Play Anything

The Pleasure of Limits, the Uses of Boredom, and the Secret of Games

De: Ian Bogost

Narrado por: Jonathan Yen

Life is boring: filled with meetings and traffic, errands and emails. Nothing we'd ever call fun. But what if we've gotten fun wrong? In Play Anything, visionary game designer and philosopher Ian Bogost shows how we can overcome our daily anxiety; transforming the boring, ordinary world around us into one of endless, playful possibilities. The key to this playful mindset lies in discovering the secret truth of fun and games.

Play Anything reveals that games appeal to us not because they are fun, but because they set limitations. Soccer wouldn't be soccer if it wasn't composed of two teams of 11 players using only their feet, heads, and torsos to get a ball into a goal; Tetris wouldn't be Tetris without falling pieces in characteristic shapes. Such rules seem needless, arbitrary, and difficult. Yet it is the limitations that make games enjoyable, just like it's the hard things in life that give it meaning.

Play is what happens when we accept these limitations, narrow our focus, and, consequently, have fun. Which is also how to live a good life. Manipulating a soccer ball into a goal is no different than treating ordinary circumstances - like grocery shopping, lawn mowing, and making PowerPoints - as sources for meaning and joy. We can "play anything" by filling our days with attention and discipline, devotion and love for the world as it really is, beyond our desires and fears. Ranging from Internet culture to moral philosophy, ancient poetry to modern consumerism, Bogost shows us how today's chaotic world can only be tamed - and enjoyed - when we first impose boundaries on ourselves.

©2016 Ian Bogost (P)2016 Recorded Books

Great book, bad title

I did not find in this book what I was expecting from the title.
It's well written and interesting. I touches briefly on boredom and limits. Much of the time is passed criticizing irony. I would say that irony, instead of play, is the main focus of this book.

or become a monk

Being satisfied with everything for what it is and what we are may that the joy out of the things that matter and send it out in the darkness only to return to us as something else.

Entertaining Word Choice and Enlightening

I liked how he used different examples - stories and really gave the essence of how he thought about play. Liked The Metaphors and Popular Diction.

Useless

This book has nothing that pertains to practical application. Talks about hipsters obsessions hints that the ideas discussed might have useful applications but does nothing to explore implementation or utilization.

Just a collection of ponderings about pretentious interests

Digital Torture

Ten hours of my life...gone forever. Monotonous, pompous, and convoluted. His endless lists while trying to make the same points over and over. Additionally, the narrator's tonality matched the smugness of the author. He would be better cast as the narrator in an old Looney Tunes cartoon. His applied accents when quoting someone bordered on insulting.