Keywords for Video Game Studies

Read

All readings can be found on the E-Reserve as a PDF (get a pdf viewer). Please have them read before coming to class so you may participate fully.

9/30
"Review"
10/7
"Critical"
10/13
"Play"
  • Huizinga, Homo Ludens (excerpts)
  • Caillois, Man, Play and Games (excerpt)
  • Juul, "The Magic Circle and The Puzzle Piece"
  • Juul, "A Casual Revolution," A Casual Revolution
10/21
Genre
10/28
"Action"
  • Galloway, Gaming: Essays in Algorithmic Culture (excerpts)
11/4
"RL"
  • Bogost & Montfort, "Afterword on Platform Studies," Racing the Beam
  • Steinkuehler, "The Mangle of Play"
  • Frasca, "Ideological Videogames: Press Left to Dissent"
11/10
"Immersion/
Interactivity"
  • Marie-Laure Ryan. "Immersion vs. Interactivity"
  • Jenova Chen, "Flow in Games (And Everything Else)"
  • Salen & Zimmerman, "The Immersive Fallacy," Rules of Play
  • Aarseth, "Introduction: Ergodic Literature," Cybertext
11/18
"Avatar"
  • Nakamura, "Head-hunting on the Internet: Identity Tourism, Avatars, and Racial Passing in Textual and Graphic Chat Spaces," Cybertypes
  • Dibbell, "A Rape in Cyberspace"

Play

The following games will be the "core" games of the course. By this, they are meant to be touchstone references, points of common experience, for our discussions of gaming. We will not assign these games or that you complete them by a certain time. Rather, we ask that you play them throughout the quarter and be thinking about one or all of them when doing the reading.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Civilization III
Psychonauts

If you do not own these games on another platform, we recommend acquiring them through Steam. Download the installer and it will walk you through the rest.

Once you're in, join the CGP Steam Group!

If you are unable to acquire or play these games, please let us know as soon as possible so that accomodations can be made.

Write

There are two main avenues for turning our discussion and gaming experiences into writing. First, join the discussion at the Critical Gaming Project by commenting on the posts or submitting your own. Second, as a final project, you will develop a method for reviewing games and apply it to a game of your chosing in a Critical Game Review.

CHID 496 I

Title:
Keywords for Video Game Studies

Meeting:
Thurs.| 2:30-4:20 |SAV 139

Instructors:
Ed Chang & Timothy Welsh

Syllabuspdf

Links



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