Playing to Win: Becoming the Champion |  | Author: David Sirlin
Publisher: David Sirlin
Category: eBooks
In Stock
Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 119,400
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
ASIN: B001GS7AZI
Publication Date: October 31, 2005
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Product Description
Winning at competitive games requires a results-oriented mindset that many players are simply not willing to adopt. This book walks players through the entire process: how to choose a game and learn basic proficiency, how to break through the mental barriers that hold most players back, and how to handle the issues that top players face. It also includes a complete analysis of Sun Tzu's book The Art of War and its applications to games of today. These foundational concepts apply to virtually all competitive games, and even have some application to real life.
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| Customer Reviews:
Good, but if you're really serious there's not much new here July 20, 2007
Zachary Conlyn (MD United States)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Playing to Win is meant to be a guide for how to excel in any sort of competitive game or environment, from classic board games like chess to video arcade games like Street Fighter. Since I haven't played chess in years, I was much more interested in the 2D fighting game aspect of the book (as I'm sure most of the book's readers will be, given Sirlin's reputation in the fighting game community).
In that context, Sirlin's book is thorough and easily applicable. He takes the reader from the very foundations of competitive gaming (what differentiates good competitive games from bad, competitive games from non-competitive games, and "scrubs" from non-"scrubs"), all the way to more advanced tactics taken straight from Sun Tzu's Art of War.
That said, if you have been playing fighting games for more than a couple of years, almost none of this will be new to you. In fact, anyone who becomes serious about fighting games will discover all of the book's principles through their own experience, even if they cannot articulate their lessons as well as Mr. Sirlin.
The one exception is the player biography section, which gives short overviews of the play styles of various chess and Street Fighter players. This section, while entertaining, did not improve my game.
So who is this book for? It's for people just starting out with competitive games, who want a quick introduction to some of the ideas they will be grappling with. To this group, I can 100% recommend this book. As for more advanced or seasoned players, I'm not sure the book will really improve your game at all, but at the very least, it'll organize and fully articulate some of the ideas you already have.
A landmark book... for the right people October 1, 2008
Louis Paquin (Montreal, QC, Canada)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Sirlin's Playing to Win is to competitive gaming what Machiavel's The Prince is to politics.
Just as Machiavel laid down a surprisingly logical and through guide for how to get what you want in politics, David Sirlin writes in a clear, direct style what competitive game players can do to get what they want (winning!). Playing to Win is fairly short (131 pages) but cuts straight to the heart of the matter: showing how competitive players see the world of games, how they act within it, and why they act that way. It's surprisingly easy and fun to read, and yet there's a lot of information in it.
Playing to Win tries to apply to all competitive games, so naturally the book's examples aren't too specific or technical, but it helps the reader a thousandfold to actually know some of the landmark competitive games discussed in the book, like Starcraft or Street Fighter. Someone who has never played a competitive game will most likely be lost while reading Playing to Win. But if you have even a little experience about playing against your peers, then you'll find that even though the lessons in the book are very general, almost philosophical ones, they can actually change the way you see games and play them - for the better.
First and foremost, Playing to Win is meant for people who like competitive games. If you are a game designer, then it can also be interesting, if only to learn a lot about a worldview different from what you might be used to. I know of no better book about competitive gaming than Playing to Win - it really is a landmark title in its category.
If you neither play competitive games nor design games, though, the book's razor-sharp focus will probably mean that you won't really get anything out of it. That is how you should interpret my 4-star rating: I wholeheartedly recommend this book to competitive players and game designers, but not to my mom and sister who know next to nothing about competitive games.
More than just games November 29, 2008
Richter Lee (Seattle, WA USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Great book on how to put yourself in the proper mind set to win. Although aimed towards games, the book is written at a high enough level that the ideas can be applied to competition in general - business, etc. This book will not give specific strategies for anything, rather, it describes a "winner" and what traits one should have to one.
To get the most out of the book, you should have experience with a good repertoire of games across genres. Specifically, the book references Virtua Fighter, Street Fighter, StarCraft, Counter-Strike, and Magic: The Gahtering. I could imagine some parts of the book being confusing without playing the games, especially Virtua Fighter and M:TG.
A good read February 25, 2008
Tim P. Norton (Kansas City)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I enjoyed this book immensely. If you consider yourself a gamer then this should be an enjoyable read. Highly recommended!
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