Overview

In The Game Culture Reader, editors Jason C. Thompson and Marc A. Ouellette propose that Game Studies—that peculiar multi-, inter-, and trans-disciplinary field wherein international researchers from such diverse areas as rhetoric, computer science, literary studies, culture studies, psychology, media studies and so on come together to study the production, distribution, and consumption of games—has reached an unproductive stasis. Its scholarship remains either divided (as in the narratologists versus ludologists debate) or indecisive (as in its frequently apolitical stances on play and fandom). Thompson and Ouellette firmly hold that scholarship should be distinguished from the repetitively reductive commonplaces of violence, sexism, and addiction. In other words, beyond the headline-friendly modern topoi that now dominate the discourse of Game Studies, what issues, approaches, and insights are being, if not erased, then displaced?This volume gathers together a host of scholars from different countries, institutions, disciplines, departments, and ranks, in order to present original and evocative scholarship on digital game culture. Collectively, the contributors reject the commonplaces that have come to define digital games as apolitical or as somehow outside of the imbricated processes of cultural production that govern the medium itself.As an alternative, they offer essays that explore video game theory, ludic spaces and temporalities, and video game rhetorics. Importantly, the authors emphasize throughout that digital games should be understood on their own terms: literally, this assertion necessitates the serious reconsideration of terms borrowed from other academic disciplines; figuratively, the claim embeds the embrace of game play in the continuing investigation of digital games as cultural forms. Put another way, by questioning the received wisdom that would consign digital games to irrelevant spheres of harmless child's play or of invidious mass entertainment, the authors productively engage with ludic ambiguities.

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9781443840941

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It is fairly easy to find a work in game studies that claims to be revolutionary and is only accurate in that it spins rapidly in circles. Oullette and Thompson's The Game Culture Reader should be commended as a collection of diverse essays that claim to extend and complicate the field of game studies and, more often than not, do exactly that. - Michael Hancock, First Person Scholar (December 2013) In The Game Culture Reader, the authors challenge the ways in which contemporary gaming and Game Studies have developed. They question previous readings, seeing digital gaming as a genre which is developing so rapidly that we must also constantly revise its critical and academic perspectives. As Game Studies has evolved, so too has the need for in-depth analysis of its cultural position, and this volume provides a variety of stimulating moments within this that help to explain the importance of gaming and digital games in modern cultural practice. Exploring a series of issues with maturity and gravitas, each chapter investigates a contemporary issue within games and Game Studies, working to situate some of the core debates available to scholars through a variety of nuanced topics. The voices within this book showcase some of the best emerging talent in current Game Studies in order to provide a vibrant picture of games, and gaming in real, virtual and imagined cultures. -Dr Esther MacCallum-Stewart, University of Surrey Marc Ouellette and Jason Thompson's The Game Culture Reader is an extensive and cross-disciplinary of enlightening articles that engages the field of computer/video/digital game studies and the broader implication for games in relation to culture. Comprising a manifesto that leads into several articles, The Game Culture Reader provides students and researchers with well-researched, topical articles that engage the reader in reconsidering how we can think about games not as co-constructed artifacts and experiences that are alienated from our `high' or `low' culture (depending on one's perspective), but instead recognize these games as constitutive of elements of our culture, our practices, and thus our everyday lives. -Jeremy Hunsinger, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University; Co-director at the Center for Digital Discourse and Culture, Virginia Tech

It is fairly easy to find a work in game studies that claims to be revolutionary and is only accurate in that it spins rapidly in circles. Oullette and Thompson's The Game Culture Reader should be commended as a collection of diverse essays that claim to extend and complicate the field of game studies and, more often than not, do exactly that. Michael HancockFirst Person Scholar (December 2013) In The Game Culture Reader, the authors challenge the ways in which contemporary gaming and Game Studies have developed. They question previous readings, seeing digital gaming as a genre which is developing so rapidly that we must also constantly revise its critical and academic perspectives. As Game Studies has evolved, so too has the need for in-depth analysis of its cultural position, and this volume provides a variety of stimulating moments within this that help to explain the importance of gaming and digital games in modern cultural practice.Exploring a series of issues with maturity and gravitas, each chapter investigates a contemporary issue within games and Game Studies, working to situate some of the core debates available to scholars through a variety of nuanced topics. The voices within this book showcase some of the best emerging talent in current Game Studies in order to provide a vibrant picture of games, and gaming in real, virtual and imagined cultures. Dr Esther MacCallum-StewartUniversity of Surrey Marc Ouellette and Jason Thompson's The Game Culture Reader is an extensive and cross-disciplinary of enlightening articles that engages the field of computer/video/digital game studies and the broader implication for games in relation to culture. Comprising a manifesto that leads into several articles, The Game Culture Reader provides students and researchers with well-researched, topical articles that engage the reader in reconsidering how we can think about games not as co-constructed artifacts and experiences that are alienated from our 'high' or 'low' culture (depending on one's perspective), but instead recognize these games as constitutive of elements of our culture, our practices, and thus our everyday lives. Jeremy Hunsinger, Assistant Professor of Communication StudiesWilfrid Laurier University; Co-director at the Center for Digital Discourse and Culture, Virginia Tech

It is fairly easy to find a work in game studies that claims to be revolutionary and is only accurate in that it spins rapidly in circles. Oullette and Thompson's The Game Culture Reader should be commended as a collection of diverse essays that claim to extend and complicate the field of game studies and, more often than not, do exactly that. - Michael Hancock, First Person Scholar (December 2013) In The Game Culture Reader, the authors challenge the ways in which contemporary gaming and Game Studies have developed. They question previous readings, seeing digital gaming as a genre which is developing so rapidly that we must also constantly revise its critical and academic perspectives. As Game Studies has evolved, so too has the need for in-depth analysis of its cultural position, and this volume provides a variety of stimulating moments within this that help to explain the importance of gaming and digital games in modern cultural practice. Exploring a series of issues with maturity and gravitas, each chapter investigates a contemporary issue within games and Game Studies, working to situate some of the core debates available to scholars through a variety of nuanced topics. The voices within this book showcase some of the best emerging talent in current Game Studies in order to provide a vibrant picture of games, and gaming in real, virtual and imagined cultures. -Dr Esther MacCallum-Stewart, University of Surrey Marc Ouellette and Jason Thompson's The Game Culture Reader is an extensive and cross-disciplinary of enlightening articles that engages the field of computer/video/digital game studies and the broader implication for games in relation to culture. Comprising a manifesto that leads into several articles, The Game Culture Reader provides students and researchers with well-researched, topical articles that engage the reader in reconsidering how we can think about games not as co-constructed artifacts and experiences that are alienated from our 'high' or 'low' culture (depending on one's perspective), but instead recognize these games as constitutive of elements of our culture, our practices, and thus our everyday lives. -Jeremy Hunsinger, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University; Co-director at the Center for Digital Discourse and Culture, Virginia Tech

Author Information

Jason C. Thompson is Assistant Professor of English and New Media at the University of Wyoming, where he researches game culture in the Digital Humanities Lab. He teaches courses in rhetoric and video games, rhetorical theory, and literary theory. His work has appeared in Rhetoric Review, JAC: A Journal of Rhetoric, Culture, and Politics, M/C Journal, and Reconstruction, as well as in the edited collections On the Blunt Edge: Technology in Composition's History and Pedagogy (Parlor, 2011) and The Computer Culture Reader (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009).Marc A. Ouellette is the Managing Editor of Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture. His work has appeared in several journals, including Game Studies, Eludamos, and TEXT Technology, as well as in the edited collections Learning the Virtual Life: Public Pedagogy in a Digital World (Routledge, 2011) and Foregrounding Postfeminism and the Future of Feminist Film and Media Studies (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, forthcoming).

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