ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines how scholars have endeavored to make sense of games as an expressive cultural form, and how game studies is well-positioned not just to shine a light on the meaningfulness of gameplay but to make contributions to critical media studies generally. Gathering up a methodological inventory and tracing the theoretical lineages of video games and gaming is a tricky business. The historical foundations of game studies are located in play theory and the study of pre-electronic games. In the case of game studies, the contrast most often drawn is against the intellectual traditions associated with media studies. While the attention to the procedurality of interactive media is a unique lens through which to examine games, critical analysis must also attend to the representational, contextual, and industrial components that constitute and color gameplay experiences. While playing a game, existing power structures may be imposed or undermined, and dominant ideologies enforced or challenged.
