Inaugural Editorial: A Lighthouse for Games and Playable Media

Abstract

In games and playable media, almost nothing is as it was at the turn of the millennium. Digital and analog games have exploded in reach, diversity, and relevance. Digital platforms and globalisation have shifted and fragmented their centres of gravity and how they are made and played. Games are converging with other media, technologies, and arts into a wide field of playable media. Games research has similarly exploded in volume and fragmented into disciplinary specialisms. All this can be deeply disorienting. The journal Games: Research and Practice wants to offer a lighthouse that helps readers orient themselves in this new, ever-shifting reality of games industry and games research.