We just got sent a honest-to-gosh paper copy of this book, so it's good timing that Jesper Juul has also pointed out that "...Space Time Play is a new anthology on video games edited by Friedrich von Borries, Steffen P. Walz and Matthias Böttger" - and out this month.

Now, it does have to be said that the overview on the official site is highly 'academikwak' (and yes, that's an official term): "The richly illustrated texts in "Space Time Play" cover a wide range of gamespaces: from milestone video and computer games to virtual metropolises to digitally-overlaid physical spaces. As a comprehensive and interdisciplinary compendium, "Space Time Play" explores the architectural history of computer games and the future of ludic space."

But looking through 'Space Time Play', it's a bit more interesting than that implies - with a near-infinite amount of contributors debuting short but sometimes perceptive analyses of titles from Rogue through Kirby: Canvas Curse through Silent Hill through Elite and beyond, plus art-games and ARGs also notably featured in other vignettes. It all gets a bit weird when it lapses into "architecture and urban planning" much later in the book, but you can always rip that bit out if you want!

(Also, there's an endearingly brief essay on physics in games which has precisely two references - for Newton's 'Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica' and, uhh, George Lucas' Star Wars. That's the charm and insanity of the academic gaming scene, all in once!)