Ordinary games are an important vehicle for children's learning. They provide a powerful, naturally occurring learning environment that is physical, playful and fun. Playing games requires interpersonal skills in language, thought, social behavior, creativity, self-regulation and skilful use of the body. When children play games together they develop the following key capacities: •Cooperative behavior •Focused attention •Social understanding •Holding information in mind •Motor, spatial and sequential planning •Self-regulation, e.g impulse control, coping with excitement, controlled exertion •Collaborative behavior and negotiation •Self-expression and creativity. Games provide a social experience that is emotionally compelling, where children laugh and have fun and do not realise they are interacting, problem solving, negotiating and cooperating with each other. Play Better Games is designed to help practitioners and parents to think about what might prohibit their children from joining in with games and plan effective strategies for support. It will be of benefit to teachers, therapists, group works, play workers, midday supervisors and support workers, as well as to parents and siblings of children with autism.

The games industry is serious business and the role of a games designer has dramatically changed over just the last few years. Developers now have to rethink everything they know about the creative, technical and business challenges to adapt to the transition to games as a service. Games as a Service: How Free to Play Design Can Make Better Games has been written to help designers overcome many of the fears and misconceptions surrounding freemium and social games. It provides a framework to deliver better games rather than the ‘evil’ or ‘manipulative’ experiences some designers fear with the move away from wasteful Products to sustainable, trustworthy Services. Oscar Clark is a consultant and Evangelist for Everyplay from Applifier. He has been a pioneer in online, mobile and console social games services since 1998 including Wireplay (British Telecom), Hutchison Whampoa (3UK) and PlayStation®Home. He is a regular columnist on PocketGamer.Biz and is an outspoken speaker and moderator at countless games conferences on Games Design, Discovery, and Monetisation. He is also a notorious hat wearer.

What impact can video games have on us as players? How does psychology influence video game creation? Why do some games become cultural phenomena? The Psychology of Video Games introduces the curious reader to the relationship between psychology and video games from the perspective of both game makers and players. Assuming no specialist knowledge, this concise, approachable guide is a starter book for anyone intrigued by what makes video games engaging and what is their psychological impact on gamers. It digests the research exploring the benefits gaming can have on players in relation to education and healthcare, considers the concerns over potential negative impacts such as pathological gaming, and concludes with some ethics considerations. With gaming being one of the most popular forms of entertainment today, The Psychology of Video Games shows the importance of understanding the human brain and its mental processes to foster ethical and inclusive video games.

“McGonigal is a clear, methodical writer, and her ideas are well argued. Assertions are backed by countless psychological studies.” —The Boston Globe “Powerful and provocative . . . McGonigal makes a persuasive case that games have a lot to teach us about how to make our lives, and the world, better.” —San Jose Mercury News “Jane McGonigal's insights have the elegant, compact, deadly simplicity of plutonium, and the same explosive force.” —Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother A visionary game designer reveals how we can harness the power of games to boost global happiness. With 174 million gamers in the United States alone, we now live in a world where every generation will be a gamer generation. But why, Jane McGonigal asks, should games be used for escapist entertainment alone? In this groundbreaking book, she shows how we can leverage the power of games to fix what is wrong with the real world-from social problems like depression and obesity to global issues like poverty and climate change-and introduces us to cutting-edge games that are already changing the business, education, and nonprofit worlds. Written for gamers and non-gamers alike, Reality Is Broken shows that the future will belong to those who can understand, design, and play games. Jane McGonigal is also the author of SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient.

A behavioral scientist explores love, belongingness, and fulfillment, focusing on how modern technology can both help and hinder our need to connect. A Next Big Idea Club nominee. Millions of people around the world are not getting the physical, emotional, and intellectual intimacy they crave. Through the wonders of modern technology, we are connecting with more people more often than ever before, but are these connections what we long for? Pandemic isolation has made us even more alone. In Out of Touch, Professor of Psychology Michelle Drouin investigates what she calls our intimacy famine, exploring love, belongingness, and fulfillment and considering why relationships carried out on technological platforms may leave us starving for physical connection. Drouin puts it this way: when most of our interactions are through social media, we are taking tiny hits of dopamine rather than the huge shots of oxytocin that an intimate in-person relationship would provide. Drouin explains that intimacy is not just sex—although of course sex is an important part of intimacy. But how important? Drouin reports on surveys that millennials (perhaps distracted by constant Tinder-swiping) have less sex than previous generations. She discusses pandemic puppies, professional cuddlers, the importance of touch, “desire discrepancy” in marriage, and the value of friendships. Online dating, she suggests, might give users too many options; and the internet facilitates “infidelity-related behaviors.” Some technological advances will help us develop and maintain intimate relationships—our phones, for example, can be bridges to emotional support. Some, on the other hand, might leave us out of touch. Drouin explores both of these possibilities.

The first putting book in more than a decade from the world’s best-known— and bestselling—golf instructor. With numerous bestselling books, coast-to-coast golf schools, and lessons to elite pros, Dave Pelz has founded an empire based upon his scientific approach to the game. His last putting book, Dave Pelz’s Putting Bible, was a blockbuster, but his fans are eager to learn the master’s newest and most up-to-date techniques. Their wait is finally over. In Dave Pelz’s Putting Games, he synthesizes the lessons he gives to elite pros, including Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh, Steve Elkington, Bo Van Pelt, and Mike Weir—not to mention the thousands of amateurs who attend the Dave Pelz Scoring Game schools and clinics every year. Pelz guides readers through the process of fine-tuning existing strokes, creating new skills and techniques, and using feedback devices at home, where it’s easy to find the time to make it happen, all in the name of improving your putting skills. Every golfer knows that improving his or her putting will lower scores, yet great putting remains one of the game’s most elusive goals. Filled with full-color instructional photos and step-by-step lessons, Dave Pelz’s Putting Games is the answer to a golfer’s dream: It shows the way to improve your putting by playing games in the comfort and convenience of your own home during the week, so you can shoot lower scores on the course on the weekends.

An innovative guide to living gamefully, based on the program that has already helped nearly half a million people achieve remarkable personal growth In 2009, internationally renowned game designer Jane McGonigal suffered a severe concussion. Unable to think clearly or work or even get out of bed, she became anxious and depressed, even suicidal. But rather than let herself sink further, she decided to get better by doing what she does best: she turned her recovery process into a resilience-building game. What started as a simple motivational exercise quickly became a set of rules for “post-traumatic growth” that she shared on her blog. These rules led to a digital game and a major research study with the National Institutes of Health. Today nearly half a million people have played SuperBetter to get stronger, happier, and healthier. But the life-changing ideas behind SuperBetter are much bigger than just one game. In this book, McGonigal reveals a decade’s worth of scientific research into the ways all games—including videogames, sports, and puzzles—change how we respond to stress, challenge, and pain. She explains how we can cultivate new powers of recovery and resilience in everyday life simply by adopting a more “gameful” mind-set. Being gameful means bringing the same psychological strengths we naturally display when we play games—such as optimism, creativity, courage, and determination—to real-world goals. Drawing on hundreds of studies, McGonigal shows that getting superbetter is as simple as tapping into the three core psychological strengths that games help you build: • Your ability to control your attention, and therefore your thoughts and feelings • Your power to turn anyone into a potential ally, and to strengthen your existing relationships • Your natural capacity to motivate yourself and super-charge your heroic qualities, like willpower, compassion, and determination SuperBetter contains nearly 100 playful challenges anyone can undertake in order to build these gameful strengths. It includes stories and data from people who have used the SuperBetter method to get stronger in the face of illness, injury, and other major setbacks, as well as to achieve goals like losing weight, running a marathon, and finding a new job. As inspiring as it is down to earth, and grounded in rigorous research, SuperBetter is a proven game plan for a better life. You’ll never say that something is “just a game” again.