Soci 498 - Sociology of Digital Games:
A reflection of the writing process, the field and canons of game studies

I have just finished a massive amount of reading [4 books, 42 articles] in and around game studies, and am now trying to put it all together in the form of a lit. review. I had been dreading the actual writing of this paper, thinking it would be long, dry and tedious. I have spent the last few weeks trying to be efficient - ultimately changing my writing style from brain dump to editing process - and write categorical lists of quotes and personal notations to be used in the final writing process. After feeling frustrated and feeling mentally blocked on it, I decided to revert back to my method of sitting down and spitting out everything i remember about all the readings as per the categories i had assigned for my paper. I am surprised at how much easier the information flows. As i am writting a thought, i suddenly remember that i read 'that' somewhere else and start digging through the articles. Essentially, i have a general idea of the form of the paper, but have no idea of the details until it is actually on paper.

I was happy to see that game studies, as a field in and of itself, has solid core of themes regardless of the field the work stems from. (lit. studies, cinema, soci, etc.) It gives me hope that eventually, the field will redefine the concepts and terms for the study of video games/persistant virtual worlds and cut the apron strings from the founding discplines of the fields of which it was born. Canons are forming and the foundation of the field is being built. At times, my criticism for the lack of canons and foundations have been harsh - though this course (great course if you are passionate about game studies and like to read) I have seen the positive elements of conceptual repetition and the beginning of a theoretical framework.