Fromme J., Unger A. (eds.) Computer Games and New Media Cultures. A Handbook of Digital Games Studies

Springer, 2006. — 694 p.Digital gaming is today a significant economic phenomenon as well as being an intrinsic part of a convergent media culture in postmodern societies. Its ubiquity, as well as the sheer volume of hours young people spend gaming, should make it ripe for urgent academic enquiry, yet the subject was a research backwater until the turn of the millennium. Even today, as tens of millions of young people spend their waking hours manipulating avatars and gaming characters on computer screens, the subject is still treated with scepticism in some academic circles. This handbook aims to reflect the relevance and value of studying digital games, now the subject of a growing number of studies, surveys, conferences and publications.
As an overview of the current state of research into digital gaming, the 42 papers included in this handbook focus on the social and cultural relevance of gaming. In doing so, they provide an alternative perspective to one-dimensional studies of gaming, whose agendas do not include cultural factors. The contributions, which range from theoretical approaches to empirical studies, cover various topics including analyses of games themselves, the player-game interaction, and the social context of gaming. In addition, the educational aspects of games and gaming are treated in a discrete section. With material on non-commercial gaming trends such as ‘modding’, and a multinational group of authors from eleven nations, the handbook is a vital publication demonstrating that new media cultures are far more complex and diverse than commonly assumed in a debate dominated by concerns over violent content.Computer Games and Digital Game Cultures: An Introduction
Computer Games and Game Analysis
The Mediality of Computer Games
Computer Games as a Comparative Medium: A Few Cautionary Remarks
And What Do You Play?: A Few Considerations Concerning a Genre Theory of Games
Interface Analysis: Notes on the Scopic Regime of Strategic Action in Real-Time Strategy Games
Computer Games as Works of Art
A Theory of Non-existent Video Games: Semiotic and Video Game Theory
Free Market Economy and Dino Crisis: The Production and Circulation of Knowledge in Strategy Games
The Strange Case of the Misappearance of Sex in Video Games
Growing Game Worlds
Virtual Worlds: Game or Virtual Society?
The Player–Game Relation
MMO Morality
Inside and Outside the Game
Egoshooting in Chernobyl: Identity and Subject(s) in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Games
Personality Development Through Immersion into Intermediate Areas of Digital Role-Playing Games
Symbolic Interaction in Digital Games: Theoretical Reflections on Dimensions of Meaning Construction in Digital Gameplay
Playing by the Visual Rules: An Ecological Approach to Perception and Video Games
The Effect of Authentic Input Devices on Computer Game Immersion
Users, Uses and Social Contexts of Computer Games
Digital Games in the Context of Adolescent Media Behavior
Online Games: Modern Media Worlds of Young People
Playing Together: The Player’s Repertoire, an Obstacle to Learning
The Right Game: Video Game Choice of Children and Adolescents
The Challenge of Measuring the Use of Computer Games
A Critical Interpretation of a New Creative Industry in Turkey: Game Studios and the Production
of a Value Chain
Game and Player Cultures
Mergence of Spaces: MMORPG User-Practice and Everyday Life
Interpretation, Confl ict and Instruction in Online Multiplayer Games: Lessons from Warsong Gulch
‘Pity There’s So Few Girls!’ Attitudes to Female Participation in a Swedish Gaming Context
The Gender-Offensive: Female Gaming Cultures Between Shooters and Marketing
Playing Computer Games as Social Interaction: An Analysis of LAN Parties
Playing Computer Games as Electronic Sport: In Search of a Theoretical Framework for a New Research Field
Machinima Filmmaking as Culture in Practice: Dialogical Processes of Remix
Modding as Part of Game Culture
Digital Game Culture(s) as Prototype(s) of Mediatization and Commercialization of Society: The World Cyber Games 2008 in Cologne as an Example
Educational Approaches and Learning
Social Interactions in Virtual Worlds: Patterns and Profiles of Tween Relationship Play
The Instructional Design and Motivational Mechanisms of World of Warcraft
Learning Through Play – A Delicate Matter: Experience-Based Recursive Learning in Computer
Learning Instruments: Baroque Music Gets Game
Using Simulations as a Starting Point for Constructing Meaningful Learning Games
School-Related Computer Game Pedagogy: Core Subjects and Tasks
Learning to Play: Video Game Literacy in the Classroom
Digital Games and Media Education in the Classroom: Exploring Concepts, Practices, and Constraints
Why a Game Canon for Game Studies Education Is Wrong