Keywords for Video Game Studies

Founded 2010, Keywords for Video Games Studies is a graduate interest group bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives and scholarship on video games. Our working group aims to bolster critical engagement with video games and video game culture to address:

Through close readings of games, close playings of games (i.e., critical gaming), and colloquium discussions, our working group hopes to highlight central questions, keywords, and even dissonances in video game studies and video game theory. Our framing questions include:

The Keywords for Video Game Studies group works in collaboration with the Critical Gaming Project at the University of Washington.

• the design of games (as computational, protocological, rhetorical, and aesthetic artifacts),
• the theorizing of games (looking at narrative, interactivity, race/gender/sexuality, gamification), and
• the pedagogical and political potential of games.

Through close readings of games, close playings of games (i.e., critical gaming), and colloquium discussions, our working group hopes to highlight central questions, keywords, and even dissonances in video game studies and video game theory. Our framing questions include:

• What key terms and core concepts animate and shape the field of video game studies?
• What are the central tensions, challenges, and antagonisms in video game studies?
• How do we as students, scholars, and game players shape the future of video game studies, video game development, and video game pedagogy?