![]() This can of course be argued against and reveals a subjective view of this reviewer. By taking this approach, he can be seen as one of the quite few researchers working towards making game research a discipline of its own and not a specific topic explored from an already established research field. The inclusion of appendixes with interviews allows fellow researchers to view the empirical data but is also likely to be interesting to readers in general. Juul’s academic strength is shown in how he can use this variety of approaches successfully and deliver thoughtful analyses and insights for each of them. In doing so, he does something commendable which is seldom done within research of games using the methods most appropriate for the specific topic at hand, rather than sticking to the methods of one discipline. To avoid this, the book contains a mixture of approaches: surveys of casual gamers, interviews with game designers, historical views of how some games are presented as fitting certain audiences, and the tracking of game mechanics through the evolution of certain games. He explicitly makes distinctions between player-centric and game-centric views, and illustrates how taking only one of these results in problematic conclusions. Wishing to “capture what is happening with video games,” Juul combines a variety of methods in the book to provide a holistic approach to the subject. In doing so he suggests that erroneous assumptions, from developers and the general public alike, have previously kept video games from being designed for everyone. ![]() In his book, A Casual Revolution - Reinventing Video Games and their Players, he explores this new development where new large groups of people are beginning to play video games and where simultaneously new types of video games are emerging. Taking the view that a shift has occurred from technology towards gameplay design and that video games have become a normal part of our culture, Juul sees this as a revolution in how games are perceived. This is actually an irrelevant question today since quite a lot of people do play video games in one form or other, but these people do not comply with the typical stereotypes of gamers and do not play the typical AAA titles most often written about in both academic and popular press. “Why don’t most people play video games?” This is probably a question you have asked yourself at one point or another if you are an avid gamer or a game researcher. Not a Casual Review: Reading Jesper Juul’s A Casual Revolution by Staffan Björk
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