HISTORIOGRAPHIES OF GAME STUDIES: WHAT IT HAS BEEN, WHAT IT COULD BE

Dean Guadagno
Jul 30
2 min read

Adrienne Shaw, Alison Harvey, Alisha Karabinus, Alisha Karabinus, Bianca Batti, Betsy Brey, Bo Ruberg, Cameron Kunzelman, Carly A. Kocurek, Carly A. Kocurek, Christopher A. Paul, Cody Mejeur, Cody Mejeur, Dennis Jansen, Douglas Schules, Emma Vossen, Emma Vossen, Espen Aarseth, Evan Torner, Gillian Smith, Henry Jenkins, Jaroslav Švelch, Jasper van Vught, Jennifer deWinter, Janet H. Murray, Joris Veerbeek, Josh Rivers, Judd Ethan Ruggill, Justin Wigard, Kentaro Matsumoto, Kirk M. Lundblade, Kishonna L. Gray, Laya Liebeseller, Lee W. Hibbard, Liam Mitchell, Lisa Nakamura, Michael Anthony DeAnda, Michael Lutz, Outi Kaarina Laiti, Racquel M. Gonzales, Samuel Poirier-Poulin, Sarah Christina Ganzon, Stephanie C. Jennings, Tobias Unterhuber, Victoria L. Braegger

Historiographies of Game Studies offers a first-of-its-kind reflection on how game studies as an academic field has been shaped and sustained. Today, game studies is a thriving field with many dedicated national and international conferences, journals, professional societies, and a strong presence at conferences in disciplines like computer science, communication, media studies, theater, visual arts, popular culture, and others. But, when did game studies start? And what (and who) is at the core or center of game studies? Fields are defined as much by what they are not as by what they are, and their borderlands can be hotly contested spaces.

In this anthology, scholars from across the field consider how the boundaries of game studies have been established, codified, contested, and protected, raising critical questions about who and what gets left out of the field. Over more than two dozen chapters and interviews with leading figures, including Espen Aarseth, Kishonna Gray, Henry Jenkins, Lisa Nakamura, Kentaro Matsumoto, Ken McAllister, and Janet Murray, the contributors offer a dazzling array of insightful provocations that address the formation, propagation, and cultivation of game studies, interrogating not only the field’s pasts but its potential futures and asking us to think deliberately about how academic fields are collectively built.

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