Edition: A Playcentric Approach to Creating Innovative Games (Gama Network Series) OverviewMaster the craft of game design so you can create that elusive combination of challenge, competition, and interaction that players seek. This design workshop begins with an examination of the fundamental elements of game design; then puts you to work in prototyping, playtesting and redesigning your own games with exercises that teach essential design skills. Workshop exercises require no background in programming or artwork, releasing you from the intricacies of electronic game production, so you can develop a working understanding of the essentials of game design.Features:* A design methodology used in the USC Interactive Media program, a cutting edge program funded in part of Electronic Arts.* Hands-on exercises demonstrate key concepts, and the design methodology* Insights from top industry game designers, including Noah Falstein, American McGee, Peter Molyneux

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Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America Review

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Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America ReviewThe best part of this book, by far, is the cover. It's an arresting piece of artwork for anyone who grew up with a Nintendo: Mario paused in mid-jump, a perfectly Nintendo shade of blue wallpapered behind him. It's an image that promises more than the book offers.
The writing is clean and straightforward but far too often Ryan resorts to pop culture jokes (the intro to Sonic the Hedgehog is particularly brutal) or cultural stereotypes (in the section detailing with the creation of the first Mario arcade game are the inevitable references to yin and yang and Japanese Zen). It's a style that should be familiar to anyone who's read Wired magazine. There are also a few spelling errors sprinkled throughout the book, nothing terrible, although Konami is referred to as Komani.
As a history of Nintendo it's a worthy primer but don't expect anything as in-depth or meticulously researched as David Sheff's "Game Over: How Nintendo Conquered the World," from which "Super Mario" paraphrased a cover image and a subtitle. "Game Over" was a video game book but also a business book. At nearly 500 pages it offered a level of detail and character necessary to understand the under-scrutinized subject. Ryan too often focuses on the trivial and skates by the interesting; multiple page bios on historical footnotes like Captain Lou Albano and Billy Mitchell yet a single paragraph of background on Shigeru Miyamoto. For a more compelling look at the history of Nintendo and Miyamato, I'd first refer one to "Game Over" and "Master of Play" by Nick Paumgarten from the New Yorker.
Ryan's greatest mistake is in his disregard for any description of the actual act of playing video games. There's never any sense of what it's like to hold a controller in one's hands and play a game. Although it's safe to assume that most everyone who reads this book will have played most of the games described within, there is something missing to a book that covers such an intensely interactive activity without any mention of what it's like to participate. It's like writing a book about football and never describing what happens on the field. The other recent mainstream book about video games, last year's "Extra Lives" by Tom Bissell, details the peculiar mix of immersion and passivity that goes into playing video games as does Nicholson Baker's "Painkiller Deathstreak" from the New Yorker magazine.
It's been nearly twenty years since Sheff's book and since then there's been an explosion of innovation and expansion in the video game industry, largely undocumented by anyone other than industry trade magazines and online publications. Ryan's book is good video game journalism, but it needs to be better than that. It needs to be good journalism.
Super Mario: How Nintendo Conquered America OverviewThe story of Nintendo's rise and the beloved icon who made it possible. Nintendo has continually set the standard for video-game innovation in America, starting in 1981 with a plucky hero who jumped over barrels to save a girl from an ape. The saga of Mario, the portly plumber who became the most successful franchise in the history of gaming, has plot twists worthy of a video game. Jeff Ryan shares the story of how this quintessentially Japanese company found success in the American market. Lawsuits, Hollywood, die- hard fans, and face-offs with Sony and Microsoft are all part of the drama. Find out about: *Mario's eccentric yet brilliant creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, who was tapped for the job because was considered expendable. *Minoru Arakawa, the son-in-law of Nintendo's imperious president, who bumbled his way to success. *The unexpected approach that allowed Nintendo to reinvent itself as the gaming system for the non-gamer, especially now with the Wii Even those who can't tell a Koopa from a Goomba will find this a fascinating story of striving, comeuppance, and redemption.

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