An exploration of why we play video games despite the fact that we are almost certain to feel unhappy when we fail at them.

On August 12th, 1994, the Major League Baseball Players Association directed its members to go on strike, ultimately leading to cancellation of both the remainder of the 1994 baseball season and the 1994 World Series. The 232-day saga that ensued, and its fallout, would ultimately amount to the most financially and emotionally destructive episode in the history of American professional sports. This book examines the 1994 strike from all angles, including its long-stemming origins to its beginnings, the course taken by events throughout its nine-month duration, and evolving popular reactions throughout. It will consider the eventual mediation and resolution, and what the strike meant in both the short- and long-term for Major League Baseball and the relationship between the sport and American culture. The labor dispute that culminated in 1994's strike and cancelled World Series was hardly the first dispute between players and owners in Baseball, but rather can be seen as a culmination of an extended period of labor unrest throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Here we see the "final showdown" in the owners' long-standing efforts to break the union; both sides would eventually accept concessions and, finally, the result would be normalization of the previous imbalance of power. Such a dramatic course correction would prove to have negative consequences for the public perceptions of both players and owners. Unlike previous labor disputes, 1994 was met with overwhelming feelings of resentment and betrayal aimed at both sides. Consequently, the 1994-95 strike was definitive in establishing the American public's modern conception of the relationship among professional athletes, team owners, and fans.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of failure in business, management and consulting. It features contributions by experts from diverse fields, who share unique insights from their real-life experiences. Readers will find perspectives from leadership, project management, change management, innovation management, human resource management, counseling, restructuring, entrepreneurship and sports. Each chapter combines the latest empirical findings with relevant case studies, making for a unique book that offers a fascinating exploration of the largely unexplored area of setbacks, pitfalls, flops and disappointments in the business world.

Fueled by Failure: Dare to Fail. Dare to Succeed. Olympian and former NFL player now thriving as a CEO and Philanthropist, Jeremy Bloom pulls at the common thread that unites him with all of us: the defeats we encounter on our journeys to reach our goals. Sharing his hard-earned insights, advice, and practices including lessons from respected coaches, phenomenal athletes, and highly successful business leaders, Bloom coaches you in tackling defeats—big and small—and using them to drive, not derail, your success. Bloom covers: How to rebound and reprogram after defeat How to utilize the lessons from failures Which motivators evoke winning results Tactics for managing expectations for yourself and/or your team How to create a badass business culture Leaving a legacy

A gaming academic offers a “fascinating” exploration of why we play video games—despite the unhappiness we feel when we fail at them (Boston Globe) We may think of video games as being “fun,” but in The Art of Failure, Jesper Juul claims that this is almost entirely mistaken. When we play video games, our facial expressions are rarely those of happiness or bliss. Instead, we frown, grimace, and shout in frustration as we lose, or die, or fail to advance to the next level. Humans may have a fundamental desire to succeed and feel competent, but game players choose to engage in an activity in which they are nearly certain to fail and feel incompetent. So why do we play video games even though they make us unhappy? Juul examines this paradox. In video games, as in tragic works of art, literature, theater, and cinema, it seems that we want to experience unpleasantness even if we also dislike it. Reader or audience reaction to tragedy is often explained as catharsis, as a purging of negative emotions. But, Juul points out, this doesn't seem to be the case for video game players. Games do not purge us of unpleasant emotions; they produce them in the first place. What, then, does failure in video game playing do? Juul argues that failure in a game is unique in that when you fail in a game, you (not a character) are in some way inadequate. Yet games also motivate us to play more, in order to escape that inadequacy, and the feeling of escaping failure (often by improving skills) is a central enjoyment of games. Games, writes Juul, are the art of failure: the singular art form that sets us up for failure and allows us to experience it and experiment with it. The Art of Failure is essential reading for anyone interested in video games, whether as entertainment, art, or education.

Many of our greatest athletes, scientists, and entertainers failed repeatedly throughout their careers, yet they refused to allow past mistakes stop them from striving for future success. Instead, they turned those so-called failures into opportunities to learn, improve, and eventually earn the achievements they are celebrated for today. Why, then, is failure considered negative in our society? Perhaps failure is not, in fact, something to be avoided, but something to be encouraged. In Praise of Failure: The Value of Overcoming Mistakes in Sports and in Life aims to change the way our society defines and perceives what is commonly called “failure.” Mark H. Anshel provides a refreshing, new perspective on how we can embrace failure as part of the process of achieving and succeeding at the highest level. Anshel uses sports psychology in a grounded, easy-to-read manner to examine failure in sports settings, revealing that not only is failure inevitable in an imperfect world, it is essential. He addresses such issues as how to properly promote failure in sport and exercise settings, how errors lead to improvement, ways to constructively cope with failure, and how to help child athletes fail “safely.” In the process, Anshel shows that the highest-performing athletes have one characteristic in common—they learned and improved from apparent setbacks. In Praise of Failure shares stories of professional athletes, business professionals, scholars, and famous inventors who failed repeatedly before attaining their dreams, revealing the integral role failure plays in success. Offering a fresh and exciting take on how to approach the failures we face in life, this book will be invaluable for athletes, coaches, exercise and fitness trainers, dieticians, students, and even for the corporate world.

A Science “Reading List for Uncertain Times” Selection “A must-read for anyone with even a passing interest in the present and future of higher education.” —Tressie McMillan Cottom, author of Lower Ed “A must-read for the education-invested as well as the education-interested.” —Forbes Proponents of massive online learning have promised that technology will radically accelerate learning and democratize education. Much-publicized experiments, often underwritten by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, have been launched at elite universities and elementary schools in the poorest neighborhoods. But a decade after the “year of the MOOC,” the promise of disruption seems premature. In Failure to Disrupt, Justin Reich takes us on a tour of MOOCs, autograders, “intelligent tutors,” and other edtech platforms and delivers a sobering report card. Institutions and investors favor programs that scale up quickly at the expense of true innovation. Learning technologies—even those that are free—do little to combat the growing inequality in education. Technology is a phenomenal tool in the right hands, but no killer app will shortcut the hard road of institutional change. “I’m not sure if Reich is as famous outside of learning science and online education circles as he is inside. He should be...Reading and talking about Failure to Disrupt should be a prerequisite for any big institutional learning technology initiatives coming out of COVID-19.” —Inside Higher Ed “The desire to educate students well using online tools and platforms is more pressing than ever. But as Justin Reich illustrates...many recent technologies that were expected to radically change schooling have instead been used in ways that perpetuate existing systems and their attendant inequalities.” —Science