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The Future of Game Studies

2012, The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies (Media Studies Futures is volume 6)

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.

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