Ever since the 'crown of Azeroth' assumed centre stage in World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, millions of players have been captivated by the dark, stormy depths of the continent that has become synonymous with the dreaded Scourge. Now, venture into the icy, mysterious tundra of Northrend under the expert guidance of Clan Bronzebeard in this third instalment in the wildly popular World of Warcraft: Exploring Azeroth series!

The Destiny Comic Collection Vol. One is an essential collection of comic stories for Destiny fans. This 144 page volume includes Bungie's comic collection plus never before seen stories, behind the scenes galleries, and exclusive content from featured artists! From Osiris's exile to Ana Bray's homecoming on Mars, uncover the legends behind Destiny 2's iconic characters. Featuring stories written and illustrated in collaboration with Bungie by Ryan North (Dinosaur Comics, Marvel's The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl), Kris Anka (Marvel's X-Men and Star-Lord), Mark Waid (DC Comics' The Flash and Marvel's Captain America) plus a special introduction by Gerry Duggan (Marvel's Deadpool).

Video games have become an increasingly ubiquitous part of society due to the proliferation and use of mobile devices. Video Games and Creativity explores research on the relationship between video games and creativity with regard to play, learning, and game design. It answers such questions as: Can video games be used to develop or enhance creativity? Is there a place for video games in the classroom? What types of creativity are needed to develop video games? While video games can be sources of entertainment, the role of video games in the classroom has emerged as an important component of improving the education system. The research and development of game-based learning has revealed the power of using games to teach and promote learning. In parallel, the role and importance of creativity in everyday life has been identified as a requisite skill for success.

Brenda Laurel is best known for her work with Purple Moon, the pioneering game company she cofounded in the 1990s. Purple Moon's games were based on years of research Laurel completed in an effort to understand why computer games seemed to be of so little interest to girls. Using diverse archival sources such as trade journals, newspapers, and recorded interviews, alongside Laurel's completed games and own writings and an original interview with Laurel herself, this volume offers insight into both the early development of the games for girls movement of the 1990s and the lasting impact of Laurel's game design breakthroughs. In her work with Purple Moon, Laurel drew on her background in theatre as well as her expertise in human computer interaction and qualitative research. By relying on this interdisciplinary background, Laurel made significant contributions to our understanding of the design and development of games as a medium for emotional rehearsal and storytelling. Additionally, her dedication to research-informed design has had a longstanding impact as companies and designers increasingly rely on audience research and metrics to shape their practices. The newest in Bloomsbury's Influential Video Game Designers series, Carly Kocurek highlights the contributions of a designer whose work has had a profound impact on the development of both games for girls and empathy games.

Culture is dependent upon intertextuality to fuel the consumption and production of new media. The notion of intertextuality has gone through many iterations, but what remains constant is its stalwart application to bring to light what audiences value through the marriages of disparate ideology and references. Videogames, in particular, have a longstanding tradition of weaving texts together in multimedia formats that interact directly with players. Contemporary Research on Intertextuality in Video Games brings together game scholars to analyze the impact of video games through the lenses of transmediality, intermediality, hypertextuality, architextuality, and paratextuality. Unique in its endeavor, this publication discusses the vast web of interconnected texts that feed into digital games and their players. This book is essential reading for game theorists, designers, sociologists, and researchers in the fields of communication sciences, literature, and media studies.

The fall of 2016 saw the release of the widely popular First World War video game Battlefield 1. Upon the game's initial announcement and following its subsequent release, Battlefield 1 became the target of an online racist backlash that targeted the game's inclusion of soldiers of color. Across social media and online communities, players loudly proclaimed the historical inaccuracy of black soldiers in the game and called for changes to be made that correct what they considered to be a mistake that was influenced by a supposed political agenda. Through the introduction of the theoretical framework of the 'White Mythic Space', this book seeks to investigate the reasons behind the racist rejection of soldiers of color by Battlefield 1 players in order to answer the question: Why do individuals reject the presence of people of African descent in popular representations of history?

The definitive anthology of Tank Girl, collecting the classic, newly colored stories from original creators Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett! Includes three exclusive art! All three volumes of the cult-classic Tank Girl comics (1988-1995) from legendary creators Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett (Gorillaz). Dive into the twisted and chaotic world of Tank Girl, Jet Girl, Sub Girl and Booga, and experience the original stories that captured the hearts of readers everywhere, then shot them to oblivion (by accident of course)! With all new colouring, this is the complete Tank Girl collection you won't want to miss.

Although gaming was once primarily used for personal entertainment, video games and other similar technologies are now being utilized across various disciplines such as education and engineering. As digital technologies become more integral to everyday life, it is imperative to explore the underlying effects they have on society and within these fields. Exploring the Cognitive, Social, Cultural, and Psychological Aspects of Gaming and Simulations provides emerging research on the societal and mental aspects of gaming and how video games impact different parts of an individual's life. While highlighting the positive, important results of gaming in various disciplines, readers will learn how video games can be used in areas such as calculus, therapy, and professional development. This book is an important resource for engineers, graduate-level students, psychologists, game designers, educators, sociologists, and academics seeking current information on the effects of gaming and computer simulations across different industries.

Despite the pervasive rhetorics of immersion and embodiment found in industrial and social discourses, playing a video game is an exercise in non-linearity. The pervasiveness of trial and error mechanics, unforgiving game over screens, loading times, minute tweakings of options and settings, should lead us to consider video games as a medium that cannot eschew fragmentation. Every Game is an Island is an analysis and a critique of grey areas, dead ends and extremities found in digital games, an exploration of border zones where play and non-play coexist or compete. Riccardo Fassone describes the complexity of the experience of video game play and brings integral but often overlooked components of the gameplay experience to the fore, in an attempt to problematize a reading of video games as grandiosely immersive, all-encompassing narrative experiences. Through the analysis of closures and endings, limits and borders, and liminal states, this field-advancing study looks at the heart of a medium starting from its periphery.

It was over a decade ago that experimental psychologists and media-effects researchers declared the debate on the effects of violent video gaming as "essentially over," referring to the way violence in videogames increases aggressive thoughts, feelings and behaviors in players. Despite the decisive tone of this statement, neither the presence nor popularity of digital games has since diminished, with games continuing to attract new generations of players to experience its technological advancements in the narration of violence and its techniques of depiction. Drawing on new insights achieved from research located at an intersection between humanities, social and computer sciences, Gareth Schott's addition to the Approaches in Digital Game Studies series interrogates the nature and meaning of the "violence" encountered and experienced by game players. In focusing on the various ways "violence" is mediated by both the rule system and the semiotic layer of games, the aim is to draw out the distinctiveness of games' exploitation of violence or violent themes. An important if not canonical text in the debates about video games and violence, Violent Games constitutes an essential book for those wishing to make sense of the experience offered by games as technological, aesthetic, and communicational phenomena in the context of issues of media regulation and the classification of game content "as" violence.