Loading... The Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association
Open-access peer-reviewed journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association, in English and French.
Documents
The Political and Ethical Force of Bastion: Gameplay and the Love of Fate
Most video games operate as power fantasies that prioritize player control, calculability, and the ability to manipulate digital environments.
- Bastion functions as an ethical intervention by challenging the standard gaming trope of player mastery, instead forcing users to confront the limits of their agency.
- The game’s final choice between Restoration and Evacuation serves as a philosophical litmus test regarding the player's relationship with history and control.
- The Restoration ending is framed as a futile, cyclical attempt to undo past suffering through technological mastery, exposing the dangers of nostalgia and the desire to rewrite history.
Interview: David Dunham, Lead Designer, Producer and Programmer of King of Dragon Pass
The interview with David Dunham, lead designer and programmer of the strategy-storytelling game King of Dragon Pass, explores the development philosophy and narrative architecture behind his influential title.
Hybrid Moments: Using Ludonarrative Dissonance for Political Critique
Ludonarrative dissonance functions as a potent analytical lens for uncovering the political tensions embedded within video game design.
The Tyranny of Realism: Historical accuracy and politics of representation in Assassin's Creed III
Assassin’s Creed III functions as a case study in how digital media utilizes historical and visual realism to reinforce dominant, Western-centric narratives.
The Game FAVR: A Framework for the Analysis of Visual Representation in Video Games
The Game FAVR framework establishes a comprehensive, formalistic methodology for analyzing video game visuals by prioritizing the ergodic animage—the intersection of interactive gameplay and graphical representation.
Renegade Sex: Compulsory Sexuality and Charmed Magic Circles in the Mass Effect Series
Video games frequently enforce compulsory heterosexuality by restricting player agency to narratives that prioritize heteronormative structures.
- Triple-A game design frequently enforces compulsory heterosexuality by restricting player agency to heteronormative structures and rendering non-normative sexualities invisible.
- In the Mass Effect series, BioWare’s romantic mechanics remain tethered to a sex hierarchy that privileges monogamous, heteronormative relationships.
- Romantic options in Mass Effect are often gated by the player’s chosen gender, reinforcing a binary framework that fails to accommodate fluid expressions of identity.
Career Paths of Women in the German Games Industry
The German games industry is characterized by a stark gender imbalance, with women comprising only 5 to 6 percent of the total workforce.
Education from inside the bunker: Examining the effect of Defcon on nuclear attitudes and critical reflection
The simulation game Defcon serves as a potent instrument for fostering critical reflection on the ethical and existential implications of nuclear warfare.
The Indie Academy: Promoting Gaming Communities through University Collaboration
Universities often struggle to align their intellectual property (IP) strategies with the realities of the gaming industry, frequently overestimating the commercial potential of academic research.
Glutomax: Quebecois Proto-Indie Game Development
The Glutomax collection serves as a historical case study of Quebecois proto-indie game development during the late 1990s.
Examining Indie's Independence: The Meaning of "Indie" Games, the Politics of Production, and Mainstream Co-optation
The independent game movement functions as a critical counterpoint to the profit-driven mandates of the AAA industry, prioritizing creative autonomy and anti-authoritarian production methods over commercial scalability.
Narratives of Independent Production in Video Game Culture
The independent video game movement is frequently framed as a democratic, revolutionary shift that offers creators liberation from the constraints of mainstream corporate structures.