Play Matters (Playful Thinking) Hardcover – August 1, 2014

This is a fantastic, readable book, about why play matters. It is written by a game scholar who refreshingly deemphasizes games as just one vehicle for play and playfulness. He focuses on playgrounds, toys, and beauty as sites of playfulness that do the powerful, potentially subversive work of helping the player imagine the world they inhabit. I would recommend this book to game scholars, students, or just those interested in what play has to offer to the texture of everyday life.

Great compact read on playful design that reaches to broader design insights.

When Miguel Sicart sent me a draft of his new book, Play Matters, I was deeply gratified by his explorations of play and playfulness and their implications for video game design. Deeply gratified. So deeply that when he asked me if I’d consider writing an endorsement for his book (which you can read on the back cover), I jumped at the chance.Here’s what I wrote:“Play Matters opens a door into our increasingly playful world. It frames the world of play and playfulness just enough to create a coherent image of these fundamental forces, without spoiling the fun. It opens a way into this world, inviting the reader to engage, creatively and intelligently, in the design of a more playful future.”Now that I have the published book finally in hand, I am pleased to tell you that, though I fully stand by my endorsement, the book proves to be even more insightful, and, in its playful way, revolutionary, than I indicated, despite my obvious enthusiasm for the project.Sicart thinks clearly and deeply about play.“To play,” writes Sicart, “is to be in the world. Playing is a form of understanding what surrounds us and who we are, and a way of engaging with others.”and:“I am not going to oppose play to reality, to work, to ritual or sports,” he says, “because it exists in all of them. It is a way of being in the world, (my italics) like languages, thought, faith, reason.”“……we need,” he continues, to…reclaim play as a way of expression, a way of engaging with the world – not as an activity of consumption, but as an activity of production. Like literature, art, song and dance; like politics and love and math, play is a way of engaging and expressing our being in the world.”And: “Playfulness glues together an ecology of playthings, situations, behaviors, and people, extending play onward an attitude for being in the world. Through playfulness, we see the world, and we also see how the world could be structured as play.”and when it comes to games, I give you, as a taste, Sicart’s description of the game of Metakettle:In the protests of late 2009 and 2010 that took place across the United Kingdom, a police tactic for containing dissenters became popular: kettling. Kettling consists of surrounding a group of protestors with enough riot police to contain them in an area, either to facilitate their arrest or to break down large demonstrations into more manageable groups. Kettling is not necessarily a violent teactic, bit it immediately showcases the force of riot police. Kettling is also the inspiration for one of the most interesting political games ever made: Metakettle.The rules of Metakettle are simple:1. Shout “Metakettle” to start the game.2. Start your own team by shouting an animal name or joining an already established team by linking arms with them.3. Get other people on yor team by completely encircling them with members of your team.4. The person who formed the last surviving animal team wins.5. Repeat until the police let you go.Sicart comments:…Metakettle is designed to appropriate a particular situation and playfully turn it around. It is carnivalesque play at its best – an appropriation of a situation turned into the absurd trough play that shows a political interpretation of the situation in which it is played.And this is just one small example of the depth of his thinking and the power of his message – all in the name of play.It’s written largely for videogame designers, and in that, it succeeds brilliantly. It is one of those books that clearly belongs in the core curriculum of every game design program (and, fortunately, there are many such). But it is equally, as I hope the small taste of his writing that I shared with you demonstrates, an extremely valuable book for those of us who think about things like political action, games of any and every kind: games for change, serious games, games for education, for communication, and, of course, beyond games to the very art of living.

Maybe I'm not allowed to write a review of this book since I'm not going to school for anything related Psychology. But I had to buy this book for a college course I was taking and holy crap is it horrible. (I love to read by the way). It was hard to even get through a few pages at a time. This book is so incredibly redundent. The first two chapters could have been summed up in a couple paragraphs. Its like this entire book is one of those work meetings that could have been an email. The way its written skips around a whole bunch and made my assignments for it pretty difficult because I spent more time trying to find definitions or references than actually writing about the concepts. Maybe this is just over my head or maybe I needed more context or psych experience to enjoy this book.

Play is not just a particular book or thing, play is a way of being!

This book is repetitive and offers to evidence or data to back up the grossly overblown claims it makes. If you are required to read this book for a class, word to the wise: You probably don't have to read the whole thing. He says the same 5 things over and over. Don't waste your money, borrow someone else's copy.

Redefines play to make the word stand for just about anything the author views as laudable. If you are a professor teaching game design this is how you puff up the percieved importance of the field you are teaching. In the end the book says nothing actually useful. It's a shame since I do believe in the importance of play, but drivel like this adds nothing to the conversation. I laughed out loud when the author inevitably drags in Nietsche and Order and Chaos. So predictable in this kind of writing... The author needs to read Steven Pinker's book on writing style.

This book really chimed with me - there is a great deal of writing on games (particularly video games), but relatively little on play and playfulness. This is especially true when thinking about play in adults (rather than just children). So this easily readable and understandable book on play and playfulness is really welcome. It sums up a lot of thinking on play in a way that will be useful not just for game designers, but educators, politcal groups and any of us that would like to see the world become a more playful place.

More of a manifesto than anything else, Sicart is convincing to a point, but many of his points fail to hit home not because his arguments are weak, but because the English language fails him and us. Play is an incredibly ambiguous word, one that has far too many uses to be of any real use when trying to define the parameters of an argument like this. I'm with Miguel, he's definitely onto something, but until we get better at defining types of play, and expand our vocabulary it'll remain a frustrating topic to discuss.

En la tradicción de Huizinga este libro presenta una descripción cultural del juego y sus diferentes elementos constitutivos. Además está bien escrito, fundamentado y resulta entretenido. Interesante para todos aquellos que quieran una aproximación lúcida al asunto.

Muito bom por trabalhar uma ampla visão deste verbo e sua complexidade, sem se prender nos estereótipos de bom ou ruim, certo ou errado. Vale a leitura.

Ricevuto dopo pochissimo tempo dall'ordine. Libro acquistato e iniziato subito a leggere. Sembra molto interessante. Di piccole dimensioni, facilmente trasportabile.