Game studies

Game studies, ludology or gaming theory is a discipline that deals with the critical study of games. More specifically, it focuses on game design, players, and their role in society and culture. Game studies is an inter-disciplinary field with researchers and academics from a multitude of other areas such as computer science, psychology, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, arts and literature, media studies, communication.

Like other media disciplines, such as television studies and film studies, game studies often involves textual analysis and audience theory. Game studies tends to employ more diverse methodologies than these other branches, drawing from both social science and humanities approaches.

History

Prior to the late-twentieth century (1900s), the academic study of games was rare and limited to fields such as history and anthropology. For example, in the early 1900s Stewart Culin wrote a comprehensive catalog of gaming implements and games from Native American tribes north of Mexico while Johan Huizinga and Roger Caillois explored the importance of games and play as a basic human activity that helps define culture. As the video game revolution took off in the early 1980s, so did academic interest in games, resulting in a field that draws on diverse methodologies and schools of thought.