Articles
Impossible Autotelicity: The Political Negativity of Play
by J. A. Keever
A critique of the play studies canon that asserts that autotelicity is an ideological construct which allows play to signify without being caught up in the structures of power that are inherent to signification. This is an argument against play’s positivity.
Play While Paused: Time and Space in Videogame Pause Menus
by M. D. Schmalzer
To play videogames is to use menus. This essay explores how both the act of pausing and navigating pause menus offer perceptions of temporality and space that situate videogame play as not simply explorations of game spaces; they also reveal the computational modes.
“Together They Are Twofold”: Player-Avatar Relationship Beyond the Fourth Wall
by A. Waskiewicz
The paper examines different approaches to fourth wall breaking, which often is used as an umbrella term for vast range of experimental devices. Secondly, the article distinguishes between fiction-aware characters and two types of actual fourth wall breaking.
by I. B. Faith
Few things are dreaded in live performance so much as audience participation. So why is immersive theatre so popular? In borrowing from video games, immersive theatre companies decontextualize game mechanics from the media- and genre-specific conversations that give them meaning.
Reviews
Book Review: Handmade Pixels: Independent Video Games and the Quest for Authenticity
by E. Reed
How can we look at videogames art historically? Juul’s Handmade Pixels makes a welcome shift to a more historical perspective, with an additional focus on the aesthetic qualities of games. Juul clearly defines the scope of his historical focus, but ends up reinforcing Game Studies’ focus on a narrow area of independent games production.
by R. Gallagher
As at home with baroque painting, postmodern fiction and linguistic philosophy as it is speedruns and save scumming, Performativity in Art, Literature and Videogames develops a nuanced, robust and rewarding framework for analyzing ‘ludic acts’.
Journal of Games Criticism 