Mutli-Disciplinarity or Fragmented Community
The debate that has been occuring in the field of game studies since perhaps its beginning, the question has become a personal one over the last few months. A recent conversation with a colleague has brought to my attention, the problem that the multi-discplinarity of game studies faces. I am, by departmental affiliation, a sociologist. My colleague is working in semiotics. I have successfully meshed theoretical frameworks from both disciplines in the past with another colleague. Yet, this time around, the critique of my work stemmed not from my ideas, but my methodological presentation. For my colleague, who is used to a different arguement structure, felt that my paper was weak for the structure I had used (a common sociological presentation). I am not complaining that my paper was critiqued, and I must agree that since my paper was eventually to be reviewed by an IT department, my colleagues comments were potentially on target.

This got me thinking about the field of game studies. Since it is still compiled of members from other disciplines - design, cinema, literature, communications, sociology, psychology and the list is probably as long as the list of academic disciplines, there is no unified lens with which to judge work coming into the field. When I submitted a paper for a past conference, one of the reviewers came from a design discipline. Although they found the topic interesting, they admitted to having had to read it more then once to get through the jargon. And I thought I was being quite general when I wrote it.

Another problem it causes is the 'working in a bubble' feeling that was brought up recently by another colleague. Knowing full well that my research and the theory that frames it comes out of my discipline, I sometimes get the feeling that someone, somewhere, has said the same thing using a different theoretical framework from another discipline. In this case, I admit to often feeling that game studies is merely a fragmented umbrella discipline like the "liberal arts", encompassing many other disciplines to talk about one topic from many different perspectives.

So, the question I am faced with is: Can there ever be such thing as a true field of game studies? A discipline that eventually has its own theoretical cannons that strongly stand alone beyond any other discipline? Or is it doomed to remain an umbrella?