“Toward a Gameic World is a thoughtful and well-structured book that sheds light on how select Japanese games can provoke reflection on contemporary social issues.”

“Toward a Gameic World argues that video games have the potential to work through and play out social anxieties and traumatic events in contemporary Japanese society. In contradistinction from extant studies of gaming in Japan that tend to be more historical, ethnographical, and sociological, the book takes on a multidisciplinary approach with an emphasis on 'textual' analysis of video games. While embedded in the context of modern Japan, the book reflects on the larger global implications of video games as a viable genre of scholarly inquiry.”

"From the first page, Whaley’s writing style is open and engaging, enlisting the reader’s empathy when describing dif­fi­cult video game stages and levels. Clearly written, with plenty of examples from the case studies, the slim volume will be useful for undergraduate reading lists in game studies, media studies, Japanese studies, and Asian studies, as well as just plain interesting reading for a general audience."

“Overall, Toward a Gameic World treats us to not just an individual contribution to Japanese Game Studies, but an optimistic vision of the future in which the field can continue to grow and thrive. It is particularly in the book’s attentiveness to both Japanese social and cultural issues alongside its engagement with Media Studies approaches to games that it leaves the impression of a field of knowledge that remains open to approaches that move between fields/sub-fields and resist sedimentation into a single, unified school.”