Computer Games

Delivering his keynote paper to the International Game Cultures Conference, Espen Aarseth identified 2001 as the first year of video game studies. His statement was confirmed in many ways by the grandiose scale of the event, bringing together an international community of video gamers and academics to discuss this new and exciting discipline.

For Jesper Juul, Aki Jarvinen and Espen Aarseth the terminology of video game theory had to be drawn from the language of 'play'. However, the concept of theory being intertwined with play/pleasure appeared unexpectedly problematic for some academics. Even the field of ludology in which Juul and Jarvinen situated themselves was new and unfamiliar to many at the conference. Although not entirely incompatible, the narratological perspective adopted by Henry Jenkins and Greg Smith did not sit well with ludology. Similar tensions arose where methodology was called into question. Ethnographic studies presented by T.L. Taylor, Kirsty Horrell, David ...