A Decade in Games Studies. Critical and reflexive interrogations on digital play and games research

With the present issue, GAME celebrates ten years of activity as an independent academic journal, one that is neither tied to a commercial publisher nor to a single institution. As a way of celebration, the journal will now be accepting submissions for rolling issues along with our traditional theme-based, monographic issues. This is also a chance to glance back at the history of the field of game studies, and of our journal’s place in the broader research communities, over the course of the past decade. Table of Contents: M. Benoit Carbone, F. Giordano, I. Girina, I. Mariani, M. Teti – Ten years of GAME – Games as Art, Media, Entertainment B. Soderman, J. Keever – The Playful Turn and Critical Play S. Caselli, K. Bonello Rutter Giappone, T. Z. Majkowski – Ten years of Historical Game Studies. Towards the intersection with memory studies Z. Rizvi, S. Mukherjee – “Your Subaltern is not my Subaltern”. Intersectionality and the Dangers of a Single Game-story M. O’Brien – The many facets of culture in digital games policy: the EU dimension L. P. Bruno – Game Studies Meets Japanese Studies Ten Years of Research D. Guay-Bélanger, M. Deslongchamps-Gagnon, F. Lavigne, B. Perron – Game(play) Archives: Quebec Video Gamesas Case Study D. Cavallotti – Games and Cathode Rays. Discourses on a New Medium in the Italian Specialized Magazines (1981-1988) G. Fantacci – Sovversioni Videoludiche. Dalle avanguardie alle pratiche performative in-game The rich array of topics and diverse approaches that populate this issue represents an example of the intercultural, transdisciplinary research into games, play, and gaming that GAME has been welcoming and for which it will continue to represent a generous platform. In this issue, our authors grapple with a wide range of perspectives and conceptual frameworks that represent the interdisciplinary development of games studies as a field over the course of the past two decades. Overall, these contributions explore disciplines like media and games archaeologies, offer reflections on dimensions like agency and ownership, explore industrial and legislative frameworks, and interrogate the relations between art and avantgarde in and through gaming. While focusing on a variety of national and transnational contexts, this issue’s contributions offer theoretical and conceptual frameworks that address foundational questions for games studies, such as the notion of play and its ideological production in the late twentieth century, the sociocultural construction of games as object of investigation, and the nature and dynamics of national and global industrial formations.