9780307736987
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Extra Lives audiobook

  • By: Tom Bissell
  • Narrator: Tom Bissell
  • Category: Popular Culture, Social Science
  • Length: 5 hours 30 minutes
  • Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
  • Publish date: January 01, 2010
  • Language: English
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Extra Lives Audiobook Summary

Tom Bissell is a prizewinning writer who published three widely acclaimed books before the age of thirty-four. He is also an obsessive gamer who has spent untold hours in front of his various video game consoles, playing titles such as Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead, BioShock, and Oblivion for, literally, days. If you are reading this flap copy, the same thing can probably be said of you, or of someone you know.
 
Until recently, Bissell was somewhat reluctant to admit to his passion for games. In this, he is not alone. Millions of adults spend hours every week playing video games, and the industry itself now reliably outearns Hollywood. But the wider culture seems to regard video games as, at best, well designed if mindless entertainment.
 
Extra Lives is an impassioned defense of this assailed and misunderstood art form. Bissell argues that we are in a golden age of gaming—but he also believes games could be even better. He offers a fascinating and often hilarious critique of the ways video games dazzle and, just as often, frustrate. Along the way, we get firsthand portraits of some of the best minds (Jonathan Blow, Clint Hocking, Cliff Bleszinski, Peter Molyneux) at work in video game design today, as well as a shattering and deeply moving final chapter that describes, in searing detail, Bissell’s descent into the world of Grand Theft Auto IV, a game whose themes mirror his own increasingly self-destructive compulsions.
 
Blending memoir, criticism, and first-rate reportage, Extra Lives is like no other book on the subject ever published. Whether you love video games, loathe video games, or are merely curious about why they are becoming the dominant popular art form of our time, Extra Lives is required reading.

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Extra Lives Audiobook Narrator

Tom Bissell is the narrator of Extra Lives audiobook that was written by Tom Bissell

About the Author(s) of Extra Lives

Tom Bissell is the author of Extra Lives

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Extra Lives Full Details

Narrator Tom Bissell
Length 5 hours 30 minutes
Author Tom Bissell
Category
Publisher Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
Release date April 30, 2024
ISBN 9780307736987

Subjects

The publisher of the Extra Lives is Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group. includes the following subjects: innovation, entertainment, cyberpunk, sci-fi, virtual reality, biography, design, art, culture, pop culture, video games, game guides, clever gifts, video game book, video game art, fun gifts for adults, video game books, video game collectibles, gifts for him, gamer gifts, gifts, fun gifts, gifts for her, gifts for men, gifts for women, technology, games, gaming, video game guides, video game gifts, gamer gift, gameboy console, the ultimate history of video games, gifts for gamers, video game, sociology, sociology books, Social Science, Popular Culture, Technology & Engineering, Television & Video, Games, Video & Electronic The BISAC Subject Code is Popular Culture, Social Science

Additional info

The publisher of the Extra Lives is Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group. The imprint is Random House Audio. It is supplied by Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group. The ISBN-13 is 9780307736987.

Global Availability

This book is only available in the United States.

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