Leaders in the field provide an introduction to video games and learning, including essays on game design and game culture.

Part I. Games as Designed Experience: 1. Videogames as designed experience: section one Kurt Squire; 2. Designed cultures Kurt Squire; 3. Theme is not meaning: who decides what a game is about? Soren Johnson; 4. Our cheatin' hearts Soren Johnson; 5. Playing the odds Soren Johnson; 6. Nurturing lateral leaps in game design Nathan McKenzie; 7. Uncharted 2: among thieves - how to become a hero Drew Davidson and Richard Lemarchand; 8. Interview with harmonix Greg Lopiccolo, Kurt Squire and Sarah Chu; 9. Yomi: spies of the mind David Sirlin; Part II. Games as Emergent Culture: 10. Videogames as emergent culture: section two Constance Steinkuehler; 11. Nurturing affinity spaces and game-based learning James Paul Gee and Elisabeth Hayes; 12. Apprenticeship in massively multiplayer online games Constance Steinkuehler and Yoonsin Oh; 13. Theorycrafting: the art and science of using numbers to interpret the world Trina Choontanom and Bonnie Nardi; 14. Culture and community in a virtual world for young children Rebecca W. Black and Stephanie M. Reich; 15. Culture vs. architecture: second life, sociality, and the human Thomas M. Malaby; 16. Participatory media spaces: a design perspective on learning with media and technology in the twenty-first century Erica Rosenfeld Halverson; Part III. Games as a Twenty-First-Century Curriculum: 17. Videogames as a twenty-first-century curriculum: section three Sasha Barab; 18. Prediction and explanation as design mechanics in conceptually integrated digital games to help players articulate the tacit understandings they build through gameplay Douglas B. Clark and Mario Martinez-Garza; 19. Game-based curricula, personal engagement, and the modern prometheus design project Sasha Barab, Patrick Pettyjohn, Melissa Gresalfi and Maria Solomou; 20. Discovering familiar places: learning through mobile place-based games Bob Coulter, Eric Klopfer, Josh Sheldon and Judy Perry; 21. Developing game fluencies with scratch: realizing game design as an artistic process Yasmin B. Kafai and Kyle A. Peppler; 22. 'Freakin' hard': game design and issue literacy Colleen Macklin and John Sharp; 23. Models of situated action: computer games and the problem of transfer David Williamson Shaffer.