For further reading...

I had some really good conversations with Andrew over at Gamerdad on Thursday and Friday. Gamerdad post his reading list last week and we had some back and forth about our research areas. I greatly respect Andrew's work over at Gamerdad and continue to recommend it to any parents with kids and video games. That being said, I was happy to be able to suggest some additional resources for his research. Who knows, maybe I'll end up with the title "Gamerdad's Librarian."

Our conversation got me thinking about my own gaming research. This weekend I took a break from strictly educational applications of games in order to dig a little into gaming theory and other issues. Here's what I've been reading this weekend. I'll post some thoughts and annotations early this week.

Caillois, R. (2001). Man, play, and games (M.Barash, Trans.). University of Illinois Press:Urbana. (Original work published 1958).

Juul, J. (2005). Half-Real: Video games between real rules and fictional worlds. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

Koster, R. (2005). A theory of fun for game design. Scottsdale, AZ: Paraglyph Press.

Schechter, H. (2005). Savage pastimes: A cultural history of violent entertainment. New York: St. Martin's Press.


edit: I started this post late last night, but I fell asleep on the floor of my boy's room trying to get one back to sleep without waking the other.