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Our primary focus is aesthetic, cultural and communicative aspects of computer games, but any previously unpublished article focused on games and gaming is welcome.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
Killing Them Slowly: A comparative phenomenological analysis of time-based ethical engagement in video games and cinema

by Jakob Boer, Thomas Montefiore

This article provides a comparative phenomenological analysis of the ethical significance of temporality in video games and cinema. It argues that the way time is experienced in both media can evoke reflective thinking and hence carries ethical potential. [more]
Dead Space through Interdisciplinary Approach: Intertextuality, Seriality and Multiplicities

by Roman Kusaiko

Through an analysis of the Dead Space franchise, this argument advances a non-hierarchical framework for various forms of game repetitions (sequels, reboots, remakes). Drawing from film and game studies, it considers the intertextual nature of such media, arguing that Dead Space’s 2023 remake is simultaneously a remake and a soft reboot. [more]
“Farewell to the World”: Apocalyptic Trauma, Prognostic Time and Ecocriticism in Goodbye Volcano High

by Samuel Poirier-Poulin

This article examines the pretrauma imaginary of Goodbye Volcano High (KO_OP, 2023) and how it can lead the player to experience apocalyptic trauma. It pays particular attention to the game narrative and how it can stick to us, slowly get inside our psyche and access our imagination, pushing us to reflect on our own extinction. [more]
“Pretty obvious what the writers intended”: Strategies for non-binary representations among video games characters

by Robin Zingarelli

When digital games represent non-binary characters, they often do so through subtle means, such as via the omission of gendered language altogether. Through a review of non-binary representation in games, this piece argues that games tend to avoid clear affirmations of non-binary identity, thus contributing to practices of symbolic annihilation. [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.