Current and Pending Volumes
Current Volumes
Michael Austin
Music Video Games takes a look (and listen) at the popular genre of music games – video games in which music is at the forefront of player interaction and gameplay. Each chapter investigates important themes surrounding the ways in which we play music and play with music in video games. Starting with the precursors to music games - including Simon, the hand-held electronic music game from the 1980s, Michael Austin's collection goes on to discuss issues in musicianship and performance, authenticity and “selling out,” and composing, creating, and learning music with video games. Including a glossary and detailed indices, Austin and his team shine a much needed light on the often overlooked subject of music video games.
Reviews
“Music Video Games: Performance, Politics, and Play is a fascinating and timely collection, the first devoted to exploring the complexity and variety of music-based games from the 1980s to the present. This volume will be essential reading for anyone interested in better understanding how music and gameplay interact.”
-- William Gibbons, Assistant Professor of Musicology, Texas Christian University, USA
“Musical video games offer game players a unique glimpse into musicianship, inspire musical creativity, memory, dexterity and, for some players, spark a lifelong passion for sound. This important anthology brings together a diverse collection of essays on all aspects of music games, providing one of the first broad explorations of the genre, and serving as an important introduction to theoretical ideas and scholarship on music games.”
-- Karen Collins, Canada Research Chair in Interactive Audio, the Games Institute, University of Waterloo, Canada.
“This is a joyous collection of essays exploring the complex and multifaceted musicality of video games. From arcades in Amarillo Texas to school classrooms in Scotland, and from Michael Jackson to cartoon animated singing monsters, the book traces the intersections of video games and music, with a particular focus on 'music games'. Like the games they investigate, the essays are both entertaining and rewarding. The chapters in this volume help us to make sense not only of the games themselves, but they tell us just as much about the wider musical cultures and practices in which the games sit. Accessible for the musician and non-musician, gamer and non-gamer, this represents an exciting development in video game music studies.”
-- Tim Summers, Teaching Fellow, Royal Holloway University of London, UK. Co-Founder of the Ludomusicology Research Group UK.
“From a deep history of Simon to a theory of playable musical personae in Michael Jackson games, this lively volume brims with interdisciplinary insight into the nature of interfaces, instruments, and interactive audio, illuminating the powerful affinities of musicking and gaming.”
-- Kiri Miller, Associate Professor, Brown University, USA.
Gareth Schott
This book enters into the fray of an enduring debate concerning the professed impact of violence on players of digital games. Drawing on new insights achieved from research located at an intersection between humanities, social and computer sciences this book will interrogate the nature and meaning of ‘violence’ encountered by game players. In focusing on the various ways ‘violence’ is mediated by both the rule system and the semiotic layer of games, the aim is to draw out the distinctiveness of games as technological, aesthetic and communicational phenomena. This will constitute an essential book for those wishing to make sense of the experience offered by games in the context of media regulation and the classification of content.
Reviews
"Gareth Schott's examination of the debates surrounding violent video games presents an important and fresh perspective on this contentious issue. Given the moral panic surrounding games, scholars have increasingly been calling for more sociological examinations of the phenomenology of media panics and media research itself. Schott's work represents a cogent effort in this regard that should be required reading of all students and scholars of media effects."
-- Christopher Ferguson, Associate Professor of Psychology, Stetson University, USA
"The interrelationships between video games, virtual or simulated aggression, violence and ludic fictionality are among the most complex and controversial in the fields of studies and culture of video games. Based on a thorough examination of existing game research and new evidence, Gareth Schott's book is the most comprehensive and thoughtful reflection yet written on game violence. The reader will not only learn about how violent elements become experienced in the context of video game play, but also to reappraise what we mean by 'violence', to start with. Learned and articulate, Violent Games will open new avenues for thought for both students and scholars, and also provide a solid foundation for the decision making by parents, educators and policy creators alike."
-- Frans Mäyrä, Professor of Information Studies and Interactive Media, Game Research Lab, University of Tampere, Finland
"Schott takes a thoughtful and balanced approach at explaining the complexity around media effects broadly and video game violence specifically, and does a superb job of weaving together scholarship from a variety of expected (communication, game studies/game theory, media psychology, rhetoric) and unexpected (criminology, dramaturgy, film studies, sociology, just to name a few) areas. The result is a volume easily accessible to a variety of different audiences – a touchstone for designers and scholars, a comprehensive reader for a graduate-level seminar on video games, and chapters of the book would be accessible to younger audiences, such as undergraduates. The book blends familiar and unfamiliar scholarship to help better address the “real issues” around the video game violence debate, as the volume seems to put those issues into focus. The result is a book that marks the past and present of game studies, and offers myriad suggestions for the future of the same.
-- Nicholas Bowman, Associate Professor, West Virginia University, USA. Editor, Communication Reports.
Gerald Voorhees, Josh Call, and Katie Whitlock, Eds,
Known for their visibility and tendency to generate controversy, first-person shooter (FPS) games are cultural icons and powder-kegs in American society. Contributors examine a range of FPS games such as the Doom, Half-Life, System Shock, Deus Ex, Halo, Medal of Honor and Call of Duty franchises. By applying and enriching a broad range of perspectives, this volume addresses the cultural relevance and place of the genre in game studies, game theory and the cultures of game players. See the Table of Contents.
Reviews
“Guns, Grenades and Grunts sets its sights on the first-person shooter, finally bringing much-needed analysis to one of the most popular and pervasive video game genres. From the trenches of Medal of Honor to Halo's Blood Gultch, this collection of thoughtful essays challenges the reader/player to ponder what it means to pick up a virtual gun and navigate the ludic environment of the FPS. The book also makes a significant contribution to game, media and popular culture studies because, by taking up just one type of video game, it underscores the importance of analytic specificity for a medium that is often too broadly -- and thus superficially -- discussed.”
-- Nina B. Huntemann, Associate Professor, Suffolk University, USA.
“The volume offers an illuminating tutorial that historically and theoretically frames the FPS and sets up the game field for further exploration and treasure hunting by investigating, in -depth, the psyche of the individual player -- as it is constituted through the interaction with game mechanics and avatars as well as the social dynamics of multiplayer game play. This rich and varied walk through the world of FPS game studies will certainly reinvigorate the intellectual equipment of the academic warrior as it will take the public and journalistic debates on the 'violent' FPS genre to a new level.”
-- Jan Simon, Associate Professor, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Gerald Voorhees, Josh Call, and Katie Whitlock, Eds,
Dungeons, Dragons, and Digital Denizens is a collection of scholarly essays that seeks to represent the far-reaching scope and implications of digital role-playing games as both cultural and academic artifacts. As a genre, digital role playing games have undergone constant and radical revision, pushing not only multiple boundaries of game development, but also the playing strategies and experiences of players. See the Table of Contents.
Reviews
“Dungeons, Dragons and Digital Denizens is as captivating as it sounds, a state of the art collection with provocative essays interrogating video games through close readings of game narrative, landscape, and digital structure. Space, time power, knowledge, language, and identity furnish rich interpretive accounts of an especially interesting array of games.”
-- Bonnie Nardi, Professor, University of California, Irvine, USA. Author of My Life as a Night Elf Priest: An Anthropological Account of World of Warcraft.
“The digital role-playing game is a strange hybrid: the conventions of pen and paper games translated to the computer; and games mixed in new ways. This anthology is an excellent guide, presenting a range of inspiring new approaches for anyone interested in role-playing games.”
-- Jesper Juul, Visiting Assistant Arts Professor, New York University Game Center, USA. Author of Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds and he Art of Failure.
“Dungeons, Dragons, and Digital Denizens is an exceptionally coherent and well-integrated collection. This collection is theoretically rich and engaging while remaining focused on the nuance and detail of a wide variety of games. The volume is essential reading for advanced scholars and students in game studies seeking to develop literary and cultural theoretical models of digital gaming as a mode of authorship, expression and critique. The papers in this collection push the envelope on the analysis of digital role playing games and provide fertile ground for further debate and new case studies as the landscape of digital gaming continues to change. This is a volume of papers by serious game scholars who can both attend to the detail and nuances of specific games as well as offer theoretical engaged and suggestive analysis.”
-- Bart Simon, Associate Professor, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. Director, Centre of Technoculture, Art and Games.
Pending Volumes
Alternate Reality Games: On The Cusp of Digital Citizenship
Antero Garcia and Greg Niemeyer, Eds.
Expected Spring 2017
The World of Scary GamesBernard Perron
To begin the process of submitting a book proposal, visit the Call for Authors and Editors.