A few years ago there wasn’t much to talk about. Now, however, computer game research is booming resulting in common terminology, competing paradigms and serious discussion on the subjects of games and gaming. This article attempts to provide an introduction to the field of computer game research.
Computer games, like other media, have taken some time to register on the academic radar screen. Film, although treated seriously early on (e.g. Münsterberg, 1916), was not considered an entirely valid research field until the 1960s which saw the birth of actual academic departments. Games, now 40 years old, are starting – quite suddenly – to attract attention from a wide range of disciplines. Only five years ago it would be possible to survey the entire field of game research without raising much of a sweat. Sociologists and psychologists had attempted to map behavioural effects, but not in ways that warranted special attention compared to similar studies on other phenomena in the same league. Today, scholars from fields as diverse as comparative literature, graphic design, computer science, film studies and theatre studies have contributed to the understanding of the phenomenon of computer games. In the following I try to convey a crude map of the field. I attempt – but do not hope to succeed – to provide a balanced view of what is essentially a non-unified research community with huge differences in outlook and priorities.