Guides: Video Games & Game Studies: Scholarly Resources

Good Keywords

Some good keywords to use when searching through the scholarly databases. (Be aware that different databases may have different terms depending on their discipline.)

Video games/ Video gamers / Video gaming
Computer games
Electronic games
Internet games
Digital technology
Narrative structure
Interactive fiction
Interactive media
Role playing games
Social media
Video game industry
First-person shooters
Violence in video games
Video game addiction
Video games & teenagers
Video games & children

Databases

Because game studies is interdisciplinary, there are many different types of databases listed here, from Academic Search Complete, which is itself an interdisciplinary database, to ones from computer science, communication studies, mass media, psychology, business, literature and more.

Academic Search Complete
Designed specifically for academic institutions, this resource is a multi-disciplinary full-text database, with more than 5,300 full-text periodicals, including 4,400 peer-reviewed journals.
ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) Digital Library
Full text of all articles from 1991 to date published in 21 ACM journals and transactions, as well as tables of contents of conference proceedings, are available at this site.

Film & television literature index with full text This link opens in a new window
Subject coverage includes film & television theory, preservation & restoration, writing, production, cinematography, technical aspects, and reviews
Communication & mass media complete This link opens in a new window
Communication studies and mass media topics.

PsycINFO
A good resource for psychology as well as psychological aspects of medicine, psychiatry, nursing, sociology, education, pharmacology, physiology, linguistics, anthropology, business, law and other topics.

Business Source Complete This link opens in a new window
Provides access to full-text business journals and scholarly, peer-reviewed journals.
IEEE Xplore digital library This link opens in a new window
Provides access to IEEE and partner publications, including journals, conference proceedings, magazines, standards, books, and courses.

Subjects covered include computing and processing, components, circuits, devices, and systems, communication, networking, and broadcasting, engineered materials, dielectrics, and plasmas, signal processing and analysis, power, energy, and industry applications, fields, waves, and electromagnetics, photonics and electro-optics, general topics for engineers (math, science and engineering), bioengineering, robotics and control systems, aerospace, engineering profession, geoscience, transportation, and nuclear engineering.
Sociological abstracts This link opens in a new window
CSA Sociological Abstracts abstracts and indexes the international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. The database provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from over 1,800+ serials publications, and also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers The database provides coverage from 1952 to the present.
MLA international bibliography This link opens in a new window
Provides a subject, author, and title index for books and articles published on modern languages, literatures, folklore, and linguistics.

Individual Journals

Game Studies - The International Journal of Computer Game Research
Games Studies' mission is to explore the rich cultural genre of games; to give scholars a peer-reviewed forum for their ideas and theories; to provide an academic channel for the ongoing discussions on games and gaming.

Game Studies is a crossdisciplinary journal dedicated to games research, web-published several times a year.
Games and Culture
Games and Culture, peer-reviewed and published quarterly, is an international journal that promotes innovative theoretical and empirical research about games and culture within interactive media. The journal serves as a premiere outlet for ground-breaking work in the field of game studies and its scope includes the socio-cultural, political, and economic dimensions of gaming from a wide variety of perspectives.
Eludamos - Journal for Computer Game Culture
ELUDAMOS is an international, multi-disciplined, biannual e-journal that publishes peer-reviewed articles that theoretically and/or empirically deal with digital games in their manifold appearances and their sociocultural-historical contexts.
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ELUDAMOS positions itself as a publication that fundamentally transgresses disciplinary boundaries. The aim is to join questions about and approaches to computer games from decidedly heterogeneous scientific contexts (for example cultural studies, media studies, (art) history, sociology, (social) psychology, and semiotics) and, thus, to advance the interdisciplinary discourse on digital games. This approach does not exclude questions about the distinct features of digital games a an aesthetic and cultural form of articulation, on the contrary, the issue is to distinguish their media specific characteristics as well as their similarity to other forms of aesthetic and cultural practice. That way, the editors would like to contribute to the lasting distinction of international game studies as an academic discipline.
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Loading... attempts to provide a mixed-methods approach to the study of digital games, and therefore invites not only traditional academic papers, but may reprint 'classic' works in the field, as well as provide a forum for machinima, new and open-source innovative code, product reviews, blogs, program descriptions and course outlines for games studies and 'conversations' within and across the trajectories of inquiry and activity that constitute Canadian Games Studies now and into the future.
ACM Computers in Entertainment
ACM Computers in Entertainment (CiE) features peer-reviewed research papers and scholarly articles on a wide range of theoretical and practical computer applications in the field of entertainment.
Simulation & Gaming: An International Journal of Theory, Practice and Research
For more than four decades,Simulation & Gaming (S&G): An International Journal of Theory, Practice and Research has served as a leading international forum for the exploration and development of simulation/gaming methodologies used in education, training, consultation, and research.
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Published bi-monthly, S&G appraises academic and applied issues in the expanding fields of simulation; computer and internet mediated simulation, virtual reality, educational games, video games, industrial simulators, active and experiential learning, case studies, and related methodologies.