ABSTRACT
Academic video game studies have known an incredible development during the last couple of years. Slowly, academic interest has shifted from the early do-games-induce-violent-behaviors studies toward analyses that acknowledge the relevance of this new medium. Several international conferences on game studies took place in 2001, plus the publication of Game Studies, the first peer-reviewed online journal on the field.1 In 2002 and 2003, the number of conferences and workshops kept growing steadily. After an early start as a subset of digital text studies, video game studies is finding its own academic space. Probably the most promising change comes from a new generation of researchers who grew up with computer games and now are bringing to this new field both their passion and expertise on this form of entertainment.
