Gamevironments

Gamevironments is an academic peer-reviewed online journal hosted at the University of Bremen, Germany. The journal is an international and multidisciplinary collaboration effort by the two editors-in-chief, Kerstin Radde-Antweiler from the University of Bremen in Germany and Xenia Zeiler from the University of Helsinki in Finland. It seeks to explore both established approaches and new frontiers of researching video gaming as related to value formations in culture, religion, and society. The concept of value formations derives from a social-constructivist approach, which understands values not as timeless, essential, universal, or static, but rather as constructed by specific social locations. Values are therefore discourses and practices that are constantly (re)defined and (re)negotiated by competing actors according to time, context, and skill. These actors can be individual persons, groups, or organizations. Our goal is not to evaluate these values, but rather analyze how the different individual and collective actors (re)define and understand something as value. This journal takes an actor-centered approach. The journal’s title – gamevironments – consequentially refers to an actor-centered approach which highlights how games are part of larger media environments. Gamevironment as a concept and lens encompasses the technical as well as the cultural environments of video games and gaming. The journal welcomes contributions applying all approaches and highlighting all fields of investigation related to video gaming and value formations in relation to culture and society. The journal also explicitly seeks to acknowledge the steadily increasing impact of video gaming’s global aspects. In order to actively contribute towards establishing and maintaining a critical dialogue including perspectives beyond the so-far dominant regional contexts, the journal encourages contributions which address the diverse global video game and gaming landscape.