Games and Play
About the Book Series
Games and Play in Contemporary Culture and Society is a new international and interdisciplinary book series dedicated to game and play research.
Its primary focus is on the aesthetic, cultural and communicative aspects of mediated forms of games and play in our contemporary society. The series provides scholars with a peer-reviewed forum for their theoretical, analytical as well as historical contributions to the ongoing discussions on games and play.
The series is not limited to digital games; it includes play phenomena, both digital as well as non-digital; and it covers social-scientific, humanities, as well as industry and design approaches.
The proposed books should help readers understand the ‘ludic’ aspect of games and play−the ‘gameness’ of games and the ‘playfulness’ of play−without reducing games and play to mere applications or illustrations of other ideas or issues.
Please contact Dorothea Schaefter, Publisher at Routledge ([email protected]) to submit a proposal or to find out more about the series.
Digital Gaming and the Advertising Landscape
1st Edition
By Teresa de la Hera
December 01, 2025
The evolution of the game industry and changes in the advertising landscape in recent years have led to a keen interest of marketers in using digital games for advertising purposes. However, despite the increasing interest in this marketing strategy, the potential of digital games as a medium to ...
Game Production Studies
1st Edition
Edited
By Olli Sotamaa, Jan Svelch
December 01, 2025
Video games have entered the cultural mainstream and now rival established forms of entertainment such as film or television in terms of economic profits. As careers in video game development become more common, so do the stories about precarious working conditions and structural inequalities ...
Persuasive Gaming in Context
1st Edition
Edited
By Teresa de La Hera, Jeroen Jansz, Joost Raessens, Ben Schouten
December 01, 2025
The rapid developments in new communication technologies have facilitated the popularization of digital games, which has translated into an exponential growth of the game industry in recent decades. The ubiquitous presence of digital games has resulted in an expansion of the applications of these ...
The Playful Citizen: Civic Engagement in a Mediatized Culture
1st Edition
Edited
By René Glas, Sybille Lammes, Michiel Lange, Joost Raessens, Imar de Vries
December 01, 2025
In the last decade, digital media technologies and developments have given rise to exciting new forms of ludic, or playful, engagements of citizens in cultural and societal issues. From the Occupy movement to playful city-making to the gameful designs of the Obama 2008 and Trump 2016 presidential ...
The Pop Theology of Videogames: Producing and Playing with Religion
1st Edition
By Lars de Wildt
December 01, 2025
Young people in the West are more likely to encounter religion in videogames than in places of worship like churches, mosques or temples. Lars de Wildt interviews developers and players of games such as Assassin’s Creed to find out how and why the Pop Theology of Videogames is so appealing to ...
Video Game Characters and Transmedia Storytelling: The Dynamic Game Character
1st Edition
By Joleen Blom
December 01, 2025
Characters are a vital aspect of today's transmedia practices. Combining theories on fictional persons from Japanese and Euro-American practices, this book discusses video game characters embedded in our popular media culture in which they are constantly produced and re-imagined. This book ...
Minor Platforms in Videogame History
1st Edition
By Benjamin Nicoll
December 01, 2025
Videogame history is not just a history of one successful technology replacing the next. It is also a history of platforms and communities that never quite made it; that struggled to make their voices heard; that aggravated against the conventions of the day; and that never enjoyed the commercial ...
Perspectives on the European Videogame
1st Edition
Edited
By Víctor Navarro-Remesal, Óliver Pérez-Latorre
December 01, 2025
The history of European videogames has so far been overshadowed by the global impact of the Japanese and North American industries. However, European game development studios have played a major role in videogame history, and many prominent videogames in popular culture, such as Grand Theft Auto, ...
Transnational Play: Piracy, Urban Art, and Mobile Games
1st Edition
By Anne-Marie Schleiner
December 01, 2025
Transnational Play approaches gameplay as a set of practices and a global industry that includes diverse participation from players and developers located within the global South, in nations outside of the First World. Players experience play in game cafes, through casual games for regional and ...
Monstrosity in Games and Play: A Multidisciplinary Examination of the Monstrous in Contemporary Cultures
1st Edition
Edited
By Sarah Stang, Mikko Meriläinen, Joleen Blom, Lobna Hassan
January 14, 2025
Monsters fascinate us. From ancient folklore to contemporary digital games, they are at the core of the stories we tell. They reflect our fears, deepest desires, and the monstrosity hidden within ourselves. Monsters hold a mirror to our contemporary society and reveal who we truly are. This edited ...
Videogame Formalism: On Form, Aesthetic Experience and Methodology
1st Edition
By Alex Mitchell, Jasper Van Vught
December 11, 2023
Formalism is often used as an all-embracing term covering a range of ontological and methodological approaches in game studies, with little connection to the history or tradition of the approach in other fields. This dilutes the usefulness of the approach, and invites (often unfounded) criticism. ...