1) To what extent are you aware that there are professors of Game Studies or New Media Studies in departments of same?

2) Have you read their work?

3) Does their work interest you, whether or not you've read it?

4) What are your positive feelings about them and their work?

5) What are your negative feelings about them and their work?

1) None that i'm aware of, though i know about the journal, Eludamos. There are also a lot of informal resources like Gamasutra etc.
2) Yes (again through publications of Eludamos)
3) Sometimes, not always... Not every aspect of the research interests me nor does the focus on some games.
4) N/A - I am a scientist, i have no feelings
5) N/A - Seriously, i don't have any positive or negative feelings as yet for this particular field... there just doesn't seem to be enough information as it's quite a young field of research as far as i can tell. Previous studies have mainly been from a psychological viewpoint on the gamers rather than studying the actual games etc.

1) Effectively none.

I think that answers the rest of the questions too. Not trying to flip, that's an honest answer and I hope it helps out at least a little.

I'm a bit split on this. On the one hand, I think there are some really great scholars working in the field (James Gee, Henry Jenkins, Nick Yee, etc.). On the other hand, I'm concerned about all of the new "games/new-media studies" classes that are springing up (it seems like they're everywhere now). That is, I'm worried that as an academic discipline, it's starting to splinter into a bunch of self-taught/cross-disciplinary classes started by professors from other areas (like "digital arts") who may not necessarily understand what separates games from other forms of media.

- Alan

One last bump before I let this die, with a question I hope Goodjers might take a moment to answer.

Am I reading this correctly, that everybody else who even had a strong enough feeling about the phrase "Game Studies" to click on the thread is basically in the same position as Quintin, and hasn't heard of Game Studies the discipline?

I've never really heard of truly organized "Game Studies", only individual papers and such reviewing a specific aspect of gaming that serves their purposes. Psychology, Sociology, Marketing, Business, and of course, the eternal Art debate.

They've all generally been (pick one):

1) How do I sell more games?
2) Does gaming make people violent?
3) Can a game be considered art?

Given the approach, I have been quite apathetic about anyone in academia wanting to discuss or research "games".

Unfortunately, the forum approach works best for quippy one-liners, not for serious questions. If you notice, most serious threads get a few dozen responses tops. "How do I shave my gnads?" will go on for days, weeks, or forever.

I think you are on to something when you point out that Gamers are not the target audience for works written by Games Studies Academics.

I'm sort-of an academic. Well, I'm tenure track faculty w/ all the pressures, but most people don't think of librarians in that light. I don't have a doctorate, but I am required to publish.

Anyway, I'm using games in my research but I'm not really writing for gamers. I'm looking at games and learning. Whether a generation of students raised on games have developed any learning preferences from games, how good game designers incorporate sound pedagogy into their design, and innovations in student engagement that librarians and other teachers can pick up from games.

So I'm not reading that many Games Studies Scholars. I'm using a lot of Gee, but he cut his teeth in education. I'm using Beck and Wade's book, but they are management folks. There are a lot of other studies out there, but most are from other disciplines looking at games from their particular vantage points, not from a Game Studies perspective.

I think Gee is very well received, and anyone who wants to make an argument for games not being a waste of time would do well to give him a read. Other than that, I don't see a lot of cross-over unless the study has to do w/ compulsive behavior and gaming, violent behavior and game playing, or games and gender.

I'm in a rush at the moment, but PM me if you are interested in more detail.

My first question would be what skills you want students taking this course to have. If you were British I'd ask what A levels you would expect them to have, which would be a choice of three out of maths, physics, chemistry, english, history, sociology, politics, economics and the like.

I suppose I'd consider it in terms of why someone interested in creating video games would want to do it rather than a more practical/vocational course (my understanding of the US college systems crumbles here: would they be able to take a major in Video Game Programming and a minor in your Game Studies course?)

I'm sorry, I'm an electronic engineer by training and as such I view all the soft sciences with massive suspicion, and I view university/college in vocational terms. I do go to Terra Nova every so often, but I've come to regard it as a big talking shop about Second Life, and I personally probably wouldn't want to do this course if there were experiments to run and science to be done elsewhere.

Your wish etc.:

1) To what extent are you aware that there are professors of Game Studies or New Media Studies in departments of same?
Only what I've read on Terra Nova.

2) Have you read their work?
Some of it, the focus of it is viewing the behaviour of players in MMOs or online social spaces in sociological/ethnographical terms. I've also read economic analyses of the Eve Online economy

3) Does their work interest you, whether or not you've read it?
Initially, yes, but the writers on Terra Nova seems to be stuck in a rut to me. Whilst I think it is interesting that MMO players stand their avatars a similar distance away from other plays commensurate with how well they know them, my love of practicality and rigour keeps it firmly in the "marginally interesting diversion" category

4) What are your positive feelings about them and their work?
Well, these spaces do represent a new kind of social interaction, so it's virgin territory, and therefore there are interesting discoveries to be made

5) What are your negative feelings about them and their work?
Pretty much my feelings about the soft sciences in general. It isn't clear to me what the practical use of the findings are. Also, my prejudice that soft science investigations lack rigour is a factor. Large generalisation and extrapolation from insufficient data that would not be considered statistically valid in a clinical drug trial. I'm aware that the data collection is much more difficult, time consuming and complicated, but that's no excuse for drawing irresponsible conclusions.

There are such things as good trials and bad trials, Duoae. The trials you are referring to with a small sample set are poorly executed trials, possibly intentionally so to skew the results in a desired direction. Both Big Pharma and the Alt Med crowd do this kind of stuff to game the system. Ultimately, we know that you need a randomized, stratified, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial to get good results, in addition to the sample set (which can be tens in an early phase of a drug trial to thousands in the final stages of approval).

I take your point about medicine not being a proper "science" in the axioms and proofs sense (and that's a debate I've certainly had before), and I agree with it. However, I'm linking the kind of questions psychologists are asking ("How do people, on average, behave in a certain circumstance?") to the questions drug triallists are asking ("How do people, on average, react to this drug?"), and so it seems to me that to derive the correct conclusions from the experiment (especially when those conclusions could influence laws or government policy) that similar standards should be expected, and that the analogy I made between psychological trials and clinical drug trials is reasonable.

I'm weaving this web of the Center for Video Games and Civilized Values more and more tangled, and I've come to a juncture where I need to get a sense of how smart gamers feel about the academic discipline that has sprung up to get tenure off their favorite pass-time.

So, I'm hoping you might tell me:

1) To what extent are you aware that there are professors of Game Studies or New Media Studies in departments of same?
To a large extent, but mostly because I have taken graduate level classes with them. It's the Department of Communication and Culture here, but I have always suspected that there are folks out there studying video games. Just because I have run across so many people studying such a wide variety of material.

2) Have you read their work?
No. Nothing that would fall directly under Games Studies.

3) Does their work interest you, whether or not you've read it?
Yes, to a point. I'm generally interested in how folks approach any field of study, whether it's Biology, Literature, Video Games or Origami. I am extremely curious to find out if Games Studies will ever or does already influence video game consumption or media. And I secretly wish to run into other faculty who are studying video games so I can pull out the offhand comment about how JRPGs are trans-culturizing American youth and see their reaction.

4) What are your positive feelings about them and their work?
If they can help a new generation express themselves and their ideas concerning games more effectively, sw33t.

What are your negative feelings about them and their work?
None, if they're sincere.

I don't see why you'd have a massively difficult problem running a joint course/programme between classics and media studies - just to start off with. Not sure how the system works over there but we had/have some courses that are specifically tailored to cover an intermediate or higher level than just the basic courses that address areas in industry which require a broader view.

Generally these courses attract a limited interest from prospective students and so i would imagine the running costs are easier to deal with when spread across two faculties - though i don't know if this is what happens.

I know I'm terribly late to the party, but I've been thinking lately of trying to find a graduate or PhD program along these lines. I got my AB in English at the University of Chicago, so I'm well trained to not care at all about any nagging concerns of practical application or being viewed as somehow "way too serious about stupid sh*t." If you start or find a place, you let me know and I'll get studying for the GREs (well, I may do that anyway).

What does worry me, however, is this "Ludology" stuff. Certainly I understand that games can't be entirely boring, but the challenge of a game is only a fraction of the overall work (1/4, if you want to go by the explorer/socializer/story reader/conqueror categorization of types of gamers). I respect the work that goes in to makeing games functional and challenging, but I'm really in it for the story and what the game can teach me about myself and the human condition. Ludology tends to sweep that under the rug as mere pretence for quicktime events, as far as I can tell (as if Mass Effect were really just a shooter with the occasional quicktime chore to decrypt a computer).

I do hear rumors that "Narrativists" are coming together with the Ludologists to form a more cohesive way of studying video games, which is at least better than the Ludologists winning.

Anyway, that's my bit. I like literature, and I often like games for similar reasons, so I like the idea that you're going to be throwing your hat in with "the good guys." Best of luck.

And I'm serious about that GRE thing.

I haven't heard of departments of "game studies" but there is a lot of good, social scientific video game research being done in the field of Communication. Lots of media researchers have turned their attention to this as well as other new forms of media. Journals like Journal of Communication, Journal of Broadcast and Electronic Media and the like all have solid video game research.

*Full Disclosure* I am a graduate student of Communication

1) To what extent are you aware that there are professors of Game Studies or New Media Studies in departments of same?

You would have to first define Game Studies for me. I saw Gee’s name dropped, that’s the sort of game studies I’m familiar with. Gee and Squire being the main two I’ve read. I would also consider Raph Koster to be Game Sudies, but clearly more on the design level—I’ve not read Koster but need to.

2) Have you read their work?

Yeah, depending on the focus you’re looking for. As to how to adapt games for non-gaming uses, that’s what I’ve mostly read.

3) Does their work interest you, whether or not you've read it?

Very much interested. I’m getting my M.Ed. in English. I took a class using NeverWinter Nights to tutor reading and co-presented on this at the National Reading Conference. I also presented at the state educators conference GCTE exposing Georgia educators to some of the meat and potatoes that us out there. I’m less interested personally on the potential of using games with reading to teach reading, then I am in deeper applications. I am hoping to attend the upcoming GLS conference (in which both Gee and Squire will be presenting), just looking to get some funding from my school.

I’ve also looked at some interesting things such as DoomEd and would like to see the mod created by Nora Paul.

4) What are your positive feelings about them and their work?
5) What are your negative feelings about them and their work?

I’m going to go N/A on both of these questions.

As to other posts, tho, I’d like to add to the discussion.

I disagree with the idea that academics aren’t interested in engaging gamers. I don’t think it’s their focus, but why should they focus on convincing gamers there is an intrinsic value in gaming? I don’t think they often involve gamers only because there is a huge rift between academics, gamers, and game designers. It’s up to any of these three to fill the void, so why just blame academics?

It’s cool to see that there is a couple of other people on this thread who are interested in pursuing an academic investigation (or pursuing applications) of gaming. Feel free to continue to post on this, or see how you can actually use the community to work towards something meaningful.

I agree with you Tin, that activating a dialogue between the different disciplines is critical to move forward. As my focus is education, I don’t understand why there isn’t more of a dialogue between educators and game designers.

I agree that there is little to no forum. And the answer to this sounds simple, isn't, but is still true enough: proponents on both sides simply need to make such a forum, need to make such an interaction. It's something I'd like to look into, but I'd have to be smarter about what I want to accomplish before doing this. Education seems somewhat open to this, as a fad more than in considering actually using games in class. Still, there is a measure of interest that I'd very much like to see expand.