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Mary Flanagan
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Values at Play in Digital Games Hardcover – July 1, 2014

by Mary Flanagan (Author), Helen Nissenbaum (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 25 ratings
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A theoretical and practical guide to integrating human values into the conception and design of digital games, with examples from Call of Duty, Journey, World of Warcraft, and more.

All games express and embody human values, providing a compelling arena in which we play out beliefs and ideas. “Big ideas” such as justice, equity, honesty, and cooperation—as well as other kinds of ideas, including violence, exploitation, and greed—may emerge in games whether designers intend them or not. In this book, Mary Flanagan and Helen Nissenbaum present Values at Play, a theoretical and practical framework for identifying socially recognized moral and political values in digital games. Values at Play can also serve as a guide to designers who seek to implement values in the conception and design of their games.

After developing a theoretical foundation for their proposal, Flanagan and Nissenbaum provide detailed examinations of selected games, demonstrating the many ways in which values are embedded in them. They introduce the Values at Play heuristic, a systematic approach for incorporating values into the game design process. Interspersed among the book's chapters are texts by designers who have put Values at Play into practice by accepting values as a design constraint like any other, offering a real-world perspective on the design challenges involved.
Previous page
  1. Print length
    224 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    The MIT Press
  4. Publication date
    July 1, 2014
  5. Dimensions
    6.25 x 0.76 x 9.31 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0262027666
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0262027663
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Mary Flanagan is Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor in Digital Humanities, Director of the Tiltfactor game research laboratory, and Professor in the Department of Film and Media Studies at Dartmouth College. She is the author of Critical Play: Radical Game Design (MIT Press).

Helen Nissenbaum is Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication and Computer Science at New York University, where she is Director of the Information Law Institute.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ The MIT Press; 1st edition (July 1, 2014)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0262027666
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0262027663
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.11 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 0.76 x 9.31 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 25 ratings

About the author

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Mary Flanagan

Mary Flanagan

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Mary Flanagan is an interdisciplinary thinker and maker at the crossroads of art and technology. She has written or edited six books and works across genres including academic writing, poetry, fiction, product design, creative studio practice, and journalism for Salon, USA Today, Huffington Post, SF Chronicle, and Gamasutra. Her book Critical Play is standard-issue reading for those interested in, or studying, computer games and establishes the link between art history and contemporary game design, and her writing about art, technology, feminism, and play is widely recognized. Mary Flanagan is the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor of Digital Humanities at Dartmouth College. She holds a PhD from Central St Martins, University of the Arts in London and an MFA from the University of Iowa.

In 2018, Flanagan won the Award of Distinction at Prix Ars Electronica in the Interactive art+. Flanagan is the recipient of the American Council of Learned Societies Digital Innovation Fellowship, the Thoma Foundation 2018 Arts Writing Award in Digital Art, and has been awarded residencies with the Brown Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, Bogliasco, and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in 2019. Flanagan has lectured widely including at Oxford, Cornell, Trinity College, Columbia, Harvard, and the Sorbonne. She was recently a John Paul Getty Museum Scholar, a Senior Scholar in Residence at Cornell Society for the Humanities, and Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Jackman Humanities Institute. In 2016 she was honored as a ‘Vanguard’ from Games for Change and received Honoris Causa in Design, Illinois Institute of Technology. Flanagan was one of the 2018 invited cultural leaders at the World Economic Forum at Davos for her leadership in crafting values-centered technologies. Flanagan has served on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Academic Consortium on Games for Impact, and her work has been supported by commissions and grants including The British Arts Council, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Justice, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Flanagan’s work has been showcased in The Atlantic and repeatedly on National Public Radio, and she is widely known as an expert on matters related to games and digital culture. She’s given keynotes to groups ranging from the Association of Professional Futurists to Computer Supported Cooperative Work, from Philosophy of Computer Games to Games Learning and Society, from the experimental STRP Arts Festival to Women in Games.

See more at http://www.maryflanagan.com.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
25 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Aeiea
5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring words and useful toolbox for designing socially responsible and effective games
Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2015
Game developers who want to own responsibility for how they influence players, especially children, should read this book. Not only is Values at Play in Digital Games inspiring as a call-to-action, but it provides case examples (super useful when getting buy-in from coworkers and superiors) as well as a design framework, the Values at Play heuristic, which one can use during the design process. You want tools? Read this book.

I’ve been going through a social good kick lately, reading game (design? theory? not sure what to call them) books like Persuasive Games, Reality is Broken, The Game Believes in You, etc. as well as non-game books like The One World Schoolhouse. These are all good books, but Values at Play is best to read first; it’s approachable and provides a proper overview of socially responsible games. It makes sense that the authors Mary Flanagan and Helen Nissenbaum are professors (at Dartmouth and NYU, respectively), plus Mary heads the game studio Tiltfactor -- the content provides academic reflection as well as an insider look.

My favorite parts are the examples from games, both the ones I’ve played and ones I’ve never heard of. Seeing how Portal, Journey, Ico, Mirror’s Edge, Limbo, Call of Duty, Angry Birds, Starcraft, Farmville, Mass Effect, WoW are fulfilling (or in some cases, destroying) values at play prodded me to revisit these games and mindfully play my current games with an eye for any values promoted. Then there were games that weren’t even on my horizon, like Layoff, September 12th, Pox, Waking Mars, and oh my goodness Hush. Even what can seem like a simple mechanic can transform into an experience that will emotionally blow you away. As a game designer, whether commercial or indie, you develop your craft by exposing yourself to all games, by engaging in dialogue internally and externally about these games, and of course by making your own games: check out Grow-A-Game (a Tiltfactor card game)! What a cool concept; fun to riff on game concepts that prioritize human values with these cards.

Everyone -- students, new game designers, game industry veterans -- should read this book and take action. For me, it took having a kid and realizing I should leave the world in a better state than I came into. For you, maybe this review?
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dave rawk
3.0 out of 5 stars Too small.. The content might be there, but it's hard to see it.
Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2017
Verified Purchase
The content of the book seems to be what was represented, but the publisher/formatter of the book really fell short.
I hate giving reviews for books that don't have to do with the content. In this case though I feel a warning is in order for future purchasers.
This book cannot be read while you commute, or even in a living room. It was printed in what seems like a 10 or even 9 point font, and that makes the content almost impossible to absorb if there is even a but of imperfect conditions. It is not thick, so it could have easily had an increase in the font to something reasonable.
I know it sounds like something too small to mention (ha), but not being able to read a book is sort of a stumbling point.

I am still making my way through it, but it is not the enjoyable book I was hoping for.

To the author.... reprint this book on your own if you have to, but by god, get a sample before you publish.
3 people found this helpful
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Zachary Wilson
5.0 out of 5 stars An important book written at a critical moment in the history of games.
Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2014
Written to be accessible to the hardcore game theorist and the general reader alike, Values at Play in Digital Games is on the cutting edge of video game development. It's not some guide to the latest shading techniques, or a tome of coding optimizations - it's a book that's exploring the next frontier in games - how games express and shape our values both directly and indirectly and how we as game developers can be proactive and aware of the values our games project. As games grow from power fantasies and idle time wasters into a true art form, game designers are going to need critical-practical works like this to help themselves direct their design choices to make games that express the values they intend them to express.
5 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Ifaz Matoub
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in Canada on March 8, 2018
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good product
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Nathan Wv10
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 12, 2016
Verified Purchase
This book was perfect for my university course.
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Luca Giarrizzo
5.0 out of 5 stars Utterly brilliant.
Reviewed in France on January 31, 2015
Verified Purchase
A thorough and really smart analysis on a subject that needs more attention. This makes it justice, with a really modern and academic approach The object is elegant, pleasurable to hold and read.
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