Year: 2025
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Game Studies, as an "interdisciplinary" field is and always has been in crisis. While the majority of thinkers, scholars, and pedagogues on games agree on a common goal of diversity, inclusivity and beneficial conflict, there is little agreement on how to get there. This piece reframes the history of interdisciplinarity as a crisis on two fronts: ideological and material (inter)disciplinarity. The text then argues for a particular solution to these sticky problems: pluralist game studies. Pluralist game studies is then explicated as having three practical approaches to enable the vision of game studies we all seem to want: anti-disciplinary, anti-qualification, and anti-exclusionary practices and spaces. The text concludes that these are not required of all game studies spaces, but in order for a healthy (inter)discipline, a certain percentage in pedagogy, conferences, and journals should exist. It concludes by highlighting spaces that already feature these techniques and ideology.
Author: Leland Masek Masek
Institution: Tampere University
Language: English
Topic: Digital Games and Media
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W4411972212