Academics Turn Their Attention To Videogames

Onyxviper writes "As one who is an avid gamer, an article by USA Today/AP discussing the growing academic study of games, or 'Ludology', makes some points about gaming that I had only begun to think about. Seems like the plots and composition of the game are starting to overtake the gameplay itself, and it is interesting to see that others are starting to look at it in a more serious light. What do the rest of you think, are any of you actually involved in one of these programs?" Is there plenty important being done in this field, or is it possible that academic study of videogames can tend towards overanalysis?

Comments

John Nash

[T-Ranger]

has been doing this for decades. Oh, wait a second...

Please NO!

[MBraynard]

Originally, Tolstoy and Dickens and others wrote their books for pure enjoyment of the readers. Enlightening minds of their contemporaries was an achievement they valued.

However, if you look at the reviews on Amazon for their books, they are filled with grudging, negative reviews from school children who were compeled to read the books in class.

I'm not saying that this is a bad thing, but I would rather not see this repeat itself with video games. They were designed to make money for developer by giving their customers some enjoyment. By turning it into 'study' the fun will all be sucked out of it. Can you hear it now?
Teacher: "Johny! You are three days late in finishing Metriod Prime and the rest of the class has already begun Halo."
Johny: "But teacher.... I don't feel like it."
Teacher: "Maybe if you put that War and Peace down and focused on the t.v...."

I'm writing my dissertion on...

[freeBill]

..."A Postmodern Analysis of Slashdot Editor's Comments" and plan to use the following quote as an example of the phenomenology of desperate attempts to start a flamewar that are so transparent they inevitably fail:

Is there plenty important being done in this field, or is it possible that academic study of videogames can tend towards overanalysis?

Is it possible that there is plenty of important work being done in a field of study which can tend toward overanalysis? You mean, like statistics? Or philosophy? Or biology? Or literary criticism? How about the humanities? Or law? Or history?

How about the latest news on the SCO lawsuit? Or the value of Open Source technology?

I'm so glad the readers didn't rise to the bait here (obviously intended to re-ignite the non-controversy started when skotos criticized a single chapter from Richard Bartle's densely significant book).