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.

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 …

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…

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 …

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…

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…

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…

Emma Reay, "The Child in Videogames: From the Meek, to the Mighty, to the Monstrous" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)

December 20, 2023

The Child in Videogames

Emma Reay

Drawing across Games Studies, Childhood Studies, and Children’s Literature Studies, Emma Reay's book The Child in Videogames: From the Meek, to the Mi…

Robert Houghton, "Playing the Middle Ages: Pitfalls and Potential in Modern Games" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

December 7, 2023

Playing the Middle Ages

Robert Houghton

The Middle Ages have provided rich source material for physical and digital games from Dungeons and Dragons to Assassin's Creed. Playing the Middle Ag…

Chad Randl and D. Medina Lasansky, "Playing Place: Board Games, Popular Culture, Space" (MIT Press, 2023)

November 9, 2023

Playing Place

Chad Randl and D. Medina Lasansky
Listen:

An essay collection exploring the board game's relationship to the built environment, revealing the unexpected ways that play reflects perceptions of …

Peter Nelson, "Computer Games As Landscape Art" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)

November 6, 2023

Computer Games As Landscape Art

Peter Nelson
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Peter Nelson's book Computer Games As Landscape Art (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) proposes that computer games are the paradigmatic form of contemporary …

Gabe Durham, "The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask" (Boss Fight Books, 2020)

October 26, 2023

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Gabe Durham
Hosted by Nicholas Gordon
Listen:

For the third anniversary of the Asian Review of Books podcast, I wanted to do something a little different today—and talk about another one of my hob…

Ben Whaley, "Toward a Gameic World: New Rules of Engagement from Japanese Video Games" (U Michigan Press, 2023)

October 2, 2023

Toward a Gameic World

Ben Whaley
Hosted by Nathan Hopson
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Ben Whaley’s Toward a Gameic World: New Rules of Engagement from Japanese Video Games (U Michigan Press 2023) examines the pathbreaking engagement str…

Federico Alvarez Igarzábal, "Time and Space in Video Games: A Cognitive-Formalist Approach" (Transcript, 2020)

September 23, 2023

Time and Space in Video Games

Federico Alvarez Igarzábal

Video games are temporal artifacts: They change with time as players interact with them in accordance with rules. In Time and Space in Video Games: A …

Marc Bonner, "Open World Structures: Architecture, Urban and Natural Landscape in the Computer Game" (Büchner-Verlag, 2023)

September 7, 2023

Open World Structures

Marc Bonner
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What role do algorithms play in the construction of images and the representation of the world and weather in computer games? How does the design of r…

Stefan Heinrich Simond, "Pixelated Madness: The Construction of Mental Illnesses and Psychiatric Institutions in Video Games" (Hülsbusch, 2023)

August 23, 2023

Pixelated Madness

Stefan Heinrich Simond

The relationship between madness and video games has been notoriously tense. In an abundance of titles, stereotypes and stigmatisations can be found—n…

Betty Adamou, "Games and Gamification in Market Research: Increasing Consumer Engagement in Research for Business Success" (Kogan Page, 2018)

July 31, 2023

Games and Gamification in Market Research

Betty Adamou
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Games are the most engaging medium of all time: they harness storytelling and heuristics, drive emotion and push the evolution of technology in a way …

Codename Revolution: The Nintendo Wii Platform

July 26, 2023

Codename Revolution

Steven E. Jones and George K. Thiruvathukal
Hosted by MIT Press
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The Nintendo Wii, introduced in 2006, helped usher in a moment of retro-reinvention in video game play. This hugely popular console system, codenamed …

Aaron A. Reed, "50 Years of Text Games: From Oregon Trail to AI Dungeon" (2023)

July 19, 2023

50 Years of Text Games

Aaron A. Reed
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50 Years of Text Games: From Oregon Trail to A.I. Dungeon is an extensively researched book chronicling the first half-century of interactive fiction:…

The Art of Failure: An Essay on the Pain of Playing Video Games

July 11, 2023

The Art of Failure

Jesper Juul
Hosted by MIT Press
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We may think of video games as being "fun," but in The Art of Failure, Jesper Juul claims that this is almost entirely mistaken. When we play video ga…