Many thanks to Canongate Books and NetGalley for giving me an ARC of Tim Clare's newest nonfiction title, "The Game Changers: How Playing Games Changed the World and Can Change You Too"!
The premise of Clare's work really piqued my interest, especially since I hadn't heard of another publication about why playing games is a universal human instinct; why the same games evolved across different civilisations; and how those games make our lives happier, healthier and more fulfilled. And may I say that, in terms of book summaries, this is the most accurate one I have read in so long that I cannot express my appreciation to Canongate Books for not misleading readers with that part of the book, which I feel is rare these days.
I decided to read this slowly and ended up reading one chapter every evening. Clare's book provided fantastic hisotry lessons which give context for games that have been discovered which includes the histories of dice and card games. As someone who loves to read about history, this aspect of the content was great! I also loved the chapters which focused on classic and modern games, tabletop games, digital games, role-play or live action role play games, and everything in between. Clare included information about game companies and also the typical players of games and what those social interactions impact the players both of which I found interesting but not always surprising (like how male-dominated and sexist some games can be).
I like that Clare was demonstrating the importance of games and the positive social impact games have on our lives, and I wish maybe he'd included even more about how games impact or are impacted by socioeconomics, but that's for another book. Regardless of my wishes, I think Clare's book was quite an enjoyable read. I think that the content could have been structured and organized in a way that would have been a bit more direct/streamlined, but honestly, that's my only real criticism. Clare, it's clear, put time, effort, and love into a book about one of the things he loves most: games. To me, if someone asked me, "What are the most vivid memories you have of my parents?" I'd say that oh, so many are centred around when we played games: when we played Hummmzinger, and I kept saying "dinosaur" instead of "unicorn" as they hummed "The Unicorn Song". Or perhaps it was when we played spoons and my mother decided to scatter the spoons after she'd collected all of her cards, and we flew over the kitchen table, almost dying for a SPOON. Or was it the evenings when we'd die with laughter after playing Hedbandz, Balderdash, Pictionary, or some other hiliarious game that came out in the 90s that was a staple in our home since we usually had "family nights" which almost always involved a game. Maybe it's the million times my sister asked me to play Guess Who?, or the first time my partner and I played Wizard with another couple who were so determined to sabotage one another that one of us won every game we all played. It's the way that even though my family drive me insane, when we play a game, there's a period of time when we can actually all get along. Games can make miracles happen!
All jokes aside, Clare evokes that feeling in his book, "The Game Changers: How Playing Games Changed the World and Can Change You Too" reminding us how important games are to people because they're one of the most wonderful displays of our humanity.
If you're a fan of historical nonfiction, games, sociology, and/or human behaviour, then this book might be for you!
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