Playful Materialities - The Stuff That Games Are Made Of

Game culture and material culture have always been closely linked. Analog forms of rule-based play (ludus) would hardly be conceivable without dice, cards, and game boards. In the act of free play (paidia), children as well as adults transform simple objects into multifaceted toys in an almost magical way. Even digital play is suffused with material culture: Games are not only mediated by technical interfaces, which we access via hardware and tangible peripherals. They are also subject to material hybridization, paratextual framing, and processes of de-, and re-materialization.

About the author

Benjamin Beil (Prof. Dr. phil.) is Professor for Media Studies & Digital Culture at the Department of Media Culture & Theatre at the University of Cologne.Gundolf S. Freyermuth (Prof. Dr. phil.) is Professor of Media and Game Studies and founding co-director at the Cologne Game Lab of TH Koeln-University of Technology, Arts and Sciences, as well as Professor of Comparative Media Studies at the ifs international film school of Cologne.Hanns Christian Schmidt is a professor for Game Design at Macromedia University for Applied Sciences (Cologne) and a research assistant at the Institute of Media Culture and Theater at the University of Cologne.

Summary

Game culture and material culture have always been closely linked. Analog forms of rule-based play (ludus) would hardly be conceivable without dice, cards, and game boards. In the act of free play (paidia), children as well as adults transform simple objects into multifaceted toys in an almost magical way. Even digital play is suffused with material culture: Games are not only mediated by technical interfaces, which we access via hardware and tangible peripherals. They are also subject to material hybridization, paratextual framing, and processes of de-, and re-materialization.

Additional text

»Der Sammelband ist ein beeindruckendes Beispiel dafür, wie holistische Spieleforschung, die gängige Diskurse überdenkt und ausweitet, aussehen kann.«

Report

»Der Sammelband ist ein beeindruckendes Beispiel dafür, wie holistische Spieleforschung, die gängige Diskurse überdenkt und ausweitet, aussehen kann.«

Jakob Andriamaro, [rezens.tfm], 1 (2023) 20230516

Product details

• Assisted by: Benjamin Beil (Editor), Han Christian Schmidt et al (Editor), Gundolf S. Freyermuth (Editor), Raven Rusch (Editor), Gundolf S Freyermuth (Editor), Schmidt (Editor), Hanns Christian Schmidt (Editor)
• Publisher: Transcript
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.08.2022
• EAN: 9783837662009
• ISBN: 978-3-8376-6200-9
• No. of pages: 404
• Dimensions: 150 mm x 28 mm x 228 mm
• Weight: 624 g
• Illustrations: 13 schw.-w. u. 92 farb. Abb.
• Series: Bild und Bit. Studien zur digitalen Medienkultur; Bild und Bit. Studien zur digitalen Medienkultur 14
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Humanities (general); Social sciences, law, business > Media, communication > Miscellaneous; Games, Media, Media Studies, Culture, Popular Culture, Digital Media, Media Aesthetics, Materiality, Play, Social interaction, Computer Games, Culture and institutions, Factors affecting social behavior, Data processing and computer science