{"product_id":"unit-operations-an-approach-to-videogame-criticism-the-mit-press","title":"Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism","description":"In Unit Operations, Ian Bogost argues that similar principles underlie both literary theory and computation, proposing a literary-technical framework that can be used to analyze particular video games. The book suggests that this approach can be applied across media—from video games to poetry, literature, cinema, or art—read as configurative systems of discrete, interlocking units of meaning, and Bogost illustrates this method with examples from these fields. He contends that the marriage of literary theory and information technology will help humanists take technology more seriously and help technologists better understand software and video games as cultural artifacts. The approach is especially useful for the comparative analysis of digital and nondigital artifacts and enables scholars from other fields who are studying video games to avoid the esoteric isolation of game studies. The richness of Bogost's comparative approach is shown in his discussions of philosophers and theorists such as Plato, Badiou, Žižek, and McLuhan, and in his analyses of games including Pong, Half-Life, and Star Wars Galaxies. Bogost draws on object technology and complex adaptive systems theory for his method of unit analysis, underscoring the configurative aspects of a wide variety of human processes. His extended analysis of freedom in large virtual spaces examines Grand Theft Auto III, The Legend of Zelda, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, and Joyce's Ulysses. In Unit Operations, Bogost not only offers a new methodology for videogame criticism but argues for the possibility of real collaboration between the humanities and information technology.","brand":"Thryft Singapore","offers":[{"title":"Like New","offer_id":51673015451929,"sku":"HQ799.2.P6C58.2008","price":12.9,"currency_code":"SGD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Very Good","offer_id":51673015484697,"sku":"HQ799.2.P6C58.2008","price":10.9,"currency_code":"SGD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Good","offer_id":51673015517465,"sku":"HQ799.2.P6C58.2008","price":9.9,"currency_code":"SGD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Well Read","offer_id":51673015550233,"sku":"HQ799.2.P6C58.2008","price":8.9,"currency_code":"SGD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/0598\/4849\/files\/4566661.jpg?v=1763816677","url":"https:\/\/thryft.sbs\/products\/unit-operations-an-approach-to-videogame-criticism-the-mit-press","provider":"Thryft","version":"1.0","type":"link"}