Game Studies

Game Studies

episodes

Interviews with scholars of games and gaming about their new books. For more information about the Game Studies special series, please contact Rudolf Thomas Inderst at rudolf.inderst@googlemail.com.

Jordan Minor, "Video Game of the Year: A Year-By-Year Guide to the Best, Boldest, and Most Bizarre Games from Every Year Since 1977" (Abrams, 2023)

September 26, 2024

Video Game of the Year

Jordan Minor

Pong. The Legend of Zelda. Final Fantasy VII. Rock Band. Fortnite. Animal Crossing: New Horizons. For each of the 40 years of video game history, ther…

Marta Fijak and Artur Ganszyniec, "How and Why We Make Games" (CRC Press, 2024)

September 18, 2024

How and Why We Make Games

Marta Fijak and Artur Ganszyniec

How and Why We Make Games (CRC Press, 2024) delves into the intricate realms of games and their creation, examining them through cultural, systemic, a…

Hey, Robot!

September 16, 2024

Hey, Robot!

Frank Lantz
Hosted by Mack Hagood

Today, we’re playing with voice assistants and thinking about the role of voices in gaming with our guest, game designer and NYU professor Frank Lantz…

Jordan Magnuson, "Game Poems: Videogame Design as Lyric Practice" (Amherst College Press, 2023)

September 4, 2024

Game Poems

Jordan Magnuson

Scholars, critics, and creators describe certain videogames as being “poetic,” yet what that means or why it matters is rarely discussed. In Game Poem…

Sarah Malanowski and Nicholas R. Baima, "Why It's Ok to Be a Gamer" (Routledge, 2024)

September 3, 2024

Why It's Ok to Be a Gamer

Sarah Malanowski and Nicholas R. Baima

If you enjoy video games as a pastime, you are certainly not alone—billions of people worldwide now play video games. However, you may still find your…

Christopher B. Patterson and Tara Fickle, "Made in Asia/America: Why Video Games Were Never (Really) about Us" (Duke UP, 2024)

August 24, 2024

Made in Asia/America

Christopher B. Patterson and Tara Fickle

Made in Asia/America: Why Video Games Were Never (Really) about Us (Duke UP, 2024) explores the key role video games play within the race makings of A…

Tore C. Olsson, "Red Dead's History: A Video Game, an Obsession, and America's Violent Past" (St. Martin's Press, 2024)

August 6, 2024

Red Dead's History

Tore C. Olsson
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption II, set in 1911 and 1899, are the most-played American history video games since The Oregon Trail. Beloved…

Sören Schoppmeier, "Playing American: Open-World Videogames and the Reproduction of American Culture" (De Gruyter, 2023)

July 19, 2024

Playing American

Sören Schoppmeier

Videogames have always depicted representations of American culture, but how exactly they feed back into this culture is less obvious. Advocating an a…

Souvik Mukherjee, "Videogames in the Indian Subcontinent: Development, Culture(s) and Representations" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

July 1, 2024

Videogames in the Indian Subcontinent

Souvik Mukherjee
Hosted by Xenia Zeiler

While there has been considerable research on digital cultures in the Indian Subcontinent, video games have received scant attention so far. Yet, they…

Edwin McRae, "Narrative Worldbuilding: A Player Centric Approach to Designing Story Rich Game Worlds" (Narrative, 2024)

May 28, 2024

Narrative Worldbuilding

Edwin McRae and Rachel Rees

Game worlds differ from traditional fictional worlds. While literary and cinematic worlds are written to host character arcs and plots, game worlds ne…

En Li, "Betting on the Civil Service Examinations: The Lottery in Late Qing China" (Harvard UP, 2023)

May 17, 2024

Betting on the Civil Service Examinations

En Li
Hosted by Laurie Dickmeyer

During the Qing dynasty in China, a wide variety of people participated in a lottery game named weixing (“surname guessing”), which had participants p…

Regina Seiwald and Ed Vollans, "(Not) In the Game: History, Paratexts, and Games" (de Gruyter, 2023)

May 8, 2024

(Not) In the Game

Regina Seiwald and Ed Vollans

How do games represent history, and how do we make sense of the history of games? The industry regularly uses history to sell products, while processe…

Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola, "The Rule Book: The Building Blocks of Games" (MIT Press, 2024)

May 4, 2024

The Rule Book

Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola

How games are built on the foundations of rules, and how rules—of which there are only five kinds—really work. Board games to sports, digital games t…

Nick Jones, "Gooey Media: Screen Entertainment and the Graphic User Interface" (Edinburgh UP, 2023)

March 15, 2024

Gooey Media

Nick Jones
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

The Graphic User Interface, or GUI, is the adhesive centre of today’s screen entertainment web. From films and television to apps and videogames, it h…

Peter D. McDonald, "Run and Jump: The Meaning of the 2D Platformer" (MIT Press, 2024)

March 15, 2024

Run and Jump

Peter D. McDonald

How abstract design decisions in 2D platform games create rich worlds of meaning for players.Since the 1980s, 2D platform games have captivated their …

Poppy Wilde, "Posthuman Gaming: Avatars, Gamers, and Entangled Subjectivities" (Routledge, 2023)

March 2, 2024

Posthuman Gaming

Poppy Wilde

Posthuman Gaming: Avatars, Gamers, and Entangled Subjectivities (Routledge, 2023) explores the relationship between avatar and gamer in the massively …

Stefano Gualeni, "The Clouds: An Experiment in Theory-Fiction" (Routledge, 2023)

January 24, 2024

The Clouds

Stefano Gualeni

On a slow autumn afternoon, an atmospheric physicist working at the Malta Weather Station receives a surprising email from a colleague working in the …

Hartmut Koenitz, "Understanding Interactive Digital Narrative: Immersive Expressions for a Complex Time" (Routledge, 2023)

January 19, 2024

Understanding Interactive Digital Narrative

Hartmut Koenitz

This remarkably clearly written and timely critical evaluation of core issues in the study and application of interactive digital narrative (IDN) unta…

Cross-Cultural Research on Gaming and “Gaming Disorder”

January 19, 2024

Cross-Cultural Research on Gaming and “Gaming Disorder”

Veli-Matti Karhulahti and Yaewon Jin
Hosted by Satoko Naito

In 1998 the phrase “internet addiction” was first used to describe problematic prolonged internet use, and encompassed a wide range of online activiti…

David B. Nieborg and Maxwell Foxman, "Mainstreaming and Game Journalism" (MIT Press, 2023)

January 15, 2024

Mainstreaming and Game Journalism

David B. Nieborg and Maxwell Foxman

Why games are still niche and not mainstream, and how journalism can help them gain cultural credibility. Mainstreaming and Game Journalism (MIT Pres…