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Game Studies

Contents

What is Game Studies?
On this site I use the term Game Studies to refer to the academic study of computer games. This area of the site contains information about my work in this area and resources that other researchers may find useful.

Bibliography
This page contains list of references, by author, that Game Studies researchers may find useful. The references cover books, web resources and conference papers - I am gradually listing all papers presented at an academic conference on computer games I can find. Where a reference is online (or there say a draft version of it) I have included a link. The list covers a number of areas:

The concept of games and play

Violence and media effects

Intellectual property theory and law

MMORPGs

Game design

General papers on game related issues

Links
This page is simply a set of links to online resources covering Game Studies generally, the computer games industry (including where to get industry data from free), philosophy, interesting blogs and just about anything else that seemed useful at the time.

Core Texts

Overview

The Bibliography now has well over one hundred references, there is a recommendation system and theme indexing, however for anyone trying to find out the key texts in any given subject area, the list is just too large. So I have now complied a thematic lists of the texts that, in my personal view, are essential reading in a number of subject areas.

Play

Sutton-Smith, B., (1997), The Ambiguity of Play, Harvard University Press.
Callios, R., (1958), Man, Play and Games, Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Salen, K. & Zimmerman, E. (2003), Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals, MIT Press.
Winnicot, D. W., (1971), Playing and Reality, Routledge.

Mmo Design

Bartle, B., (2003), Designing Virtual Worlds, New Riders.
Mulligan, J. & Patrovsky, B. (2003), Developing Online Games: An Insider's Guide, New Riders.