As tabletop wargames and fantasy role-playing games have morphed into video-games, scholars have recognized that these new game forms demand attention. With their economic impact and social consequences, they are far from trivial child's play, but are central to how we conceive ourselves. Utopic Dreams and Apocalyptic Fantasies demonstrates conclusively that to understand our values and our lives, the appreciation of video games are central. But more than just describing the content of the games and the techniques of play, these authors go much deeper, demonstrating the theoretical underpinnings of contemporary leisure: sometimes joyful, sometimes troubling, sometimes transgressive, sometimes filled with sex and violence, and occasionally suggesting the budding of a new age of social justice.

Gary Alan Fine, Northwestern University, author of “Everyday Genius: The Culture of Authenticity in Self-Taught Art”

This collection enchants the intellect and lifts the spirit as it explores the transformative potential of play, urging us to reimagine ourselves through playing and researching video games. The superb essays, grounded in fresh readings of Marx, Freud, Durkheim, Huizinga, Turner, and others, are pure pleasure to read, and add striking new depth and interest to games scholarship.

Bonnie Nardi, University of California, Irvine and author of My Life as Night Elf Priest: An Anthropological Account of World of Warcraft

The essays in this volume together accomplish a rare feat in Game Studies. They exhibit a sustained and nuanced treatment of games and play embedded in their historical and cultural contexts while also grappling with the most intricate of current conceptual issues in the field.

Thomas Malaby, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Utopic Dreams and Apocalyptic Fantasies is a fascinating collection that critically interrogates video game play from a wide range of perspectives. From questions of method to questions of marketing, from issues of localization to issues of embodiment, this volume will be invaluable to scholars and designers from a range of disciplines.

Tom Boellstorff, University of California, Irvine