Syllabus: Global Game Industries (Spring 2025)

Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi, 2023

This course will introduce students to video games as an art form, as a business, and as a part of global popular culture. The course will begin with a broad establishment of game studies and investigation of the uniqueness of video games as a medium. Subsequent weeks will introduce different approaches to studying video games, including historical, industrial, technological, cultural, theoretical, and aesthetic. Students will read material from video game history, scholarly theory of games, and the trade and popular press. To contextualize these readings, weekly lab sections will provide the opportunity for screenings and video game play. In lab sections and outside of class, students will interact with games representing different eras of video game history and different aspects of the industry. Several guest speakers—including journalists, developers, and podcasters—will share their insights about the industry and culture of video games.

Washington University in St. Louis, 2023

This course will introduce students to video games as an art form, as a business, and as a part of global popular culture. The course will begin with a broad establishment of game studies and an investigation of the uniqueness of video games as a medium. Subsequent weeks will introduce different approaches to studying video games, including historical, industrial, technological, cultural, theoretical, and aesthetic. Students will read material from video game history, scholarly theory of games, and the trade and popular press. To contextualize these readings, weekly lab sections will provide the opportunity for screenings and video game play. In lab sections and outside of class, students will interact with games representing different eras of video game history and different aspects of the industry, including blockbuster “AAA” titles and low-budget “indie” projects.

GLOBALIZATION IN THE WORLD OF VIDEO GAMES (Atena Editora), 2023

This article presents a brief discussion about the context of video games in contemporary society. This scenario takes place in an increasingly globalized and modern world of technology, as not only physical products began to be sold through all materialized networks, but also digital products. It is worth noting that video games are an important factor in the world economy, while more than half of all profits in the entertainment industry today come from the video games sector. Furthermore, from a phenomenological perspective, video games can represent the culture of both the place of origin in which the game was developed, and the place where it was set, functioning as vehicles of social particularities. In general, the player can “virtually” experience different geographic spaces without knowing them physically. To prepare this article, a methodology based on bibliographical research was used, which made use of several scientific articles and reports. The article ends by highlighting the idea that due to the strong influence of electronic games on society and the economy, it is necessary to carry out studies like these to better understand the new generations and dynamics of a globalized world. It also considers that the concentration of income presented by each country in the world economic system is directly linked to its profit role in this economic sector.

Communications Strategies, 2014

The paper examines the video game industry in the perspective of being the paradigm of innovation in digital media and content. In particular, it analyses the response to two main factors that have impacted this industry over the last decade. First, it tracks the evolution of its global market and its emerging geography with the rise of Asia. Second, within this global landscape the paper explores how the changes derived from mobile and on-line gaming enabled major transformations of this industry. From here, some conclusions on the lessons from the evolution of this sector for the whole media and content industries are presented.

Digital Gaming Industry in less than 40 years has grown immensely. In less than a decade electronic games industry has grown to a 40 billion dollars global industry. This is a huge share of the global market. The impacts of it on business models are non-deniable; many of the global companies are using electronic games in their campaigns even sponsoring indie games. Digital games are in everyone’s life’s no difference of age, and various programs and micro markets in games give people the opportunity to start businesses or make a living from the games or items in game they have created. Gaming industry has an impact on global scale to any market you can imagine, researches show that the people and companies are more involving in this industry. In future, digital gaming industry will be more and more involved in our lives also in markets and nearly everyone will be involved in some way to this industry. Market like music industry is already involved in gaming industry also film industry has started to be more involved in games like actors are actually acting in-game. Reason for this review is that to create the foundation to find the answer that the Digital Gaming Industry’s impact and also the future in world market. The amount of jobs this Industry creates and revenues that it generates for countries economy.

New media & society, 2006

Amsterdam University Press eBooks, 2021

In the introduction, the editors of this collection argue for the importance of game production studies at a point when the public awareness about the production context of video games has, arguably, never been higher. With so many accounts of video game development permeating player and developer communities, the task of game production studies is to uncover the economic, cultural, and political structures that influence the final form of games by applying rigorous research methods. While the field of game studies has developed quickly in the past two decades, the study of the video game industry and different modes of video game production have been mostly dismissed by game studies scholars and requires more attention.

The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies (Media Studies Futures is volume 6), 2012

The digital game industry has been evolving at a phenomenal rate, and can no longer consider console games and the Western market as its primary areas of focus. Social games, casual games, virtual worlds, indie games, and online games all expand the boundaries of what we count as games. Likewise, markets such as China and Korea and game development companies in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe are challenging the dominance of western and Japanese firms. How is game studies responding to such changes? Likewise, how is the field coalescing, now that there are dedicated journals, book series, conferences and academic programs spread around the globe? This chapter explores how game studies has moved from ‘indie start up’ to mid-career in its own growth trajectory of the last decade. It will survey how scholarship has evolved, what approaches have intentionally (or not) become dominant, and what ideologies have emerged about the ‘proper’ way to do game studies research. It will conclude with challenges to the field, pointing to areas that have been overlooked, problems that remain, and the continuing question of the possibilities (and pitfalls) of making game studies research useful for popular and industry audiences in addition to regular scholarly attention.