The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies

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.

Mark J. P. Wolf is a Full Professor and Department Chair in the Communication Department at Concordia University, Wisconsin. His books includeAbstracting Reality, The Medium of the Video Game, Virtual Morality, The Video Game Theory Reader,The Video Game Explosion, The Video Game Theory Reader 2, Myst and Riven: The World of the D'ni,Before the Crash, The Encyclopedia of Video Games, and Building Imaginary Worlds. With Bernard Perron, he is the co-editor of theLandmark Video Game book series.

Bernard Perron is Full Professor of Cinema at the University of Montreal. His books includeThe Video Game Theory Reader, The Video Game Theory Reader 2, Horror Video Games,Silent Hill: The Terror Engine, and Figures de Violence. With Mark J. P. Wolf, he is the co-editor ofLandmark Video Game book series.