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Our primary focus is aesthetic, cultural and communicative aspects of computer games, but any previously unpublished article focused on games and gaming is welcome.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
Racecraft à la Carte: Fantasy Assemblages in Age of Wonders 4

by Mark Hines

Age of Wonders 4, a 4X strategy game, breaks with fantasy as a genre by allowing players to create their own fantasy racial groups. This sort of gameplay has become more common following widespread critique of the genre in 2020. Despite the immense freedom afforded by this mechanic, I find that harmful racial logics remain in the game. [more]
“They call it political to degrade what they disagree with.” How players understand the terms politics and political in videogame discourse

by Kristine Jørgensen, Arne Campbell

This article investigates how game enthusiasts in Norway understand the “political” and what they associate with “politics” in the context of videogames, and to what degree players experience game discourses as political. Results show that respondents associate these terms with contested values, such as in identity politics and social issues. [more]
Before the Bang: The Rise, Fall and Legacy of the Korean Arcade

by Nuri Kim

This article traces the contested history and legacy of the video game arcade in South Korea before the rise of the PC bang and online gaming. [more]
What is a National Video Game? A Central and Eastern European Perspective

by Stanisław Krawczyk, Tereza Fousek Krobová , Larissa Wild, Agata Waszkiewicz, David Krummenacher

The article highlights the challenges of defining national video games in a globalised context. Drawing mainly on European examples, it proposes a framework for analysing the nationality of games through developer, gameworld, language and audience. [more]
Behind the Lens: Defining Virtual Photography through Community Interviews

by Thomas Spies, Alex Urban

This study explores virtual photography, focusing on the Society of Virtual Photographers as an online community. By analyzing interviews and card-sorting activities, it defines virtual photography through a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, highlighting its unique characteristics from a practitioner’s perspective. [more]
“Purpose-Built for Happiness”: Panic’s Playdate as a Cozy Platform

by Jaroslav Švelch

Following the growing body of literature on cozy games and platform studies, the article analyzes Panic’s Playdate as a cozy platform. It argues that Playdate embodies the ambiguities of cozy aesthetics by offering, on the one hand, consumerist escapism and nostalgia, and on the other hand, social critique and “resistance through care.” [more]

 

©2001 - 2026 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.