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Faculty
Patrick Burkart, Texas A&M University

Course Coordinator
ISUP Secretariat

Prerequisite/progression of the course

None

Course content, structure and teaching

This course surveys business and industry aspects of video games, and cultural and social aspects of gaming, as presented in contemporary scholarship in media studies. It also explores the contours of the emergent field of game studies. The video games industry provides contemporary examples of technological innovation and convergence, and codevelopment with other popular media. Video games are also providing cultural studies with rich new texts that can illuminate features of contemporary social life, including cybercultures. As part of the coursework, students will complete a case study analyzing cultural, technological, genre, and marketplace aspects of one video game.

The course's development of personal competences

Students will develop a multi-perspective research method, apply business analytics to cultural products, and apply media economics concepts to new technologies.

Learning Objectives

The specific goals of this course are to:

• Analyze historical and current business models for the video game industry
• Survey contemporary and authoritative texts on game studies
• Identify features of game studies that can also be addressed by media studies
• Explore relationships between game technology, narratives, genres, and aesthetics, and
• Explicate the notion of “game play” with reference to technology, narrative, genre, and aesthetics

Teaching methods

The course will be run as a seminar with mini-lectures presented weekly. Case study discussions and presentations will also be conducted.

Examination

Mandatory mid-term feedback assignment: In order to be allowed to present the final assignment, students are required to submit one short written assignment.

Final Exam: Project/home assignment (written individually), 10 A4 pages.

Re-take exam: Project/home assignment (written individually), 10 A4 pages.

Recommended literature

Aphra Kerr, The business and cultures of digital games: Gamework/gameplay, Sage, 2006. 192 pages.

Simon Egenfeldt et al., Understanding video games: The essential introduction, Routledge, 2008. 294 pages.

Torill Mortensen, Perceiving play: The art and study of computer games, Peter Lang Publishing, 2009. 184 pages.

Sidst opdateret af ISUP Secretariat 29.01.2010