Alumni Research Feature: Material Game Studies

Dr. Tanya Pobuda's TMU/York University PhD research is featured in a new Bloomsbury book entitled Material Game Studies: A Philosophy of Analogue Play edited by founders of the Manchester Metropolitan University Games Studies Network founders, Drs. Chloe Germaine (Anthology Editor), Paul Wake (Anthology Editor).

The volume is an anthology of international scholars focused on analog games studies. This is the first volume to apply insights from the material turn in philosophy to the study of play and games. At a time of renewed interest in analogue gaming, as scholars are looking beyond the digital and virtual for the first time since the inception of game studies in the 1990s, Material Game Studies not only supports the importance of the (re)turn to the analogue, but proposes a materiality of play more broadly.

Dr. Pobuda's chapter, "Contested Spaces, Velvet Ropes, Exclusion Zones: The Pleasures and Dangers of Face-to-Face Play in Analogue Gaming Spaces" shares her PhD dissertation findings on analog gaming spaces and the experiences of marginalized gamers. The chapter explores the barriers, challenges or dangers in gaming and gaming spaces as they exist for women, non-binary, Black, Indigenous, Persons of Colour (BIPOC) or LGBTQiIA+ gamers.