Video Game Cultures

Course Objectives:

The course aims to develop skills on how to

• define and describe video games
• analyze its narrative and aesthetics
• develop a critical understanding to video games / cultures / players
• analyse the discourse, politics of representation and ethical issues in a videogame
• describe their experiences of video games

Course Content:

From Tetris to Massively Multiplayer Online Games, videogames, as both culture and cultural artifact(s), can tell us a lot about our increasingly networked world. The aim of this course is to build a critical understanding for video games content, culture, and players by raising social, psychological, and ethical questions. The program offers students opportunities to explore their interests and experiences in dept with the help of documentaries, discussions, and academic research. Through the course, students will be assigned several game(s) to play and/or watch their trailer, share their experiences / analysis during in-class discussions and debate groups. Summary and reflection to weekly readings will pave the way for them to question the matters academically by developing their research question. The main project of the class is to prepare a Video Game Reviews as a group/class, composed of presentations including digital subjectivities they have experienced through games where each student describes, analyses, and raises a critical question to discuss about the game(s) and cultures.