This book offers insight into one of the most problematic and universal issues within multiplayer videogames: antisocial and oppositional play forms such as cheating, player harassment, the use of exploits, illicit game modifications, and system hacking, known collectively as counterplay.  Meer

Western digital game play has shifted in important ways over the last decade, with a plethora of personal devices affording a range of increasingly diverse play experiences.  Meer

This book provides the first in-depth exploration of video games as history. Chapman puts forth five basic categories of analysis for understanding historical video games: simulation and epistemology, time, space, narrative, and affordance.  Meer

This book explores the central role of the zombie in contemporary popular culture as they appear in video games. Moving beyond traditional explanations of their enduring appeal – that they embody an aesthetic that combines horror with a mindless target; that lower age ratings for zombie games widen the market; or that Artificial Intelligence routines for zombies are easier to develop – the book provides a multidisciplinary and comprehensive look at this cultural phenomenon.  Meer

Games allow players to experiment and play with subject positions, values and moral choice. In game worlds players can take on the role of antagonists; they allow us to play with behaviour that would be offensive, illegal or immoral if it happened outside of the game sphere.  Meer

Role-playing games offer a chance to pretend, make believe, and share fantasy. They often invoke heavy themes into their game play: morality, violence, politics, spirituality, or sexuality.  Meer

This book analyzes the effect of policy on the digital game complex: government, industry, corporations, distributors, players, and the like. Contributors argue that digital games are not created nor consumed outside of the complex power relationships that dictate the full production and distribution cycles, and that we need to consider those relationships in order to effectively "read" and analyze digital games.  Meer

Despite their popularity, online video games have been met with suspicion by the popular media and academic community. In particular, there is a growing concern that online video game play may be associated with deficits in social functioning.  Meer

This book unlocks an understanding of video games as virtual travel. It explains how video game design increasingly takes cues from the promotional language of tourism, and how this connection raises issues of power and commodification.  Meer

This book investigates the narrativity of some of the most popular survival horror video games and the gender politics implicit in their storyworlds. In a thorough analysis of the genre that draws upon detailed comparisons with the mainstream action genre, Andrei Nae places his analysis firmly within a political and social context.  Meer

This book will be a key contribution to both Gothic and digital game scholarship as it argues for close proximity between Gothic culture and the...  Meer

Expanding on the work in the volume Multiplayer, this new book explores several other areas related to social gaming in detail. The aim is to go beyond a typical "edited book" concept, and offer a very concise volume with several focal points that are most relevant for the current debate about multiplayer games, both in academia and society.  Meer

This book offers the first comprehensive study of the many interfaces shaping the relationship between comics and videogames. It combines in-depth conceptual reflection with a rich selection of paradigmatic case studies from contemporary media culture.  Meer

This anthology addresses videogames long history of fandom, and fans’ important role in game history and preservation. In order to better understand and theorize video games and game playing, it is necessary to study the activities of gamers themselves.  Meer

This book argues that games offer a means of coming to terms with a world that is being transformed by digital technologies. As blends of software and fiction, videogames are uniquely capable of representing and exploring the effects of digitization on day-to-day life.  Meer

Recent shifts in new literacy studies have expanded definitions of text, reading/viewing, and literacy itself. The inclusion of non-traditional media forms is essential, as texts beyond written words, images, or movement across a screen are becoming ever more prominent in media studies.  Meer

This book explores hybrid play as a site of interdisciplinary activity—one that is capable of generating new forms of mobility, communication, subjects, and artistic expression as well as new ways of interacting with and understanding the world.  Meer

Taking the reader on a journey through queer manifestations in games, this book advocates for video games as a rich, political and cultural medium, which provides us with tools to navigate the future of gaming.  Meer

Independent Videogames investigates the social and cultural implications of contemporary forms of independent video game development. Through a series of case studies and theoretical investigations, it evaluates the significance of such a multi-faceted phenomenon within video game and digital cultures.  Meer

This book looks closely at the endings of narrative digital games, examining their ways of concluding the processes of both storytelling and play in order to gain insight into what endings are and how we identify them in different media.  Meer