It’s not often that we get to see a new discipline be born and grow up these days, but that’s exactly what we have with Game Studies. Although there were indeed people looking at and writing about games before 2002 (see the Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings (2002)), there really were none of the usual elements that mark an academic discipline (like organizations, conferences, journals, and university courses and programs).
Well, there are now and it’s time to level up.
It’s time to demand a higher level of discourse and more rigorous standards than we could afford at the beginning. I’m not the only one thinking along these lines. Ian Bogost has recently posted some thoughts on what Henry Jenkins has called called ‘aca-fandom’.
My take on it is a little harder: we have become fat and lazy from over-indulgence on low-hanging fruit.
In the early days of games studies (like, 5-10 years ago) there seemed little call for careful scrutiny of one’s game choices or what we wrote about them. We studied what we had handy and wrote about the games we were already playing. We could say almost anything we wanted to because none of it had been said yet.
The ‘1st-tier’ games researchers (i.e. the ones who were publishing on games more than 5 years ago) could really get away with almost anything. Half-baked ideas? GREAT – Be a Keynote; publish a book; become famous! Wanna earn academic brownie points off of the games you’re playing for fun? EASY. Write about your own experiences and draw conclusions based on the experiences of your friends. No academic rigor need; unjustified, personal opinions are just fine.
To be fair, a lot of useful and interesting things came from this. But that was in the beginning. We’re past this now and if you want Games Studies to earn any kind of academic credential, it’s time to grow up and add some rigor.
I am still seeing far too many publication submissions (and even worse, articles actually published) that not only don’t say anything new, but in many cases talk about projects that aren’t even past the planning stage yet. Really. COME ON! If someone tried that in a more established discipline they would be dismissed in an instant.
Then there are the hordes of newcomers who think they are the first ones to think these thoughts. They write and submit articles whose references SUCK. If these people tried this in literature, history, or film studies, say, they wouldn’t even get a second read.
As John Kerriemuir said several years ago now, it is no longer necessary to begin each paper with “Games are now quite popular….” but it is necessary to do your homework, just like it is in every other discipline.
- Do a proper literature review.
- Know what’s been done in your area of interest.
- Be very clear on how your contribution adds to the body of knowledge.
- Works in progress are NOT enough for a full, or even a short paper, especially if you have no data to report.
- DON’T accept a submission just because your friend (or grad student) wrote it.
Feel free to add more…..
