Ludology (n.) - discipline of studying games, their design, players, and their role in society and culture more broadly. Game studies is largely a multi- and inter-disciplinary field with researchers and academics from a multitude of other areas such as computer science, psychology, sociology, anthropology, arts & literature, media studies, communication, theology, and more. (taken from Wikipedia)
Here you'll find a list of all the academic articles I've read/come across about gaming/computer games/game theory.
Lots of good food for thought, interesting discussion, and vocabulary expansion. The world of gaming and academia are far from separate, and with gaming becoming an increasingly larger industry, it certainly cannot remain sequestered from serious study.
If you haven't guessed from that short description, these are serious business high academia research articles, and to that end are far from reader-friendly. They contain lots of complex ideas, arguments, and esoteric references that ultimately converge on the topic of games of all kinds.They spend considerable effort and time to define, deconstruct, and reconstruct the various viewpoints they present.
Don't expect to understand most of these articles in a single read-through. But, I can assure you that if you choose to chew on these, you'll probably come away with lots of insight, and perhaps a better understanding of how and why games work the way they do. It's science!
If you find an interesting article that isn't listed here, let me know and I'll be happy to add it to the list (to your credit, of course).
Happy Reading!
Gonzalo Frasca's PhD Disseration: "Play the Message" - a Discussion about Games, Toys, and Rhetoric
Rune Klevjer: "In Defense of Cutscenes" - a Study of the use and propriety of Cutscenes as ludal devices
Joost van Dongen: "An Overview of the Field of Inverse Kinematics" - a review of inverse kinematics (a 3D modeling algorithm/method for animating human models)
Joost van Dongen: "The Democratization of Real-Time Graphics" - a primer to vertex and pixel shader systems and modern graphics in general, from a programmer's point of view.
Joost van Dongen: "Taking Your Game Online" - "the fundamentals of coding online games" (description by the author)
