Game studies - Citizendia

Game studies is the still-young field of analyzing games from a multi- and inter-disciplinary perspective. A video game is a Game that involves interaction with a User interface to generate visual feedback on a video device.

1 Introduction
2 Social sciences
3 Humanities
4 Ludology and narratology
5 Pre-history of video games
6 See also
7 References
8 Relevant resources
9 External links
10 Further reading

Introduction

Prior to the late-20th century, the academic study of games was rare and limited to fields such as history and anthropology. A game is a structured activity, usually undertaken for Enjoyment and sometimes also used as an Educational tool History is the study of the past particularly the written record Those who study history as a Profession are called Historians Etymology Anthropology (/ˌænθɹəˈpɒlədʒi/ from Greek grc ἄνθρωπος anthrōpos, "human" -λογία -logia) is the study of For example, in the early 1900’s Stewart Culin wrote a comprehensive catalog of gaming implements and games from Native American tribes north of Mexico ^[1] while Johan Huizinga and Roger Caillois explored the importance of games and play as a basic human activity that helps define culture ^[2]. For indigenous peoples in the United States other than Hawaii and Alaska see also Native Americans in the United States. The United Mexican States ( or commonly Mexico (ˈmɛksɪkoʊ () is a federal constitutional Republic in North America. Johan Huizinga (joːhɑn hœyzɪŋxaː ( December 7, 1872 - February 1, 1945) a Dutch Historian, was one of the founders Roger Caillois ( 3 March 1913 - 21 December 1978) was a French Intellectual whose idiosyncratic work brought together Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate" generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic As the videogame revolution took off in the early 1980’s, so did academic interest in games. To date, the field of games studies can be characterized not only as multi-disciplinary but also as inter-disciplinary. Over the years, different fields and disciplines have demonstrated an interest in videogames and their study. The approaches taken thus far can be broadly characterized in three ways:

Social science approach
- Studying the effects of games on people
  - What do games do to people?
    - E. The social sciences comprise academic disciplines concerned with the study of the social life of human groups and individuals including Anthropology, Communication studies g. : Learning, effects of violence in games
  - How do people create and negotiate a game?
Humanities approach
- Studying the meaning and context of games
  - What meanings are made through game use?
  - Studying games as artifacts in and of themselves
    - E. In the fields of Neuropsychology, Personal development and Education, Learning is one of the most important Mental function of humans Violence is the exertion of force so as to injure or abuse The word is used broadly to describe the destructive action of natural phenomena like Storms and Earthquakes The humanities are academic disciplines which study the Human condition, using methods that are primarily Analytic, Critical, or Speculative ConTEXT is a closed-source Freeware Text editor for Microsoft Windows, aimed at software developers g. : Affordances of the medium, critical analysis, rhetoric
Industry and engineering approach
- Understanding the design and development of games
  - E. For other uses of this term see Industry (disambiguation An industry (from Latin industrius, "diligent industrious" Engineering is the Discipline and Profession of applying technical and scientific Knowledge and g. : How to make better games
- Games as drivers of technological innovations
  - E. g. : Graphics, AI, networking, etc.

In addition to asking different kinds of questions, each approach tends to use different methods and tools. A large body of social scientists prefer quantitative tools and methods while a smaller group makes use of qualitative research. A quantitative attribute is one that exists in a range of magnitudes and can therefore be measured. Qualitative research is a field of inquiry that crosscuts disciplines and subject matters. Academics from the humanities tend to prefer tools and methods that are qualitative. The industry approach is practice-driven and usually less concerned with theory than the other two. Of course, these approaches are not mutually exclusive, and a significant part of game studies research blends them together. Tracy Fullerton and Kenji Ito’s work are examples of interdisciplinary work being done in games studies^[3]^[4].

The youth of the field of game studies is also another reason for blurred boundaries between approaches. Williams, in a call for greater inter-disciplinary work in communications-oriented games scholarship, noted how the “study of videogames is poised to repeat the mistakes of past academic inquiry” ^[5]. He argues that the youth of the field means that it is not bound to follow the traditional divisions of scholarly work and that there is an opportunity to rediscover the strengths and contributions that different scholarly traditions can offer.

Social sciences

Broadly speaking, the social scientific approach has concerned itself with the question of “What do games do to people?” Using tools and methods such as surveys and controlled laboratory experiments, researchers have investigated both the positive and negative impact that playing games could have on people. Statistical surveys are used to collect quantitative information about items in a population In scientific inquiry an experiment ( Latin: Ex- periri, "to try out" is a method of investigating particular types of research questions or

Among the possible negative effects of gameplay, perhaps the one most commonly raised by media and the general public has to do with violence in games. What are the possible effects that playing videogames, in particular those that feature aggressive or violent elements, might have on children and youth? Social learning theory (e. For the article on social learning theory in psychology and education see Social cognitive theory. g. , Bandura, 1986) suggests that playing aggressive videogames would stimulate aggressive behavior in players in particular because the player is an active participant (as opposed to a passive observer as the case of aggression in film and television). In Psychology and other social and Behavioral sciences aggression refers to behavior that is intended to cause harm On the other hand, catharsis theory (e. Catharsis ( Κάθαρσις) is a Greek word meaning "purification" "cleansing" or "clarification g. , Feshbach and Singer, 1971) implies that playing aggressive videogames would have the opposite effect by channeling latent aggression resulting in a positive effect on players. Numerous reviews of existing literature have been written and there isn’t a clear picture of the effects of playing violent videogames might have (Griffiths, 1999; Sherry, 2001).

As for positive effects, educators and learning scientists have also debated how to leverage the motivation students had for playing games as well as exploring the medium of videogames for educational and pedagogical purposes. Motivation is the reason or reasons for engaging in a particular behavior especially Human behavior as studied in Philosophy, Conflict, Economics Pedagogy (ˈpɛdəgɒdʒi or paedagogy is the Art or Science of being a Teacher. Malone explored the intrinsically motivating qualities that games have and how they might be useful in designing educational games (Malone, 1980; Malone, 1981) while Kafai utilized the design of games by schoolchildren as the context for them to learn computer programming concepts and mathematics (Kafai, 1995; Kafai, 1996). Educational games are Games that have been specifically designed to teach people about a certain subject expand concepts reinforce development understand an historical event Mathematics is the body of Knowledge and Academic discipline that studies such concepts as Quantity, Structure, Space and Similarly, Squire has explored the use of commercial games as a means for engaging disenfranchised students in school (Squire, 2005). In addition to their motivational factors, Gee and Shaffer have argued that certain qualities present in the medium of videogames provide valuable opportunities for learning (Gee, 2003; Shaffer, 2006). In her book Life on the Screen, Sherry Turkle explored how people that participated in online multiplayer games such as MUDs used their experiences with the game to explore personal issues of identity (Turkle, 1995). Sherry Turkle is Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a clinical In computer gaming, a MUD ( Multi-User Dungeon, Domain or Dimension) is a multi-player computer game that combines elements of In her book Play Between Worlds, T. L. Taylor recounts her experience playing the massively multiplayer online game Everquest. EverQuest, often called EQ, is a 3D fantasy -themed Massively multiplayer online role-playing game ( MMORPG) that was released In doing so, she seeks to understand “the nuanced border relationship that exists between MMOG players and the (game) worlds they inhabit” (Taylor, 2006).

Finally, economists have also begun studying games, in particular massively multiplayer online games (MMOG), to better understand human behavior. An economist is an expert in the Social science of Economics. For the Björk song see Human Behaviour Human behavior is the collection of Behaviors exhibited by Human beings and influenced by The economic activity in these games is being studied as one would study the economy of a nation such as Russia or Bulgaria (Castronova, 2001). Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending The state of Bulgaria (България transliterated bg-Latn ''Balgaria'' The country preserves the traditions (in ethnic name language and alphabet of the First Bulgarian Different theories, such as coordination game theory, can be put to the test because games can produce contexts for natural experiments: a high number of participants as well as tightly controlled experimental conditions (Castronova, 2006). In Game theory, coordination games are a class of games with multiple Pure strategy Nash equilibria in which players choose the same or corresponding From this perspective, games provide a unique context in which human activity can be explored and better understood.

Humanities

In general terms, the humanities approach has concerned itself with the question of “What meanings are made through games?” Using tools and methods such as interviews, ethnographies and participant observation, researchers have investigated the various roles that videogames play in people’s lives and activities together with the meaning they assign to their experiences. For example, Consalvo explores how players choose to play the games they buy and negotiate how, when, and for what reasons to subvert a game’s rules (Consalvo, 2007). It turns out that “cheating” is a very complex phenomenon whose meaning is continually negotiated by players, the game industry, and various gaming sub-cultures that revolve around specific games. For the term in biology see Subculture (biology. For the song by New Order see Sub-culture (song.

Other researchers have focused on understanding videogames as cultural artifacts with embedded meaning, exploring what the medium of the videogame is, and situating it in context to other forms of human expression. Laurel’s book Computers as Theatre, while principally focused on applying tenants of dramatic criticism to the design of human-computer interface design, describes how videogames are the natural result of computers “capacity to represent action in which the humans could participate”. Drama is the specific mode of Fiction represented in Performance. (Laurel, 1991). Rather than considering the computer as a highly efficient tool for calculating or computing, she proposed understanding the computer as a medium. The thesis of her book attempts to draw parallels between drama and the computer, with computers allowing their users to play equivalent roles to both the drama performer as well as the audience member. Throughout her book, Laurel uses different videogames as exemplars of many of the ideas and principles she tries to communicate. Jenkins, on the other hand, explores the role that videogames play in a broader context he calls transmedia storytelling. In Jenkin’s view, content moves between different media and videogames are a part of the general ecology of storytelling media that includes movies, novels, and comic books (Jenkins, 2003). Similarly, Janet Murray’s Hamlet on the Holodeck, described the computer as a new medium for the practice of storytelling (Murray, 1997). By analyzing videogames along with other digital artifacts such as hypertext and interactive chat characters, Murray explores the new expressive possibilities allowed by computers. In particular, she views videogames as part of an expanded concept of storytelling she calls cyberdrama. Espen Aarseth, in his book Cybertext, disagrees with Murray’s idea and holds that “to claim there is no difference between games and narratives is to ignore essential qualities of both categories” (Aarseth, 1997). A narrative or story is a construct created in a suitable format (written spoken poetry prose images song Theater, or Dance) that describes a sequence of

This disagreement has been called the ludology vs. Game studies is the still-young field of analyzing games from a multi- and inter-disciplinary perspective narratology debates. The narratological view is that games should be understood as novel forms of narrative and can thus be studied using theories of narrative (Murray, 1997; Atkins, 2003). The ludological position is that games should be understood on their own terms. Ludologists have proposed that the study of games should concern the analysis of the abstract and formal systems they describe. In formal logic, a formal system (also called a logical system, a logistic system, or simply a logic Formal systems in mathematics consist In other words, the focus of game studies should be on the rules of a game, not on the representational elements which are only incidental (Aarseth, 2001; Eskelinen, 2001; Eskelinen, 2004). The idea that a videogame is “radically different to narratives as a cognitive and communicative structure” (Aarseth, 2001) has led the development of new approaches to criticism that are focused on videogames as well adapting, repurposing and proposing new ways of studying and theorizing about videogames. Cognition is a concept used in different ways by different disciplines but is generally accepted to mean the process of awareness or thought Communication is the process of conveying information from a sender to a receiver with the use of a medium in which the communicated information is understood the same way Structure is a fundamental and sometimes Intangible notion covering the Recognition, Observation, nature, and Stability of

Juul’s Half-Real explores how videogames blend formal rules with the imaginative experiences provided by fictional worlds. He describes the tensions faced by games studies scholars when choosing to focus on the game or the player of the game. “We can examine the rules as they are found mechanically in the game program or in the manual of a board game, or we can examine the rules as something that players negotiate and learn. We can also treat the fictional world as a set of signs that the game presents, and we can treat the fictional world as something that the game cues the player into imagining and that players then imagine in their own ways (Juul, 2005). ” Bogost’s comparative approach to videogame criticism also stands out as one of the more recent steps in the direction of proposing new ways of studying and theorizing about games. In Unit Operations, Bogost argues for explicating videogames through a new form of criticism that encompasses the programmatic and algorithmic underpinnings of games together with the cultural and ideological units (2006). In Mathematics, Computing, Linguistics and related subjects an algorithm is a sequence of finite instructions often used for Calculation

Ludology and narratology

Like most academic fields, those who study video games often have differing approaches. While scholars use many different theoretical and research frameworks, the two most visible approaches are ludology and narratology. Narratology is the theory and study of Narrative and Narrative structure and the ways they affect our perception

The term ludology arose within the context of non-electronic games and board games in particular, but gained popularity after it was featured in an article by Gonzalo Frasca in 1999. A board game is a Game in which counters or pieces that are placed on removed from or moved across a "board" (a premarked surface usually specific to that game Gonzalo Frasca ( Montevideo, 1972 is a Game designer and academic Researcher (in the Center for Computer Games Research at the IT University Year 1999 ( MCMXCIX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar) ^[6] The name, however, has not yet caught on fully. Major issues being grappled within the field are questions of narrative and of simulation, and whether or not video games are either, neither, or both. A narrative or story is a construct created in a suitable format (written spoken poetry prose images song Theater, or Dance) that describes a sequence of Simulation is the imitation of some real thing state of affairs or process

The narrativists approach video games in the context of what Janet Murray calls "Cyberdrama. Janet Murray is a Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she is the director of graduate studies in the School of Literature Communication and Culture " That is to say, their major concern is with video games as a storytelling medium, one that arises out of interactive fiction. Murray puts video games in the context of the Holodeck, a fictional piece of technology from Star Trek, arguing for the video game as a medium in which we get to become another person, and to act out in another world. A holodeck is a Simulated reality facility located on Starships and Starbases in the fictional Star Trek universe ^[7] This image of video games certainly received early widespread popular support, and forms the basis of films such as Tron, eXistenZ, and The Last Starfighter. Tron is a 1982 Disney Science fiction film starring Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn (and his counterpart inside the electronic world eXistenZ is a 1999 Psychological thriller / Science fiction film by Canadian director David Cronenberg. The Last Starfighter is a 1984 Science fiction Adventure film directed by Nick Castle. But it is also criticized by some game scholars (such as Espen J. Aarseth) for being better suited to linear narratives than to analysis of interactive video games with multiple, semi-linear or non-linear narratives. Espen J Aarseth (born 1965 is a major figure in the emerging fields of Video game studies and Electronic literature.

The narrativist approach can also be found in the works of Lev Manovich, as well as in the works of Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, which deal more with the concept of new media in general, and its historical roots than with video games as such. Lev Manovich is professor of Visual Arts, University of California San Diego, U Jay David Bolter (born August 17, 1951) is the Wesley Chair of New Media and a Professor in the School of Literature Communication and Culture at the New media is a term meant to encompass the emergence of Digital, Computerized or Networked information and communication technologies But these authors still fundamentally approach video games as 'a text that can be read' - much like a book, poem, or film, and as a media form that has many of the same elements.

There are some standard arguments that usually are used to claim that games are narratives, as in the explanation from Jesper Juul:

Everything is narrative
Most gamers use narratives as introductions and backstories
Games share certain elements with narratives

The ludologists break sharply and radically from this. Their perspective is that a video game is first and foremost just that, a game, and that it needs to be understood in terms of its rules, interface, and in terms of the concept of play. Ludologists such as Espen J. Aarseth argue that, although games certainly have plots, characters, and aspects of traditional narratives, these aspects are incidental to gameplay. Espen J Aarseth (born 1965 is a major figure in the emerging fields of Video game studies and Electronic literature. In one essay, he memorably claims that "the dimensions of Lara Croft's body, already analyzed to death by film theorists, are irrelevant to me as a player, because a different-looking body would not make me play differently. Lara Croft is a Fictional character and the protagonist of Eidos Interactive 's Tomb Raider video game series Film theory debates the essence of the cinema and provides conceptual frameworks for understanding film's relationship to Reality, the other Arts individual . . When I play, I don't even see her body, but see through it and past it. "^[8] Stuart Moulthrop, another ludologist, takes a slightly more moderate perspective, arguing that one cannot completely divorce games from their social context, but still fundamentally arguing that games are not narratives in any meaningful sense. Stuart Moulthrop is an innovator of Electronic literature and Hypertext fiction, both as a theoretician and as a writer

In another opinion, the dualism of a strict division between ludology-narratology is quite artificial. Ludology does not exclude the so-called "narratology" approach. ^[9]

Jesper Juul's arguments for looking at games as non-narrative, or as a ludologist:

Games are not a part of the media landscape of movies, novels, theater etc.
Game time is different from narrative time
The relationship between the reader/viewer and the story world is different from the relation between the player and the game world

One can say that some narrativist approaches are useful when examining strongly narrative-like games such as Zork, and Return to Zork, and more contemporary text-heavy games such as the Lunar series, the Final Fantasy series, or Odin Sphere - but some video game genres have taken a different approach to their design. Zork was one of the first Interactive fiction Computer games and an early descendant of Colossal Cave Adventure. Return to Zork is a 1993 Adventure game in the Zork series for the PC and Apple Macintosh. is a 2D Fantasy action RPG Video game. Developed by Vanillaware and localized and published by Atlus Fighting games, sports games, or first person shooting games, to name a few, can hardly be analyzed using the narrativist approach. One can also point to the way that narrativist approaches may have something to say about where "big world" games have come from historically; immense game-worlds do seem to have roots in narrative pulp and popular fiction (Lord of the Rings, etc) and fantasy film epics (Star Wars trilogy, etc). Pulp magazines (or pulp fiction; often referred to as "the pulps" were inexpensive Fiction magazines The Lord of the Rings is an epic Fantasy is a Genre that uses magic and other Supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, and/or setting Star Wars is an epic Space opera franchise initially conceived by George Lucas during the 1970s and significantly expanded

Henry Jenkins attempts to find a compromise between ludology and narratology with the following points:

Not all games tell stories
Many games have narrative ambitions
An analysis of storytelling in games can be done in more than one way
The gaming experience can never be reduced to the experience of a story
If games tell stories, it is unlikely that they do so in the same manner as other media

Many games can be seen in light of this compromise. For instance, the first-person shooter game Bioshock is in many ways typical for the genre. BioShock is a video game by 2K Boston/2K Australia —previously known as Irrational Games However, as the protagonist fights through the game, pieces of the narrative are discovered as audio recordings authored by the inhabitants of the game world. In this way, the actions taken in-game and the story of the game become interconnected. Shadow Of The Colossus is a different example. Shadow of the Colossus, released in Japan as, is a Japanese developed action-adventure Video game developed and published by Sony Computer Although any explicit narrative elements are extremely spartan, nearly dialog-less and consist mainly of an introduction and ending, all in-game actions taken by the player would have no context without a story to give these actions meaning.

Pre-history of video games

There is now also an emerging field of study (Oliver Grau, 2004, and others) that looks at the "pre-history" of video games, and at the branch of their roots that lie in: fairground attractions and sideshows such as shooting games; early "Coney Island"-style pleasure parks with elements such as large roller-coasters and "haunted house" simulations; nineteenth century landscape simulations such as dioramas, panoramas, planetariums, and stereographs; and amusement arcades that had mechanical game machines and also peep-show film machines. In America a sideshow is an extra secondary production associated with a circus, carnival fair or other such attraction Coney Island is a Peninsula, formerly an island in southernmost Brooklyn, New York City, USA with a Beach on the Atlantic Ocean The roller coaster is a popular Amusement ride developed for Amusement parks and modern Theme parks LaMarcus Adna Thompson patented the first A haunted house is defined as a house that is believed to be a center for Supernatural occurrences or Paranormal phenomena The word diorama can refer either to a nineteenth century mobile theatre device or in modern usage a three-dimensional model usually enclosed in a glass showcase for a museum In its most general sense a panorama is any wide view of a physical space A planetarium is a Theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about Astronomy and the night sky or for training in Celestial navigation Stereoscopy, stereoscopic imaging or 3-D (three-dimensional imaging is any technique capable of recording three-dimensional visual A video arcade (also known as an amusement arcade in the United Kingdom in Japan or as an "arcade" is a venue where people play arcade video games A peep show or peepshow is an exhibition of pictures or objects viewed through a small hole or Magnifying glass. ^[10]

References

^ Culin, S. The Center for Computer Game Research is a research group at the IT University of Copenhagen that represents one of the major nodes of Ludology. The following is a list of books on computer and video games, which range from development, theory, history, to art books This is a list of all Video game lists that can be found on Wikipedia. Simulated reality is the proposition that Reality could be simulated—perhaps by Computer simulation —to a degree indistinguishable from "true" Reality (1907). Games of the North American Indians, Twenty fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1902-1903. Government Printing Office: 1-840.
^ Huizinga, Johan (1954). Homo Ludens. Madrid: Alianza Editorial.
^ Fullerton, Tracy (2005). "The Play's the Thing: Practicing Play as Community Foundation and Design Technique". Changing Views: Worlds in Play, Selected Papers from the 2005 DiGRA Conference, Vancouver, Canada: DiGRA.
^ Ito, Kenji (2005). "Possibilities of Non-Commercial Games: The Case of Amateur Role Playing Games Designers in Japan". Changing Views: Worlds in Play, Selected Papers from the 2005 DiGRA Conference: 135-145, Vancouver, Canada: DiGRA.
^ Williams, D, “Bridging the methodological divide in game research”, Simulation & Gaming 36 (4): 447-463
^ Frasca, Gonzalo (1999). Gonzalo Frasca ( Montevideo, 1972 is a Game designer and academic Researcher (in the Center for Computer Games Research at the IT University Ludology meets narratology: Similitudes and differences between (video) games and narrative (HTML). Ludology.org. Retrieved on 2006-06-14. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 1276 - While taking exile in Fuzhou in southern China, away from the advancing Mongol invaders, the remnants of the
^ Murray, Janet (1998). Janet Murray is a Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she is the director of graduate studies in the School of Literature Communication and Culture Hamlet on the Holodeck. MIT Press. ISBN 0262631873.
^ Aarseth, Espen J. (2004-05-21). Espen J Aarseth (born 1965 is a major figure in the emerging fields of Video game studies and Electronic literature. "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " Events 878 - Syracuse Italy is captured by the Muslim sultan of Sicily. Genre Trouble (HTML). Electronic Book Review. Retrieved on 2006-06-14. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 1276 - While taking exile in Fuzhou in southern China, away from the advancing Mongol invaders, the remnants of the
^ Frasca, Gonzalo (2003). Gonzalo Frasca ( Montevideo, 1972 is a Game designer and academic Researcher (in the Center for Computer Games Research at the IT University Ludologists love stories, too: notes from a debate that never took place (PDF). Ludology.org. Retrieved on 2006-06-14. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 1276 - While taking exile in Fuzhou in southern China, away from the advancing Mongol invaders, the remnants of the
^ Grau, Oliver (2004). Virtual Art. MIT Press. The MIT Press is a University press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT in Cambridge Massachusetts ( USA) ISBN 978-0-262-57223-1.

Relevant resources

Professional associations

Academic journal publications

Conferences

External links

Learning Games Initiative: an international, transdisciplinary, multi-institutional research collective and archive.
Ludology.org: online discussion of ludology.
Digra.org: digital library of game studies conference papers.
Gameology.org: commentary and resources for the game studies community.
Buzzcut.com: critical videogame theory.
EternalGamer.com: exploring games through philosophy, theory, and criticism.
Joystick101.org: online gaming and education site sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Grand Text Auto: about machine narrative, games, poetry, and art.
Terra Nova: online discussion about virtual worlds.
Games * Design * Art * Culture
The Ludologist: Blog on computer game studies.
Ludonauts: exploring ludic media
.brain Critical videogame theory and ludology.
Sirlin.net Videogame theory site focusing on competitive gaming.
Ludologica: blog on game studies
GamesSound.com - site with studies and resources for educators all dealing with game audio.
Gamecultura: GameCulture: The Videogame as Culture. (in Portuguese, with auto-translation)
Ludic Dreams Blog Chronicling a student's attempts to Bring Ludology to his campus as a Major.
Digiplay Games Research Bibliography Bibliography containing over 2400 references to papers, books, theses and conference papers on computer, video and digital games research.
Games Anatomy: -blog of an ordinary guy's perspective on games.

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