Gamification, Arduino

Fabio Viola's 2011 book "Gamification, Arduino" is a popularly oriented overview of the video game industry, written in a style closer to journalism than academic scholarship. The review, published in the 2012 issue of Critical Notes, frames the book as a definitional and summarizing work aimed at readers unfamiliar with the field. Its central argument is that the market is shifting away from PC gaming and physical distribution toward console, digital, and casual play, with mass-market interfaces such as motion controls and retail availability in general stores driving that transition.

The book traces the decline of the personal computer as a gaming platform, attributing it partly to Microsoft's acquisitions of Bungie and Lionhead and its consequent focus on consoles, as well as to the closure of established PC developers. It also argues that console titles are easier to sell because they avoid the system-requirement explanations PC games demand, and that the move to large retail chains has reduced staff expertise on the sales floor. Viola predicts that the hardcore market will be displaced by casual gaming, with price as a key factor, and he offers numerous tables and statistics to gauge the current market's size.

The book also covers mobile gaming history, including Nokia's N-GAGE, along with chapters on smartphone gaming and social gaming. Although the title invokes gamification, the author uses the term broadly as a synonym for video game industry and culture rather than for the application of game mechanics to non-game contexts. The review judges the book most useful for newcomers and industry professionals seeking a statistical compendium, while noting that its graphic design is uneven, it contains numerous typos, and it is priced high for its page count.