Whether you love video games, loathe video games, or are merely curious about why they are becoming the dominant popular art form of our time, Extra Lives is required reading.
Blending memoir, criticism, and first-rate reportage, Extra Lives is like no other book on the subject ever published. Along the way, we get firsthand portraits of some of the best minds (Jonathan Blow, Clint Hocking, Cliff Bleszinski, Peter Molyneux) at work in video game design today, as well as a shattering and deeply moving final chapter that describes, in searing detail, Bissell’s descent into the world of Grand Theft Auto IV, a game whose themes mirror his own increasingly self-destructive compulsions. He offers a fascinating and often hilarious critique of the ways video games dazzle and, just as often, frustrate. Bissell argues that we are in a golden age of gaming-but he also believes games could be even better. Extra Lives is an impassioned defense of this assailed and misunderstood art form. But the wider culture seems to regard video games as, at best, well designed if mindless entertainment. Millions of adults spend hours every week playing video games, and the industry itself now reliably outearns Hollywood. Until recently, Bissell was somewhat reluctant to admit to his passion for games.
If you are reading this flap copy, the same thing can probably be said of you, or of someone you know. He is also an obsessive gamer who has spent untold hours in front of his various video game consoles, playing titles such as Far Cry 2, Left 4 Dead, BioShock, and Oblivion for, literally, days. Tom Bissell is a prizewinning writer who published three widely acclaimed books before the age of thirty-four.
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