This book starts with the proposition that digital media invite play and indeed need to be played by their everyday users. Play is probably one of the most visible and powerful ways to appropriate the digital world. The diverse, emerging practices of digital media appear to be essentially playful: Users are involved and active, produce form and content, spread, exchange and consume it, take risks, are conscious of their own goals and the possibilities of achieving them, are skilled and know how to acquire more skills. They share a perspective of can-do, a curiosity of what happens next? Play can be observed in social, economic, political, artistic, educational and criminal contexts and endeavours. It is employed as a (counter) strategy, for tacit or open resistance, as a method and productive practice, and something people do for fun.
The book aims to define a particular contemporary attitude, a playful approach to media. It identifies some common ground and key principles in this novel terrain. Instead of looking at play and how it branches into different disciplines like business and education, the phenomenon of play in digital media is approached unconstrained by disciplinary boundaries. The contributions in this book provide a glimpse of a playful technological revolution that is a joyful celebration of possibilities that new media afford. This book is not a practical guide on how to hack a system or to pirate music, but provides critical insights into the unintended, artistic, fun, subversive, and sometimes dodgy applications of digital media.
Contributions from Chris Crawford, Mathias Fuchs, Rilla Khaled, Sybille Lammes, Eva and Franco Mattes, Florian 'Floyd' Mueller, Michael Nitsche, Julian Oliver, and others cover and address topics such as reflective game design, identity and people's engagement in online media, conflicts and challenging opportunities for play, playing with cartographical interfaces, player-emergent production practices, the re-purposing of data, game creation as an educational approach, the ludification of society, the creation of meaning within and without play, the internalisation and subversion of roles through play, and the boundaries of play.
這本書的開篇主張數位媒體邀請遊玩，並且確實需要其日常使用者進行遊玩。遊玩可能是最明顯且最有力的方式來適應數位世界。數位媒體的多樣化、新興實踐本質上似乎是充滿遊戲性的：使用者參與其中並且積極行動，創造形式和內容，傳播、交換和消費這些內容，承擔風險，意識到自己的目標及實現這些目標的可能性，具備技能並知道如何獲得更多技能。他們共享一種可以做到的觀點，對接下來會發生什麼充滿好奇。遊玩可以在社會、經濟、政治、藝術、教育和犯罪等背景和努力中觀察到。它被用作一種（反）策略，進行隱性或公開的抵抗，作為一種方法和生產性實踐，並且是人們為了娛樂而進行的活動。
本書旨在定義一種特定的當代態度，即對媒體的遊戲化方法。它在這個新穎的領域中識別出一些共同的基礎和關鍵原則。本書並不僅僅關注遊玩及其如何分支到商業和教育等不同學科，而是無拘無束地探討數位媒體中的遊玩現象。本書中的貢獻提供了一瞥這場充滿樂趣的技術革命，慶祝新媒體所帶來的可能性。本書不是一本關於如何駭入系統或盜版音樂的實用指南，而是提供了對數位媒體的意外、藝術性、有趣、顛覆性以及有時候不太正當的應用的批判性見解。
來自Chris Crawford、Mathias Fuchs、Rilla Khaled、Sybille Lammes、Eva和Franco Mattes、Florian 'Floyd' Mueller、Michael Nitsche、Julian Oliver等人的貢獻涵蓋並探討了反思性遊戲設計、身份與人們在網路媒體中的參與、遊玩中的衝突與挑戰機會、與地圖介面互動的遊玩、玩家主導的生產實踐、數據的重新利用、作為教育方法的遊戲創作、社會的遊戲化、在遊玩內外創造意義、透過遊玩內化和顛覆角色，以及遊玩的界限等主題。
