Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Steven Poole has released his excellent book Trigger Happy completely freely.

Available as a pdf, the whole thing can be yours without paying a penny, and even better, with no DRM (digital restrictions management) at all.

Poole describes the book thusly,

“Trigger Happy is a book about the aesthetics of videogames — what they share with cinema, the history of painting, or literature; and what makes them different, in terms of form, psychology and semiotics. It was first published in 2000; this is the revised edition with the updated Afterword written in 2004. It’s offered under a CC license, for a limited time only. I’m not sure how limited that time will be, so grab it while it’s hot.”

For more comments on Poole’s fantastic work, and his freely published Edge columns, check out Kieron’s previous post on the matter. And you can read the entire book with whichever pdf app you like the bestest, via Steven’s site.

RPS loves you, Steven Poole. (Big thanks to Aidan for pointing this out to us).

Real-world grown-up critic Steven Poole (who probably even has his own room and big boy pants and everything) has put up his columns which he wrote for grown-up big-boy pants games magazine, Edge. Poole’s probably best known for his book from the same period, Trigger Happy. Which looked like this in its first edition, which is most attractive.

(More on Poole and why you should be excited to read his columns beneath the cut, methinks.)

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