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Playing host to articles written in different disciplines and perspectives on the shared subject of digital gaming, the current thematic issue means to galvanise interest in and recognition of the nascent field of games research. Despite being little more than 50 years old, the medium of digital games has seen a meteoric rise to economic and cultural prominence across the globe. A cultural shift accepting games as a worthwhile recreational activity (and more) is likewise resulting in shifting attentions within game studies. Games were seen as frivolous and even harmful, and research traditionally focused on the negative effects they were perceived to have while in the end coming up with very little reliable evidence to support this position. The current wave of games research exemplified in this issue is certainly wider: games are a cultural and often highly socialised medium that has changed the way we view the world. They are used in non-entertainment settings, helping to promote active learning in players of all ages. The medium also facilitates deeper psychological and philosophical theorizing, as researchers grapple with deeper questions on what games and play mean to each of us. Put simply: games research is not just fun and games.

The effect of violent computer games on individuals and on society has been the object of a great number of studies reaching across different disciplines, including traditional Humanities, International Relations Studies, and Psychology. Unfortunately, studies conducted within one discipline pay very limited attention to research conducted in other fields. Thus, important research data is rarely shared. The reasons for this lack of cross-disciplinary consideration can be attributed to many different factors. Humanities oriented research is often published in journals other than IR studies, or psychological studies. The various fields engaged in this type of research also employ different methodologies that highlight different aspect while obscuring others. Finally, the research is funded by different agencies, with different agendas. This presentation first describes the current situation through studies belonging to the Humanities, International Relations Studies and Psychology. These studies share an interest in the computer game genre commonly known as the First Person Shooter (FPS), a violent game genre where the gamer controls an armed avatar and observes the game world through a first-person perspective. The presentation discusses how the general research context (funding body, audience, problem formulation), the theoretical framework, and the methodologies of the different studies inform the research. Here, it is noted that Humanities research is often state-sponsored and conducted within Humanities departments or by one of few DH research centres that exist globally. Since the late 1990s, Humanities research has either focussed on discussing how participatory digital games function differently from other forms of culture such as literature or film (see Juul 2005, Malliet 2007), or it has conducted an often Foucauldian or Baudrillardian interrogation of the games, discussing them as deeply ideological spaces (Wark 2007). The methodological tools employed by this research are virtually always qualitative and hermeneutic. International Relations research also comes out of state-sponsored or private universities, but is sometimes connected to organisations such as the Institute of World Politics. Following the cultural turn of IR during the last two decades (Van Veeren 2009), this research has become increasingly attentive to the way that military games engage with global politics and future military conflict. The focus of game studies conducted within the confines of IR studies is thus the way in which the FPS imagines future global conflict. This research is often qualitative and does discuss the narratives and discourses of the games, but it also employs interviews and quantitative methods to investigate how gamers's ideas about global relations are affected by the games (Zamaróczy 2016). Finally, psychological research into violent games comes from a large number of funding bodies, from state-run universities to private foundations, the health care sector, and the US Department of Defence (DoD) (Höglund 2008). The research produced by these various agencies focuses primarily on to what extent violent games produce violent behaviour or not (Anderson et al., 2002), but it also includes studies on how games can train soldiers before combat or help treat veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (Rizzo et al 2006). The link between violent computer games and aggressive behaviour is notoriously difficult to study in laboratory experiments, and a few alternative ways of assessing the relationship have been suggested (Sauer and Nova 2015). Even so, this research is firmly quantitative and often disregards the qualitative aspect. The question that the presentation will address in relation to these studies is how these different fields may benefit from cross-disciplinary exchange. The presentation suggests that by considering results gained in psychological studies, and by making some use of the quantitative and laboratory methods common in this discipline, the humanities or IR researcher would be in a considerably better position to discuss the effect that the FPS has on the individual. In other words, broadening the disciplinary perspective would make it possible to consider not only the ideological, political and aesthetic content of the material, but also how gamers actually respond to the material. Similarly, humanities and IR related research could help researchers working in the field of psychology to ask more relevant and precise questions that take into consideration the qualitative content of a particular game before examining its effects in a laboratory setting. In other words, by considering humanities and IR research, the simple question if games encourage aggression in gamers may be rephrased into the more complex question if games encourage aggression against particular groups in society, or support state aggression against certain nationalities. This discussion may be of interest to scholars conducting research on digital games, but it may also be of general interest to Digital Humanities since the formation of games research takes place in the crossroads of several different disciplines. REFERENCES Anderson, C. A, B. J. Bushman. (2002) Violent Video Games and Hostile Expectations: A Test of the General Aggression Model. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28.12): 1679-1686. Höglund, J. (2008). Electronic Empire: Orientalism Revisited in the Military Shooter. Game Studies. 8.1. http://gamestudies.org/0801/articles/hoeglund Juul, J. (2005). Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds, Cambridge: The MIT Press Malliet, Steven. (2007). Adapting the Principles of Ludology to the Method of Video Game Content Analysis. Game Studies 7.1. http://gamestudies.org/0701/articles/malliet Rizzo. A, J, et al. (2006). A Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy Application for Iraq War Military Personnel with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: From Training to Toy to Treatment. NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Novel Approaches to the Diagnosis and Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. IOS Press, Washington D.C., 235-250 Sauer, J. D, A Drummond, and N. Nova. (2015). Violent video games: The effects of narrative context and reward structure on in-game and postgame aggression. Journal of Experimental Psychology Applied. 21.3. 205-214. Van Veeren, Es. (2009). The 'Cultural Turn' in International Relations: Making Sense of World Politics. E- International Relations. May 10. http://www.e-ir.info/2009/05/10/the-'cultural-turn'-in-international- relations-making-sense-of-world-politics/. Wark, M. (2007). Gamer Theory. Cambridge, Harvard University Press. Zamaróczy, N de. (2016). Are We What We Play? Global Politics in Historical Strategy Computer Games. International Studies Perspectives. 0.1, 1–20.

Gaming has never been disconnected from reality. When we engage with ever more lavish virtual worlds, something happens to us. The game imposes itself on us and influences how we feel about it, the world, and ourselves. How do games accomplish this and to what end? The contributors explore the video game as an atmospheric medium of hitherto unimagined potential. Is the medium too powerful, too influential? A danger to our mental health or an ally through even the darkest of times? This volume compiles papers from the Young Academics Workshop at the Clash of Realities conferences of 2019 and 2020 to provide answers to these questions.

Gaming has never been disconnected from reality. When we engage with ever more lavish virtual worlds, something happens to us. The game imposes itself on us and influences how we feel about it, the world, and ourselves. How do games accomplish this and to what end? The contributors explore the video game as an atmospheric medium of hitherto unimagined potential. Is the medium too powerful, too influential? A danger to our mental health or an ally through even the darkest of times? This volume compiles papers from the Young Academics Workshop at the Clash of Realities conferences of 2019 and 2020 to provide answers to these questions

This article delves into various approaches to the cultural and philosophical study of video games. It primarily examines the potential of employing methodological foundations of media archaeology to enhance the understanding of the history of video game technical media. Additionally, it offers a brief review of existing publications on the proposed topic.To justify the applicability of the media-archaeological approach, the article provides a concise analysis of key research directions in game studies, highlighting their advantages and main shortcomings. The paper includes a succinct history of video game research, elucidates the philosophical concepts underpinning early works on the essence of video games, and explores the principal directions within game studies. Special attention is given to several approaches: Espen Aarseth's narratological perspective, which interprets the cyberspace of games as a text that can be decoded and read; Gonzalo Frasca's ludological approach, where the primary characteristic of a game is its interactivity; and Ian Bogost's multi-level theory of video game study, which integrates the use of media anthropology.Subsequently, the article outlines the core principles of media anthropology as an interdisciplinary field that not only investigates the past of media and attempts to forecast the future of technologies by identifying patterns in their development but also addresses the relationship between humans and technologies. The primary representatives of this field, such as Friedrich Kittler, Jussi Parikka, and Erkki Huhtamo, are also mentioned.In the final section of the article, the necessity of employing media anthropology for understanding video games is discussed, particularly emphasizing the hegemony of technical media over the content of video games. Furthermore, examples of the application of the archaeological approach in game studies are provided, illustrating the potential of this direction.This comprehensive exploration aims to advance the discourse on video game studies by integrating insights from media archaeology and media anthropology, thereby fostering a deeper and more nuanced understanding of video games as cultural and technological artifacts.

This thematic issue presents a number of emerging scholarships into the study of digital gaming. The articles are based on a 2019 symposium on game studies hosted by the Digital Games Research section of ECREA. As the phenomena related to digital gaming keep on evolving and emerging, so must research keep up with the times and constantly challenge itself. Whether speaking about validating previously developed research methods, imagining totally new ones, or even challenging the whole philosophy of science on which research is being done, there is a constant need for reappraisal and introspection within games research. As a cultural medium that has become deeply embedded into the social fabric of the 2020s, digital gaming continues to excite and challenge academia. This thematic issue provides a collection of approaches to look into the future that addresses some of the challenges associated with game research.

Digital games have evolved into a medium that moves beyond basic toys for distraction and pleasure towards platforms capable of and effective at instigating more serious, emotional, and intrapersonal experiences. Along with this evolution, games research has also started to consider more deeply affective and cognitive reactions that resemble the broad notion of eudaimonia, with work already being done in communication studies and media psychology as well as in human-computer interaction. These studies offer a large variety of concepts to describe such eudaimonic reactions - including eudaimonia, meaningfulness, appreciation, and self-transcendence - which are frequently used as synonyms as they represent aspects not captured by the traditional hedonic focus on enjoyment. However, these concepts are potentially confusing to work with as they might represent phenomenological distinct experiences. In this scoping review, we survey 82 publications to identify different concepts used in digital gaming research to represent eudaimonia and map out how these concepts relate to each other. The results of this scoping review revealed four broad conceptual patterns: (1) appreciation as an overarching (yet imprecise) eudaimonic outcome of playing digital games; (2) covariation among meaningful, emotionally moving/challenging, and self-reflective experiences; (3) the unique potential of digital games to afford eudaimonic social connectedness; and (4) other eudaimonia-related concepts (e.g., nostalgia, well-being, elevation). This review provides a conceptual map of the current research landscape on eudaimonic game entertainment experiences and outlines recommendations for future scholarship, including how a focus on digital games contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of eudaimonic media experiences broadly.

Although there is a vast and useful body of quantitative social science research dealing with the social role and impact of video games, it is difficult to compare studies dealing with various dimensions of video games because they are informed by different perspectives and assumptions, employ different methodologies, and address different problems. Studies focusing on different social dimensions of video games can produce varied findings about games' social function that are often difficult to reconcile - or even contradictory. Research is also often categorized by topic area, rendering a comprehensive view of video games' social role across topic areas difficult. This interpretive review presents a novel typology of four identified approaches that categorize much of the quantitative social science video game research conducted to date: "video games as stimulus," "video games as avocation," "video games as skill," and "video games as social environment." This typology is useful because it provides an organizational structure within which the large and growing number of studies on video games can be categorized, guiding comparisons between studies on different research topics and aiding a more comprehensive understanding of video games' social role. Categorizing the different approaches to video game research provides a useful heuristic for those critiquing and expanding that research, as well as an understandable entry point for scholars new to video game research. Further, and perhaps more importantly, the typology indicates when topics should be explored using different approaches than usual to shed new light on the topic areas. Lastly, the typology exposes the conceptual disconnects between the different approaches to video game research, allowing researchers to consider new ways to bridge gaps between the different approaches' strengths and limitations with novel methods.