Every Game is an Island

…Every Game is an Island is an important work in formalist game studies, one which serves to situate the video game object in relation to wider discourses of textuality and the media object. * Daniel Vella, Game Studies *
While Riccardo Fassone is talking about limitations, endings and closures, he is doing it with an amazing open mind. He is in fact pushing boundaries, pointing us new areas to consider, encouraging us to pay attention to details and, above all, showing us how far game studies have come since we have started to explore videoludic islands. If I can extend the metaphor, I’ll say that Fassone is a great voyager. * Bernard Perron, Full Professor of Film and Game Studies, University of Montreal, Canada *
In Every Game Is an Island Riccardo Fassone provides us with a fascinating look at what games look like and how they can be understood, when approached from their ends and boundaries. Are games finite and clearly defined objects to start with, or are games’ procedural and performance related dimensions pre-empting all attempts to capture them in their entirety? How is the aesthetic value of games related to their ephemerality? This study makes use of dazzling array of scholarship from multiple fields, ranging from computer science to continental philosophy, building bridges between disciplines, thereby also lessening the chance of intellectual endeavours related to games remaining as islands, isolated from each other. This is one of the best works that fully recognises the enormous diversity and complexity of game form, written so far. * Frans Mäyrä, Professor, University of Tampere, Game Research Lab, Finland *
In a medium obsessed with openness and possibility, Fassone shows why boundaries and limitations offer a better measure for games. * Ian Bogost, Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies and author of Play Anything: The Pleasure of Limits, the Uses of Boredom, and the Secret of Games (2016), Georgia Institute of Technology, USA *
Every Game is an Island is a provocative and necessary book for game studies. In this book, Riccardo Fassone proposes an irreverent, well-read, and productive approach to many of the key topics in game studies, from immersion to nostalgia. Every Game is an Island delivers comprehensive readings and re-rereadings of games and game scholarship, encouraging us to think extremely about the extremes of games. * Miguel Sicart, Associate Professor, IT University of Copenhage, Denmark *