Study the Wii for Your Ph.D.

Reporter Joanna Smith has an article today in The Toronto Star about Future Play 2007, held last week at Algoma University College.

Everyone was there to talk and learn about video games and their psychological, sociological, political, technical, metaphorical – what have you – dimensions, which are all lumped together in the emerging field of game studies.

That’s right: video game studies, which is busy establishing itself as a bona fide academic field.

Scholars might spend hours discussing avatars – the identities people adopt in online virtual reality games – but they are doing so in post-secondary institutions, peer-reviewed journals and in societies of the learned, such as the Digital Games Research Association, which held a large conference in Tokyo this year, or the fledgling Canadian Game Studies Association, which publishes a mostly online journal called Loading.

 

Smith goes on to briefly discuss the history of game studies, including Huizinga’s Homo Ludens and his discussions of “the magic circle.”

Professors mentioned prominently in the article included Mia Consalvo over at Ohio University and author of the new book, Cheating: Gaining Advantage in Videogames; Jennifer Jenson at York University and co-President of the Canadian Game Studies Association; and Jayne Gackenbach over at Grant MacEwen College in Edmonton who is studying effects videogames have on dreams.

References:
Smith, J. (2007, November 24). Pursuing a Ph.D.? Considered Wii studies? The Toronto Star. [Online]. Retrieved November 24, 2007 from: http://www.thestar.com/News/Ideas/article/279372