The International Journal of Computer Game Research

Our Mission - To explore the rich cultural genre of games; to give scholars a peer-reviewed forum for their ideas and theories; to provide an academic channel for the ongoing discussions on games and gaming.

Game Studies is a non-profit, open-access, crossdisciplinary journal dedicated to games research, web-published several times a year at www.gamestudies.org.

Our primary focus is aesthetic, cultural and communicative aspects of computer games, but any previously unpublished article focused on games and gaming is welcome. Proposed articles should be jargon-free, and should attempt to shed new light on games, rather than simply use games as metaphor or illustration of some other theory or phenomenon.



Game Studies is published with the support of:

The Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet)

The Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils for the Humanities and the Social Sciences

Blekinge Institute of Technology

IT University of Copenhagen

Lund University

If you would like to make a donation to the Game Studies Foundation, which is a non-profit foundation established for the purpose of ensuring continuous publication of Game Studies, please contact the Editor-in-Chief or send an email to: foundation at gamestudies dot org
Gaming (Ad)diction: Discourse, Identity, Time and Play in the Production of the Gamer Addiction Myth

by Rob Cover

Although the vast majority of studies undertaking the examination of electronic games and the emergence of a gaming culture deny that games are addictive, a stereotype of the game player as addicted continues to circulate in various strands of ego-psychology and pedagogical study and, with greater force and political affect. [more]
Combat in Context

by Nick Montfort

What follows is a critical consideration of Combat, the cartridge originally included with the Atari Video Computer System. Atari introduced the VCS in late 1977. The system retailed in the United States for about US$200, the equivalent of about US$650 today. The console, model number CX2600, came with two joystick controllers.. [more]
Learning to Play or Playing to Learn - A Critical Account of the Models of Communication Informing Educational Research on Computer Gameplay

by Hans Christian Arnseth

The proliferation of networked computers, gaming consoles such as the Sony PlayStation, Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo Gamecube and handheld devices such as the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP, have made computer gaming part of mainstream culture. This has also resulted in a renewed interest in this topic among educational researchers. [more]
On the Role of the Die: A brief ludologic study of pen-and-paper roleplaying games and their rules

by Joris Dormans

Pen-and-paper roleplaying games, like computer games, are in their essence rule-based simulation "engines" that facilitate playful interaction. These similarities make it possible to take some theoretical concepts and notions developed for computer games and use them to study roleplaying games. [more]
Self-Portrayal in a Simulated Life: Projecting Personality and Values in The Sims 2

by Thaddeus Griebel

Ever since the release of The Sims in 2000, there has been talk in the media that people who play the game project aspects of their lives into their Sim characters. The goal of this study was to scientifically measure players’ personalities and values and find how these characteristics relate to gameplay in The Sims 2. [more]
Signifying Play: The Sims and the Sociology of Interior Design

by Charles Paulk

Historically, videogames have had little use for the domestic. In contrast to television, which from its inception reflected workday suburbia back onto itself in family sitcoms like Ozzie and Harriet, the videogame medium has reliably tended toward more fantastical backdrops. [more]
Street Fighter and The King of Fighters in Hong Kong: A Study of Cultural Consumption and Localization of Japanese Games in an Asian Context

by Benjamin Wai-ming Ng

The electronic game is one of the most globalized but little-studied forms of Japanese popular culture. Japanese arcade games, home console games and handheld console games have dominated the world market since the mid-1980s. Hong Kong is one of the consumption centres of Japanese electronic games in Asia. [more]
The Games Economists Play - Implications of Economic Game Theory for the Study of Computer Games

by Jonas Heide Smith

It is a source of confusion that economists for decades have worked on "game theory" while studying economic behaviour. However, while not focused on games in the recreational sense this perspective does provide a highly meticulous complementary framework for the understanding of computer game structure and player behaviour. [more]
Victorian Snakes? Towards A Cultural History of Mobile Games and the Experience of Movement

by Jussi Parikka, Jaakko Suominen

Mobile games and entertainment have been at the centre of the latest digital hype, even though consumers have been somewhat uncertain as to whether they are as enthusiastic as the industry wants them to be (MGAIN, 2003c, p.4). The gaming industry as well as the mobile phone business has been pushing mobile games as the next bestseller... [more]
Game analysis: Developing a methodological toolkit for the qualitative study of games

by Mia Consalvo, Nathan Dutton

Although the study of digital games is steadily increasing, there has been little or no effort to develop a method for the qualitative, critical analysis of games as "texts" (broadly defined). This paper creates a template for such analyses by developing and explaining four areas that game researchers should consider when studying a game. [more]
The Playful and the Serious: An approximation to Huizinga's Homo Ludens

by Hector Rodriguez

The modern study of play can be traced back to the publication of Dutch historian Johan Huizinga's groundbreaking study Homo Ludens (1938). Huizinga's book describes play as a free and meaningful activity, carried out for its own sake, spatially and temporally segregated from the requirements of practical life... [more]

 

©2001 - 2006 Game Studies Copyright for articles published in this journal is retained by the journal, except for the right to republish in printed paper publications, which belongs to the authors, but with first publication rights granted to the journal. By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are free to use, with proper attribution, in educational and other non-commercial settings.