Video Games a Popular Culture Phenomenon -- by Arthur Asa Berger

This is a book that has a few good points, some problematic points as well as some parts that are pretty uninteresting; however, I would recommend it over the book I previously reviewed. Berger has done his research. He cites several interesting sources, and for that fact alone it is worth checking out.

While Berger's sources are one of the books strengths, it is also one of its weaknesses. There are many good quotes in this book, however, Berger does not seem to have a lot to say on his own. When he does give his own unique thoughts, they are sometimes problematic. While he does state that he is concerned with games for children, he treats the subject matter as if all games are for children. Of course, those of us reading this would disagree. There was also a paragraph that I found to be extremely racist in its sentiments.

Berger goes into some great depth comparing video games to books and of course, as so often the case, he finds video games lacking. He discussed the things that books can do, such as identification, interiority, leaving things up to the imagination of the reader, and stops by saying that video games do none of these things as well. He neglects to discuss any of the things that video games do better than books, which is an odd omission considering that this book is about video games, not books... It seems as if this section could be summed up by saying in your best bitter old man voice, "These damn kids today and their damn videogames. They don't know what they're missing. That Red Badge of Courage. Now there was a book! Get off my yard you damn kids!" Of course, this is an exaggeration, but the exaggeration is based in the words of the book.

Berger does not seem to be an avid video game player. As such, there are a few places that are invalid because of this lack of familiarity with the medium. For example, in one section, he notes that Myst and Riven are the best selling video games of all time. From this, he concludes that adventure games are an important genre. While it may be true that Myst and Riven are important games to study, to draw the conclusion that adventure games are currently an important genre, is of course wrong since the adventure genre is nearly extinct.

Berger also delves into the violence and addiction debates; however, he does not really add anything to the body of work already in existence. He does give an interesting quote from Robert Kubey who, I believe accurately, relates what seems to be addiction to Csikszentmihaly's flow concept. Disappointingly, Berger then leaps to the assumption that like drug addictions there will be an ever increasing level required to achieve that same level of enjoyment. Certainly I feel that there is a significant different between a physical addiction where you body literally craves a substance to function, and what occurs in playing video games and that to draw such a direct comparison borders on the language of moral panics.

While I disagree with many of his conclusions, Berger does do a good job of going over many of the general issues of studying video games. I feel that one might be better served by photocopying his bibliography and tracking down his sources, but as in introduction and overview it does a good job. The production of the book is a bit shoddy as I found numerous spelling errors and problems with the formatting which distracted from the message of the book. This is not a bad book, but it is not a great book. There are some interesting points contained within, but they are hard to find.