I try to do two things in the book. First, I describe a kind of criticism that accounts for both computation and critical theory, which I hope will bridge computer science and humanism. "Unit Operations" is my shorthand for a general theory of procedurality that includes computational, literary, artistic, filmic, and plastic expression. Second, I use this approach to perform a series of  comparative critiques of a variety of games in relation to other  
forms of expression like poetry, novels, and film. There has been  
much work contextualizing videogames in relation to games, or  
collapsing videogames into digital art or film or narrative, but very little work that tries to understand rule-based systems as a general expressive domain of which videogames are a one. This is part of what  

I try to do in the book, hopefully opening a space for more  
comparative videogame criticism.