by Alice Robison ¹

• ¹ Massachusetts Institute of Technology

This course is an introduction to the interdisciplinary study of commercial videogames as texts, examining their cultural, educational, and social functions in contemporary settings.

Course Description

This course will serve as an introduction to the interdisciplinary study of commercial videogames as texts, examining their cultural, educational, and social functions in contemporary settings. By playing, analyzing, and reading and writing about videogames, we will examine debates surrounding how they function within socially situated contexts in order to better understand games' influence on and reflections of society. Readings will include contemporary game theory and the completion of a contemporary commercial videogame chosen in consultation with the instructor.

Writing, reading, and playing will be heavy, but students will also be required to present game analyses at each class meeting, providing other students with the opportunity to observe a wide variety of game genres, play styles, and designed rule systems. By examining games together in class, we will discuss how various theories of game design and play are applied to games as texts. Students will be invited to present out-of-game learning and literacy activities as data that show how games are used and played in their organic settings; we will study the implications of these data as well.

While this game serves as an introduction to the emerging field of game studies, students are free to bring their own disciplinary expertise to the classroom setting. Perspectives from computer science, architecture, media studies, literature, engineering, physics, etc. are all welcome and will add a healthy intellectual rigor to the course. Likewise, students without experience playing or observing videogames are highly encouraged to enroll, as their perspectives and points of view help others see what they're missing, so to speak.

n.b.: Though the course subject matter is videogame theory and analysis, we will not be producing games in this class. Instead, we will analyze games as interactive media, as rule-based systems, as cultural and social texts, and as designed learning spaces. We will concentrate heavily on games' potential impact on society, their cultural influence, and their phenomenology and ontology. Students will not be expected to create, design, or produce games or simulations for this course.

Course Goals

• To introduce students to contemporary commercial videogames from a variety of genres, rule systems, strategies, and contexts.
• To explore videogames' impact as contemporary social texts, each with their own social communities, cultures, and significance as media.
• To examine the emerging field of scholarly game studies as it exists across the globe and in various interdisciplinary formats.
• To connect and compare videogames to other contemporary digital (and nondigital) media.