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Our primary focus is aesthetic, cultural and communicative aspects of computer games, but any previously unpublished article focused on games and gaming is welcome.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
Why Flash Games Still Matter: Re-signifying Minor Platform Creators in Videogame History

by Ana Bahia

This article explores Flash as a minor videogame platform that enabled independent creators to produce critical and poetic games. Focusing on Molleindustria and Alienmelon, this analysis examines their expressive oeuvres through an Art History methodological lens. [more]
“As of today, your name is Ahab”: Generic Critique as Reparative Praxis in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

by DA Hall

This article argues for an analytic practice in game studies that accounts for videogames’ participation in the long histories of genre. This approach recognizes the historically and culturally-specific interventions games make into aesthetic traditions rather than assuming a naive reflection of ideological structures. [more]
“Hook me, Daddy”: Queer Semiotics of Dead by Daylight through Gaymers on Twitch

by Patrick Munnelly

This article does a comprehensive qualitative study on the field of Queer Game Studies, using Social Semiotic Analysis, Constant Comparison Analysis and Keywords-in-Context. Featuring Twitch streamers and the video game Dead by Daylight, this article reviews the language used by “gaymers” to review LGBTQ gaming practices. [more]
Mindspacing and Play -- Indie Games in the Context of Mental Health Depiction

by Moritz Wischert-Zielke

This essay explores how indie games like Shrinking Pains, The Longest Walk and The Psychotic Bathtub practice demarginalization in the context of mental health depiction. Using the lens of “mindspacing,” it shows that the titles not just tell different stories but reimagine the culturally dominant forms of play as practices of self-care. [more]
Feeding the Iron Pimps: The Golden Age of Arcades in Black America

by Taylore Nicole Woodhouse

Drawing from archives of Black-targeted newspapers, this article diversifies histories of the golden age of arcades by examining how Black Americans encountered and understood arcades and video games in the 1980s and 1990s. [more]

 

©2001 - 2025 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.