Game Culture Studies and the Politics of Scholarship: The Opposites and the Dialectic

Frans Mäyrä's article argues that game studies has long been shaped by epistemological disputes, from idealism versus empiricism to positivism versus social constructionism, and that these conflicts have been intensified by today's politically charged culture wars. Drawing on the Derrida–Searle debate and the Sokal hoax as illustrative cases, Mäyrä contends that poststructuralist and analytic approaches carry distinct accountability and political implications, and that the intellectual hostility surrounding these disputes should be openly acknowledged rather than concealed. His central claim is that a dialectical tradition has quietly become the mainstream of cultural game studies, and that the supposed opposition between formal and cultural or political dimensions of games is a limited and ultimately detrimental framing.

The early history of the field illustrates these stakes. The ludology versus narratology dispute reflected deeper questions about authority, definition, and legitimate knowledge. Mäyrä traces how early ludology drew on the formalist tradition of New Criticism, with arguments such as Aarseth's dismissal of representation, including gender and the body, as irrelevant to play. Critics such as MacCallum-Stewart and Apperley have argued that this purist stance carried exclusionary effects, and the article questions whether such deliberately provocative positions serve the field's critical commitments. The difficulty of addressing racism, misogyny, and the #GamerGate attacks on feminist scholars, designers, and journalists is presented as a consequence of this formalist emphasis.

In response, Mäyrä advocates a dialectical approach and describes the founding of the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies, which organizes research around meaning-making and cultural agency across four areas: game creation, form and meaning, players, and societal frames. The centre's research areas, including inclusive game creation, public-space play, (e)sports and well-being, and the demoscene as intangible heritage, are framed as efforts to bridge formalist and cultural perspectives. The article concludes that game studies should embrace a dialectical rather than oppositional stance, drawing on Schiller's play drive theory and on feminist and queer game scholarship to integrate multiple knowledge interests.