From Gamers to Scholars: Challenges of Teaching Game Studies

---

Zagal José P. Bruckman Amy S.
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

This article reports on the results of a study that explores the issues and challenges faced by instructors of games studies classes. Using a semi-structured protocol, we interviewed twelve professors and instructors of game studies courses. The interviews were transcribed and iteratively coded in order to refine theoretical categories, propositions and conclusions. Our results indicate that learning about games can be challenging for multiple reasons. For instance, an extensive prior videogame experience often interferes with students' abilities to reason critically and analytically about games. They also have difficulties articulating their experiences and observations. The medium itself also presents obstacles in access. Students must be skilled at games in order to fully experience them and technological barriers make it difficult to provide older games for students to experience. The article describes many of the solutions that instructors are adopting in order to overcome these challenges. We conclude by drawing attention to the issue that current game studies courses run the risk of limiting the diversity of people who could become game scholars.

 

Glitch Game Testers: African American Men Breaking Open the Console

---

DiSalvo Betsy James Guzdail Mark Mcklin Tom Meadows Charles Perry Kenneth Steward Corey Bruckman Amy S.
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

Glitch Game Testers is a research project to develop a sustainable high school job program to train and employ high school students as game testers [1]. Our goal is to leverage the passion that young urban African American men have for video games into agency with technology. The first step is to encourage these young people to see the computation behind digital games and the second step is to offer a contextualized computing curriculum [2]. In this paper, we will present findings from formative work on the play practices of young African American men, introduce the Glitch Game Testers project, and report on preliminary findings from workshops. By looking at the intersection of race and gender in gaming practices, we have developed Glitch to specifically meet the cultural needs for young African American men.