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HIGH PERFORMANCE THEORY: A REVIEW OF DARSHANA JAYEMANNE’S PERFORMATIVITY IN ART, LITERATURE AND VIDEOGAMES
by Rob Gallagher First published August 2020 Download full review PDF here. Darshana Jayemanne. Performativity in Art, Literature and Videogames. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, 331 pp., ISBN NO.9783319853963. What is the object of analysis for videogame studies? Some scholars have treated games as multimodal ‘texts’, rule-bound ludic systems or digital simulations; others have dissected the embodied… Continue reading
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BOOK REVIEW: HANDMADE PIXELS: INDEPENDENT VIDEO GAMES AND THE QUEST FOR AUTHENTICITY
by Emilie Reed First published August 2020 Download full review PDF here. Jesper Juul. 2019. Handmade Pixels: Independent Video Games and the Quest for Authenticity. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2019, 328pp ISBN NO.9780262042796 How can we look at videogames art historically? The art historian has to balance the aesthetic qualities of objects, their social context, and… Continue reading
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OF ACTORS AND NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS: HOW IMMERSIVE THEATRE PERFORMANCES DECONTEXTUALIZE GAME MECHANICS
by Ian B. Faith First published August 2020 Download full article PDF here. Abstract This essay argues that video game design informs the genre of immersive theatre both in its conception and in the ways participants interact with their narrative environments. It pays attention to marketing materials, the staging of environments, design of participant/actor interactions,… Continue reading
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“TOGETHER THEY ARE TWOFOLD”: PLAYER-AVATAR RELATIONSHIP BEYOND THE FOURTH WALL
by Agata Waszkiewicz First published August 2020 Download full article PDF here. Abstract Although breaking the fourth wall is one of the most common ways to achieve comic relief in films and TV series, some argue for its meaningful function as a technique enhancing the audience’s informed experience of the text. While it seems obvious… Continue reading
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PLAY WHILE PAUSED: TIME AND SPACE IN VIDEOGAME PAUSE MENUS
by Madison Schmalzer First published August 2020. Download full article PDF here. Abstract Alexander Galloway (2006) argued that “to live today is to know how to use menus” (p. 17). This is especially true in videogames: To play videogames is to use menus. While menus proliferate in videogames, they are practically synonymous with the act… Continue reading
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IMPOSSIBLE AUTOTELICITY: THE POLITICAL NEGATIVITY OF PLAY
by Justin A. Keever First published August 2020 Download full article PDF here. Abstract This essay is a manifesto against canonical studies of play that engages with a variety of texts within the game studies and play studies canon, in order to critique the a priori assumptions that are now built into those disciplines and… Continue reading
The Journal of Games Criticism is a non-profit, peer-reviewed game studies journal that strives to connect the conversations between traditional academics and popular game critics. The journal strives to be a producer of feed-forward approaches to video games criticism with a focus on influencing gamer culture, the design and writing of video games, and the social understanding video games and video game criticism.
ISSN: 2374-202X
Recent Articles
- A Contemporary Take on Victorian Lunacy: Representations of the Asylum in the Neo-Victorian Video Game Alice: Madness Returns
- Investigating Development Crunch in Games and its Impact on Creative Expression
- Character Affectivity in Newton and the Apple Tree
- Colonized Morality Mechanics: The Struggle to Be Good in Telltale’s The Walking Dead
- Videogame Distribution and Steam’s Imperialist Practices: Platform Coloniality in Game Distribution
Journal of Games Criticism 