Rules of Play
I got my copy of Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman’s Rules of Play in the mail yesterday (check out the table of contents link from that page). Hopefully this means the physical and online booksellers (e.g., Booksense) will have it in stock soon.
It’s impressive, even though I’ve been expecting it to be impressive. There’s a lot here — the pages the same oversize (almost square) dimensions used for The New Media Reader, and nearly 700 of them, many with double-column layout — it makes space for conceptual definitions, wide-ranging discussions, lots of examples, and playable games (including one that utilizes the gutters of the pages).
I’m a bit disappointed that the “mini-interviews” Eric and Katie conducted in 2001 appear to have ended up on the cutting room floor. They interviewed some sharp folks (and, yes, the occasional not-so-sharp character like myself). Maybe the interviews will find a home on the Rules of Play website or something. If there is a website — my Google-fu was not sufficient to find anything but the one at MITP.
I’m going to have to read the book before saying much more, but it strikes me as incredibly ambitious. It’s a theoretical argument, and a textbook in part based on that argument. It’s also a bit of a survey of the field, and it’s playful, and it’s playable. Is it too much? Will those who disagree with the argument not want to use the textbook? Will those who love the theory feel alienated by the textbook form? Or will these talented authors have managed the alchemical fusion, bringing the best of these different discourses together in print — as happens in discussions around the tables of the seminar rooms and design studios we most enjoy inhabiting?