Video games as cultural studies other

Abstract

Why are video games always discussed separately from other types of media and popular culture? Although many scholars have utilized cultural studies approaches to understanding games and gaming culture, the relationship between games and popular culture more broadly is more problematic than one might assume. Despite their ubiquity, video games are consistently positioned—by cultural studies and game studies, by popular and video game cultures, and by our phenomenological experiences with them—as ‘other’ within popular media. This has important implications for how cultural studies might approach video games, and how critiques of and solutions to issues of diversity and inclusivity in games can be addressed.

Keywords

video games cultural studies gamer representation phenomenology

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