The number of publications dealing with video game studies has exploded over the course of the last decade, but the field has produced few comprehensive reference works. The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies, compiled by well-known video game scholars Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard Perron, aims to address the ongoing theoretical and methodological development of game studies, providing students, scholars, and game designers with a definitive look at contemporary video game studies.

Features include:

• comprehensive and interdisciplinary models and approaches for analyzing video games;
• new perspectives on video games both as art form and cultural phenomenon;
• explorations of the technical and creative dimensions of video games;
• accounts of the political, social, and cultural dynamics of video games.

Each essay provides a lively and succinct summary of its target area, quickly bringing the reader up-to-date on the pertinent issues surrounding each aspect of the field, including references for further reading. Together, they provide an overview of the present state of game studies that will undoubtedly prove invaluable to student, scholar, and designer alike.

The number of publications dealing with video game studies has exploded over the course of the last decade, but the field has produced few comprehensive reference works. The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies, compiled by well-known video game scholars Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard Perron, aims to address the ongoing theoretical and methodological development of game studies, providing students, scholars, and game designers with a definitive look at contemporary video game studies.

Features include:

• comprehensive and interdisciplinary models and approaches for analyzing video games;
• new perspectives on video games both as art form and cultural phenomenon;
• explorations of the technical and creative dimensions of video games;
• accounts of the political, social, and cultural dynamics of video games.

Each essay provides a lively and succinct summary of its target area, quickly bringing the reader up-to-date on the pertinent issues surrounding each aspect of the field, including references for further reading. Together, they provide an overview of the present state of game studies that will undoubtedly prove invaluable to student, scholar, and designer alike.

TECHNOLOGICAL ASPECTS 1. Artifact (Olli Sotamaa) 2. Artificial Intelligence (Robin Johnson) 3. Controllers (Sheila C. Murphy) 4. Emulation (Simon Dor) 5. Interface (Vincent Mauger) 6. Platforms (Bobby Schweizer) 7. Resolution (Mark J. P. Wolf) FORMAL ASPECTS 8. Art and Aesthetics (Grant Tavinor) 9. Color (Simon Niedenthal) 10. Conventions (Bernard Perron) 11. Design (Richard Rouse III) 12. Dimensionality (John Sharp) 13. Levels (Martin Picard) 14. Perspective (John Sharp) 15. Sound (Mark Grimshaw) 16. Worlds (Mark J. P. Wolf) PLAYFULNESS ASPECTS 17. Casualness (Julia Raz) 18. Challenge (Robert Furze) 19. Cheating (Mia Consalvo) 20. Competition / Co-operation (Emma Witkowski) 21. Conflict (Marko Siitonen) 22. Interactivity (Lori Landay) 23. Ludology (Espen Aarseth) 24. Objectives (Louis-Martin Guay) 25. Players / Gamers (Frederic Clement) 26. Repetition (Christopher Hanson) 27. Single-player / Multiplayer (Daniel Joseph & Lee Knuttila) GENERIC ASPECTS 28. Action (Dominic Arsenault) 29. Adventure (Clara Fernandez-Vara) 30. Role-playing (Andrew Burn) 31. Shooting (Gerald Voorhees) 32. Simulation (Seth Giddings) 33. Sports Games (Andrew Baerg) 34. Strategy (Simon Dor) CULTURAL ASPECTS 35. Convergence (Robert Alan Brookey) 36. Culture (Frans Mayra) 37. Cut-scenes (Rune Klevjer) 38. Death (Karin Wenz) 39. Education (Rick Ferdig) 40. Media Ecology (Kevin Schut) 41. Research (David Myers) 42. Retrogaming (Michael Thomasson) 43. Violence (Peter Krapp) SOCIOLOGICAL ASPECTS 44. Characters (Jessica Aldred) 45. Community (Carly Kocurek) 46. Femininity (Carrie Heeter) 47. Masculinity (Michael Z. Newman & John Vanderhoef) 48. Performance (Michael Nitsche) 49. Race (Anna Everett) 50. Sociology (Andras Lukacs) PHILOSOPHICAL ASPECTS 51. Cognition (Andreas Gregerson) 52. Emergence (Joris Dormans) 53. Fiction (Grant Tavinor) 54. Ideology (Mark Hayse) 55. Immersion (Carl Therrien) 56. Meaning (Christopher A. Paul) 57. Ethics (Mark Hayse) 58. Narratology (Dominic Arsenault) 59. Ontology (Espen Aarseth) 60. Transcendence (Mark Hayse)