Research Methodology in Gaming: An Overview (original) (raw)
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Research Methodology in Gaming
Simulation & Gaming, 2012
Digital games have evolved into diverse forms, and they touch many different areas of life in contemporary society. When approached together with the associated playful and serious behaviors, they profit from several research methodologies. This collection of articles introduces a range of research methodologies and aims to promote interdisciplinary dialogue in the study of games.
The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies (Media Studies Futures is volume 6), 2012
The digital game industry has been evolving at a phenomenal rate, and can no longer consider console games and the Western market as its primary areas of focus. Social games, casual games, virtual worlds, indie games, and online games all expand the boundaries of what we count as games. Likewise, markets such as China and Korea and game development companies in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe are challenging the dominance of western and Japanese firms. How is game studies responding to such changes? Likewise, how is the field coalescing, now that there are dedicated journals, book series, conferences and academic programs spread around the globe? This chapter explores how game studies has moved from ‘indie start up’ to mid-career in its own growth trajectory of the last decade. It will survey how scholarship has evolved, what approaches have intentionally (or not) become dominant, and what ideologies have emerged about the ‘proper’ way to do game studies research. It will conclude with challenges to the field, pointing to areas that have been overlooked, problems that remain, and the continuing question of the possibilities (and pitfalls) of making game studies research useful for popular and industry audiences in addition to regular scholarly attention.
Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association -- Vol 5, No. 2
2021
ToDIGRA is a quarterly, international, open access, refereed, multidisciplinary journal dedicated to research on and practice in all aspects of games. ToDiGRA captures the wide variety of research within the game studies community combining, for example, humane science with sociology, technology with design, and empirics with theory.<br>This special issue of ToDiGRA gathers revised versions of some of the best papers at the DiGRA 2019 conference held at the Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan. The theme of the conference was 'Game, Play and the Emerging Ludo Mix'. Ludo mixes may include several versions of a game or several different games together with other content thus resulting in novel media ecologies, business models, and development and consumption cultures
Why Game Studies Now? Video Games: A New Art Form
Games and Culture, 2006
Video games are a new art form, and this, the author argues, is one good reason why now is the right time for game studies. As a new art form, one largely immune to traditional tools developed for the analysis of literature and film, video games will challenge researchers to develop new analytical tools and will become a new type of "equipment for living," to use Kenneth Burke's phrase for the role of literature. This article discusses several of the features that make video games a unique art form, features that will, the author believes, come to play a role in analyses of games in the emerging field of game studies.
How did games rise to become the central audiovisual form of expression and storytelling in digital culture? How did the practices of their artistic production come into being? How did the academic analysis of the new medium's social effects and cultural meaning develop? Addressing these fundamental questions and aspects of digital game culture in a holistic way for the first time, Gundolf S. Freyermuth's introduction outlines the media-historical development phases of analog and digital games, the history and artistic practices of game design, as well as the history, academic approaches, and most important research topics of game studies.
Introduction: A Game Studies Manifesto
The Game Culture Reader, 2013
In their Introduction the authors eschew the three dominate video game topics of violence, sexism, and addiction and maintain that these overemphasize an agentive media consumption practice while obscuring other topics, namely video game production and distribution practices. Thompson and Ouellette call for preserving the complexity of the medium and its study, claiming that Game Studies must "reject the dominant, apolitical discourse that would consign digital games to irrelevant spheres of harmless child play or invidious mass entertainment."
Digital Games Research: A Survey Study on an Emerging Field and Its Prevalent Debates
Digital games have become a popular form of media entertainment. However, it remains unclear whether a canon of accepted knowledge and research practices has emerged that may define an independent field of research. This study is a collaborative effort to analyze the outlines of digital games research (DGR) through a survey among the membership of 3 institutionalized structures focusing on the study of digital games (International Communication Association Game Studies Interest Group, European Communication Research and Education Association Temporary Working Group DGR, and Digital Games Research Association). The study reveals relatively homogeneous viewpoints among games researchers, even regarding controversial aspects of digital games. It mirrors the mainstream scholarly views on contentious issues of a recently emerged field within communication studies.