Friday, September 14, 2001

Justin Hall Reviews GameStudies
Justin Hall finds that GameStudies is too vague, too academic and not offering a language with which to analyse computer games. I agree with him, there is no language with which to analyse computer-games. What he doesn't see is that there is a definition of what computer-games are not, what does not work. To avoid rediscovering the wheel, that is where the exploration has to begin. Why explore France if what you're looking for is the source of the Nile?

Yeah, I am sure there are a lot of gamers who are shouting: look here, look here, this is what it's all about. A lot of said gamers are in colleges and universities. GameStudies gives them a point to relate to, something to oppose or agree with. Even learning that: "this isn't how I want to think about games" is knowledge. If the result of the gamer's search for an academic home is: "we don't want to study games this way" then so be it. At least the readers of GameStudies have learned that.

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