Publié par “Back in the day”, as we might say, Espen Aarseth warned game studies researchers against “theoretical imperialism” (1997, p.16), that is, the blind copy-pasting of theories from another field onto games, as if they were a kind of literature, or a kind of cinema. To rework the old spatial metaphor of game studies as a continent, we’re not facing hordes of imperialists coming from their lands and trying to stake out the New World. Rather, we have game studies researchers doing game studies on this new continent and participating in a great big Columbian exchange between fields of research, a bidirectional sharing that enlightens both worlds. Where these researchers come from is not important; where they set their sights and cast their anchors, and what they choose to share and how they choose to bridge, is what we should be interested in. In other words, it’s time to take off our disciplinary glasses and to use games as a spyglass.
ARSENAULT, Dominic & Audrey Larochelle (2014). « Game Studies : From Colonization to Columbian Exchange ». First-Person Scholar, June 18, 2014. http://www.firstpersonscholar.com/game-studies/.