Tag: Book

Eric Swain Books

My 2021 Journey in Getting Back Into Reading

In January of 2021, I just picked up a book. Everyone has their pulpy, soap opera, lore bait extravaganza that they get into. Magic: The Gathering is one of mine. I had fallen behind on the published stories and decided to get caught up. I also had bought myself a brand-new fancy Kindle and wanted to use it. I combined these two desires. The act of sitting down and reading a book reminded me of what I was missing, even if it was as something as smooth and banal as a Magic: The Gathering book. | more

Eric Swain Critical Responses, Recent Posts

Game Frame – A Book Review

Game Frame by Aaron Dignan is a book about gamification. It’s about how you as a person can insert gamification into your ordinary activities to help you get through them. The author is a co-founder in a digital strategy firm for big companies and this is his foray into the next big bandwagon. Gamification in it’s most basic form is a stupid idea where in most cases people will add points or badges to something and think that is all that is needed to up the engagement with people. | more

Eric Swain Critical Responses, Recent Posts

Reality is Broken – A Book Review

I knew I was going to review this book so in preparation I kept away from all of McGonigal’s talks, interviews, and presentations as much as possible before reading it. I caught her appearance on the Colbert Report, but it was hard to make any prejudgments from that short interview. So I am coming into this review as clean as I possibly could and allowing McGonigal’s book to speak for itself. Having read it, I asked on twitter, rhetorically, how do you review this book. | more

Eric Swain Critical Responses, Recent Posts

Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter – A Book Review

I haven't done video game reviews on this site. I also don't intend to. I have only done video game critiques or criticism. The name in the top banner should be enough of a clue. So it is interesting that the first review I do for a blog about video games is really about a book. faster full movie high quality part I finished Tom Bissell's Extra Lives over a week ago, before E3 started. I wanted to finish those posts on inFamous before I got around to writing on the book. | more