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Making Games

The Politics and Poetics of Game Creation Tools

Part of Playful Thinking

Author Stefan Werning

Hardcover

$25.00 US

The MIT Press

5.69"W x 8.31"H x 0.57"D (14.5 x 21.1 x 1.4 cm) | 12 oz (329 g) | 24 per carton

On sale Feb 16, 2021 | 176 Pages | 9780262044837

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An argument that production tools shape the aesthetics and political economy of games as an expressive medium.

In Making Games, Stefan Werning considers the role of tools (primarily but not exclusively software), their design affordances, and the role they play as sociotechnical actors. Drawing on a wide variety of case studies, Werning argues that production tools shape the aesthetics and political economy of games as an expressive medium. He frames game-making as a (meta)game in itself and shows that tools, like games, have their own "procedural rhetoric" and should not always be conceived simply in terms of optimization and best practices.

Stefan Werning is Associate Professor for Digital Media and Game Studies at Utrecht University. He has worked in the digital games industry, most notably at Codemasters and Nintendo of Europe.

Stefan Werning View titles by Stefan Werning

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On Thinking Playfully
Introduction
Chapter I: Making Sense of Tools
Chapter II: Tool Essays: From Tool Fandom and Aesthetic Ecosystems to the Evolution of Tool Affordances
Chapter III: A Call for Evocative Tool Design: Game Creation as...
Acknowledgements
Notes
References
Index

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