This article critically evaluates and questions the growth and maturity of game studies as a scholarly set of related approaches to the study of games, by providing an account of studies of sexuality in (mostly digital) games from 1978 to present. The main goal of this article is to highlight overarching themes and patterns in the literature, with a focus on theories and methodologies commonly used and the way game studies is still risk aware, even awkward in its discussions of sexuality. In addition to a review of 37 years of literature, the article employs a chronological and thematic metaphor analysis of past research texts to analyze whether game studies is growing up or in perpetual puberty and whether it really is exploring sexual maturity alongside the games we study. It finds that while different periods of time can be identified in research as far as approaches to sexuality in games go, game studies is still to a large extent engaged in the management of the stigma that discussing sexuality may cause. Rather than a maturation process, the waves are shown to be manifestations of different types of environmentally influenced risk awareness, consecutive risk avoidance, and a resulting awkwardness.
This article approaches the historiography of digital games by suggesting a categorization of four different genres that can be utilized in the presentation of the history of digital games: enthusiast, emancipatory, genealogical, and pathological. All of these genres are based on various conceptions of what is important in the history of digital games and to whom the history is primarily targeted. The article also evaluates the premises of the authors of the histories. The present article's main objective is to create suggestions for a unique classification that would be especially suitable for the historiography of digital games.Keywords historiography of digital games, meta-review, history and theory, cultural history, representations of the past Over the last 15-20 years, a plethora of academic as well as popular histories of digital games has been published. Nowadays, the Internet is probably the most important arena for these representations of the past; in many cases, mixing public,
Digital gaming and digital technologies have their own unique cultural history while at the same time, the cultural heritage of digital technology is emerging. Digital technology has been understood as merely an apparatus that can be utilized for transferring nondigital historical content to novel digital products. These products, including types such as multimedia shows, games, Web sites, and online course environments, are targeted at juvenile audiences, who are typically considered to be the primary users of such new media forms. For decades, the changes and new continuities in both mediated content and the technology of mediation were mostly hidden in the shadow of educational goal-attainment. This article draws inspiration from ideas on media archaeology and the cultures of history. In this article we suggest an approach of internal and external cultural heritage of games cultures. We introduce a four-fold table regarding the relationship between cultural heritage (or history) and digital technology. The four-fold table consists of the dimension of a researcher's comprehensive/applied goal-attainment and the dimension of the internality/externality of history and cultural heritage in regard to the digital game cultural context. Within these cultures, there are several alternative ways of discussing the relationship between history, cultural heritage, and digital technology, separate from the traditional edutainment perspective. The dimensions are illustrated with practical examples, including a typologization of historiographical computer games, retrogaming, and educational workshops on game classics. ACM Reference Format:Suominen, J. and Sivula, A. 2013. Gaming legacy? Four approaches to the relation between cultural heritage and digital technology. ACM J.
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