Gundolf S. Freyermuth - Böcker

How did games rise to become the central audiovisual form of expression and storytelling in digital culture? How did the practices of their artistic production come into being? How did the academic analysis of the new medium's social effects and cultural meaning develop?Addressing these fundamental questions and aspects of digital game culture in a holistic way for the first time, Gundolf S. Freyermuth's introduction outlines the media-historical development phases of analog and digital games, the history and artistic practices of game design, as well as the history, academic approaches, and most important research topics of game studies.With contributions by André Czauderna, Nathalie Pozzi and Eric Zimmerman.

Media narratives inform our ideas of the future – and Games are currently making a significant contribution to this medial reservoir. On the one hand, Games demonstrate a particular propensity for fantastic and futuristic scenarios. On the other hand, they often serve as an experimental field for the latest media technologies. However, while dystopias are part of the standard gaming repertoire, Games feature utopias much less frequently. Why?This anthology examines playful utopias from two perspectives. It investigates utopias in digital Games as well as utopias of the digital game; that is, the role of ludic elements in scenarios of the future.

Gaming no longer only takes place as a ›closed interactive experience‹ in front of TV screens, but also as broadcast on streaming platforms or as cultural events in exhibition centers and e-sport arenas. The popularization of new technologies, forms of expression, and online services has had a considerable influence on the academic and journalistic discourse about games. This anthology examines which paratexts gaming cultures have produced – i.e., in which forms and formats and through which channels we talk (and write) about games – as well as the way in which paratexts influence the development of games. How is knowledge about games generated and shaped today and how do boundaries between (popular) criticism, journalism, and scholarship have started to blur? In short: How does the paratext change the text?

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.

Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash conceived of the Metaverse as an escapist medium within a dystopian future. By the early 2000s, his vision had evolved into a blueprint for pioneering virtual worlds, notably Second Life. In the 2010s, technology companies—from Meta to Epic Games—recast the Metaverse as the next frontier of digital experience and revenue generation. Now, in the 2020s, the still speculative concept encompasses a convergence of extended reality technologies alongside blockchain systems and artificial intelligence.The contributors bring together leading scholars and industry professionals to examine past “imaginations” and recent “achievements” in the pursuit of the Metaverse. They trace its development through literary, media, and cultural history while exploring current applications and their technical, social, cultural, and economic implications.