Product details
- ISBN 9781041155102
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 10 Jul 2026
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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Cultural Game Studies provides a comprehensive framework for understanding games and play as interconnected cultural phenomena, examining their roles as art, entertainment, and human experience within contemporary society.
This edited volume delivers a societally and culturally informed critical framework that enables readers to develop a nuanced understanding of game cultures and their scholarship. Rather than studying games or players in isolation, the book contextualises the uses, design, and meanings of play as an interconnected whole. Readers will gain detailed insights into the scholarly history of game studies and its key methodologies, while exploring essential themes including player identities, game production, cultural literacy, and game preservation. The book’s comprehensive approach opens new perspectives for cultural analysis and provides tools for understanding how games increasingly permeate and inform modern society and culture.
This book is written for researchers, scholars, and advanced students in game studies, cultural studies, media studies, and digital humanities. It is ideal for academics seeking to deepen their theoretical understanding of game cultures, graduate students conducting research in game-related fields, and instructors teaching courses on digital culture, media theory, or contemporary cultural phenomena.
Frans Mäyrä, PhD, is a Professor at Tampere University and founder of the Game Research Lab, with its over 50 externally funded game research projects, having also served as the Director of the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies. As a leading expert in socio-cultural issues relating to games, play, and playfulness, he has published widely on topics ranging from game cultures, meaning making through playful interaction, and online social play to borderlines, identity, and transmedial fantasy and science fiction.
Raine Koskimaa, PhD, is a Professor of Contemporary Culture Studies at the University of Jyväskylä. He conducts research in the fields of game studies, transmedia storytelling, and digital culture. Koskimaa has published widely, and his writings have been translated into several languages. His current research interests include eSports, games and transmedia, and machine learning-based digital humanities methods.
