Short description:

An Introduction to Game Studies is a core textbook for game studies as an academic discipline, and is the comprehensive guide to the field. It introduces the student to the history and character of games studies as an analytical study of games in culture, and then moves to provide an overview of games as signifying and dynamic cultural constructs. This book shows how to analyze games by introducing the core analytical concepts in the contexts of games and game cultures of four periods. It covers the prehistory of games, the 70s, 80s, and 90s and also contemporary developments. Students will be introduced to both the theoretical core and the essential genres and classics of the subject.

Long description:

An Introduction to Game Studies is the first introductory textbook for students of game studies. It provides a conceptual overview of the cultural, social and economic significance of computer and video games and traces the history of game culture and the emergence of game studies as a field of research.

Key concepts and theories are illustrated with discussion of games taken from different historical phases of game culture. Progressing from the simple, yet engaging gameplay of Pong and text-based adventure games to the complex virtual worlds of contemporary online games, the book guides students towards analytical appreciation and critical engagement with gaming and game studies.

Students will learn to:

- Understand and analyse different aspects of phenomena we recognise as 'game' and play'

- Identify the key developments in digital game design through discussion of action in games of the 1970s, fiction and adventure in games of the 1980s, three-dimensionality in games of the 1990s, and social aspects of gameplay in contemporary online games

- Understand games as dynamic systems of meaning-making

- Interpret the context of games as 'culture' and subculture

- Analyse the relationship between technology and interactivity and between 'game' and 'reality'

- Situate games within the context of digital culture and the information society

With further reading suggestions, images, exercises, online resources and a whole chapter devoted to preparing students to do their own game studies project, An Introduction to Game Studies is the complete toolkit for all students pursuing the study of games.

The companion website at www.sagepub.co.uk/mayra contains slides and assignments that are suitable for self-study as well as for classroom use. Students will also benefit from online resources at www.gamestudiesbook.net, which will be regularly blogged and updated by the author.

Professor Frans Mäyrä is a Professor of Games Studies and Digital Culture at the Hypermedia Laboratory in the University of Tampere, Finland.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
What is Game Studies?
Game Culture
Meaning in Games
Play and Games in History
Dual Structure and the Action Games of the 1970's
Adventures and Other Fiction in the 1980S' Games
Three-Dimensionality and the Early 1990's
The Real and the Game
Game Culture Entering the New Millennium
Preparing for a Game Studies Project