Well Played Journal Special Issue Cfp: European Videogames of the 1980s
Edited by Clara Fernandez-Vara and Bennett Foddy.
The historical discourse of videogames has been dominated by the North American narrative, which sidelines the history of other parts of the world which were not affected by the Atari Crash. The 1980s were a time when the European entertainment software industry thrived and bloomed, particularly on home computers, and demonstrated impressive levels of inventiveness within a few kilobytes of memory. Games were sold on cassette tapes through pre-existing networks of music distribution or office supplies, while piracy helped open avenues of distribution that crossed geopolitical barriers.
We are requesting submissions that consist of analysis of games produced all over Europe in the 1980s, from Portugal to USSR. Analyses of popular games, such as Elite or Manic Miner, are welcome, although we are particularly interested in games produced beyond the United Kingdom. Each submission should be framed within its historical and cultural context in order to help generate an alternate historical discourse. Research on the so-called local histories is a good fit for this special issue, as long as it can focus on analyzing particular games.
ETC Press is accepting submissions for this special issue of the Well Played journal.
All submissions are due 1st November 2016.
All submissions and questions should be sent to: well-played (at) lists (dot) andrew (dot) cmu (dot) edu
For more information and formatting guidelines, visit:
http://press.etc.cmu.edu/wellplayed
http://press.etc.cmu.edu/files/WellPlayed-Guidelines.pdf
The Well Played Journal is a forum for in-depth close readings of video games that parse out the various meanings to be found in the experience of playing a game. It is a reviewed journal open to submissions that will be released on a regular basis.
Contributors are encouraged to analyze sequences in a game in detail in order to illustrate and interpret how the various components of a game can come together to create a fulfilling playing experience unique to this medium. Through contributors, the journal will provide a variety of perspectives on the value of games.
The goal of the journal is to continue developing and defining a literacy of games as well as a sense of their value as an experience. Video games are a complex medium that merits careful interpretation and insightful analysis. By inviting contributors to look closely at video games and the experience of playing them, we hope to expand the discussion, and show how games are well played in a variety of ways.
The ETC Press is an academic and open-source publishing imprint that distributes its work in print, electronic and digital form. Inviting readers to contribute to and create versions of each publication, ETC Press fosters a community of collaborative authorship and dialogue across media. ETC Press represents an experiment and an evolution in publishing, bridging virtual and physical media to redefine the future of publication.
http://press.etc.cmu.edu//wellplayed
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ISSN 2164-344X (Print)
ISSN 2164-3458 (Online)