From Reconstruction, Deborah Wills and Erin Steuter (Mount Allison): Gaming at the End of the World: Coercion, Conversion and the Apocalyptic Self in Left Behind: Eternal Forces Digital Play. From Digital Culture and Education, Kyle Kontour (Colorado): Revisiting violent videogames research: Game Studies Perspectives on Aggression, Violence, Immersion, Interaction, and Textual Analysis; and a review of Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System by Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost. A review of Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter by Tom Bissell; and notes from a video game developer: You play them for the stories — and someone needs to make those stories. A review of Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games by Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter. A review of Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames by Ian Bogost. Most video games — in which you accumulate stuff and/or dominate the world — are the opposite of progressive. Once relegated to the "cultural wasteland", video games make it to the next level — academia. Alienware M11x: The King Kong of gaming computers now comes in a Fay Wray-size package. Sometime this August, librarians at the University of Illinois will finish archiving over a dozen famous computer games, then step back to consider where to go next with their project. A review of Fun Inc.: Why Gaming Will Dominate the Twenty-First Century by Tom Chatfield. Online games are a gold mine for design ideas: When gamers play online, they leave a data trail that intelligent algorithms are picking up to build ever more challenging and entertaining games.
