Digital games are one of the most significant media interfaces of contemporary life. Games today interweave with the social, economic, material, and political complexities of living in a digital age. But who makes games, who plays them, and what, how and where do we play? This book explores the ways in which games and game cultures can be understood. It investigates the sites, genres, platforms, interfaces and contexts for games and gameplay, offering a critical overview of the breadth of contemporary game studies. It is an essential companion for students looking to understand games and games cultures in our increasingly playful and ‘gamified’ digital society.

This volume critically analyzes the multiple lives of the "gamer" in India. It explores the "everyday" of the gaming life from the player’s perspective, not just to understand how the games are consumed but also to analyze how the gamer influences the products’ many (virtual) lives. Using an intensive ethnographic approach and in-depth interviews, this volume situates the practice of gaming under a broader umbrella of digital leisure activities and foregrounds the proliferation of gaming as a new media form and cultural artifact; critically questions the term gamer and the many debates surrounding the gamer tag to expand on how the gaming identity is constructed and expressed; details participants’ gaming habits, practices and contexts from a cultural perspective and analyzes the participants’ responses to emerging industry trends, reflections on playing practices and their relationships to friends, communities and networks in gaming spaces; and examines the offline and online spaces of gaming as sites of contestation between developers of games and the players. A holistic study covering one of the largest video game bases in the world, this volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of cultural studies, media and communication studies and science and technology studies, as well as be of great appeal to the general reader.

This collection explores the politics of game play and its cultural context by focusing on the Asia-Pacific region. Drawing from micro ethnographic studies to macro political economy analysis of techno-nationalisms and transcultural flows of cultural capital, it provides an interdisciplinary model for thinking through the politics of gaming.

Digital gaming is today a significant economic phenomenon as well as being an intrinsic part of a convergent media culture in postmodern societies. Its ubiquity, as well as the sheer volume of hours young people spend gaming, should make it ripe for urgent academic enquiry, yet the subject was a research backwater until the turn of the millennium. Even today, as tens of millions of young people spend their waking hours manipulating avatars and gaming characters on computer screens, the subject is still treated with scepticism in some academic circles. This handbook aims to reflect the relevance and value of studying digital games, now the subject of a growing number of studies, surveys, conferences and publications. As an overview of the current state of research into digital gaming, the 42 papers included in this handbook focus on the social and cultural relevance of gaming. In doing so, they provide an alternative perspective to one-dimensional studies of gaming, whose agendas do not include cultural factors. The contributions, which range from theoretical approaches to empirical studies, cover various topics including analyses of games themselves, the player-game interaction, and the social context of gaming. In addition, the educational aspects of games and gaming are treated in a discrete section. With material on non-commercial gaming trends such as ‘modding’, and a multinational group of authors from eleven nations, the handbook is a vital publication demonstrating that new media cultures are far more complex and diverse than commonly assumed in a debate dominated by concerns over violent content.

Video Games and the Global South redefines games and game culture from south to north, analyzing the cultural impact of video games, the growth of game development and the vitality of game cultures across Africa, the Middle East, Central and South America, the Indian subcontinent, Oceania and Asia.

This second, thoroughly updated edition of The Routledge International Handbook of Children, Adolescents, and Media analyzes a broad range of complementary areas of study, including children as media consumers, children as active participants in media making, and representations of children in the media. The roles that media play in the lives of children and adolescents, as well as their potential implications for their cognitive, emotional, social, and behavioral development, have attracted growing research attention in a variety of disciplines. This handbook presents a collection that spans a variety of disciplines including developmental psychology, media studies, public health, education, feminist studies, and the sociology of childhood. Chapters provide a unique intellectual mapping of current knowledge, exploring the relationship between children and media in local, national, and global contexts. Divided into five parts, each with an introduction explaining the themes and topics covered, the Handbook features over 50 contributions from leading and upcoming academics from around the globe. The revised and new chapters consider vital questions by analyzing texts, audience, and institutions, including: media and its effects on children’s mental health children and the internet of toys media and digital inequalities news and citizenship in the aftermath of COVID-19 The Handbook’s interdisciplinary approach and comprehensive, current, and international scope make it an authoritative, state-of-the-art guide to the field of children’s media studies. It will be indispensable for media scholars and professionals, policy makers, educators, and parents.

Encyclopedia of Computer Graphics and Games (ECGG) is a unique reference resource tailored to meet the needs of research and applications for industry professionals and academic communities worldwide. The ECGG covers the history, technologies, and trends of computer graphics and games. Editor Newton Lee, Institute for Education, Research, and Scholarships, Los Angeles, CA, USA Academic Co-Chairs Shlomo Dubnov, Department of Music and Computer Science and Engineering, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA Patrick C. K. Hung, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Oshawa, ON, Canada Jaci Lee Lederman, Vincennes University, Vincennes, IN, USA Industry Co-Chairs Shuichi Kurabayashi, Cygames, Inc. & Keio University, Kanagawa, Japan Xiaomao Wu, Gritworld GmbH, Frankfurt am Main, Hessen, Germany Editorial Board Members Leigh Achterbosch, School of Science, Engineering, IT and Physical Sciences, Federation University Australia Mt Helen, Ballarat, VIC, Australia Ramazan S. Aygun, Department of Computer Science, Kennesaw State University, Marietta, GA, USA Barbaros Bostan, BUG Game Lab, Bahçeşehir University (BAU), Istanbul, Turkey Anthony L. Brooks, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark Guven Catak, BUG Game Lab, Bahçeşehir University (BAU), Istanbul, Turkey Alvin Kok Chuen Chan, Cambridge Corporate University, Lucerne, Switzerland Anirban Chowdhury, Department of User Experience and Interaction Design, School of Design (SoD), University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES), Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India Saverio Debernardis, Dipartimento di Meccanica, Matematica e Management, Politecnico di Bari, Bari, Italy Abdennour El Rhalibi, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK Stefano Ferretti, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy Han Hu, School of Information and Electronics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China Ms. Susan Johnston, Select Services Films Inc., Los Angeles, CA, USA Chris Joslin, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada Sicilia Ferreira Judice, Department of Computer Science, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada Hoshang Kolivand, Department Computer Science, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK Dario Maggiorini, Department of Computer Science, University of Milan, Milan, Italy Tim McGraw, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA George Papagiannakis, ORamaVR S.A., Heraklion, Greece; FORTH-ICS, Heraklion Greece University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece Florian Richoux, Nantes Atlantic Computer Science Laboratory (LINA), Université de Nantes, Nantes, France Andrea Sanna, Dipartimento di Automatica e Informatica, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy Yann Savoye, Institut fur Informatik, Innsbruck University, Innsbruck, Austria Sercan Şengün, Wonsook Kim School of Art, Illinois State University, Normal, IL, USA Ruck Thawonmas, Ritsumeikan University, Shiga, Japan Vinesh Thiruchelvam, Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Rojin Vishkaie, Amazon, Seattle, WA, USA Duncan A. H. Williams, Digital Creativity Labs, Department of Computer Science, University of York, York, UK Sai-Keung Wong, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan Editorial Board Intern Sam Romershausen, Vincennes University, Vincennes, IN, USA