The second issue of the second volume of Well Played: a special issue edited by John Sharp focusing on theories of Well Played is now available here:
http://www.etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/content/volume-2-number-2-theories
Table of contents and more details after the jump
Inhabiting Games Well (If not Uncomfortably…)
Casey O’Donnell
Critical Literacy: Game Criticism for Game Developers
Yotam Haimberg
Well-played and well-debated: Understanding perspective in contested affinity spaces
Sean Duncan
On justification: WoW, EQ2 and Aion forums
Thibault Philippette, Baptiste Campion
Why we Glitch: process, meaning and pleasure in the discovery, documentation, sharing and use of videogame exploits
Alan Meades
As Well Played has matured as a book series and journal, inevitable questions have arose: What does it mean to be well played? By what criteria? By whose criteria? And for whom, and to what end?
John Sharp, co-director of the PETlab (http://www.petlab.parsons.edu/) at Parsons the New School for Design, is editing this special issue, and encourages contributors to submit essays addressing questions around well played and its reportage.
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 with high-quality essays.
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 Well Played Journal has been receiving enough quality submissions to be published quarterly. We have organized our editorial board so that there are Associate Editors (Jane Pinckard and John Sharp) and Assistant Editors (Ira Fay and Clara Fernandez) to help set up a blind peer review process. Our goal is to publish great essays. There won’t be a subscription, although as with all ETC Press publications, all issues will be available for download for free, and we’ll offer print versions for sale through Lulu.com.
For more information, and to purchase or download a copy, visit:
http://www.etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/
http://www.etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/wellplayed
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.
All submissions and questions should be sent to:
drew ( at ) andrew ( dot ) cmu ( dot ) edu
For formatting guidelines, see:
http://www.etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/files/WellPlayed-Guidelines-New.doc.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/etcwellplayed
ISSN 2164-344X (Print)
ISSN 2164-3458 (Online)