Game culture and material culture have always been closely linked. Analog forms of rule-based play (ludus) would hardly be conceivable without dice, cards, and game boards. In the act of free play (paidia), children as well as adults transform simple objects into multifaceted toys in an almost magical way. Even digital play is suffused with material culture: Games are not only mediated by technical interfaces, which we access via hardware and tangible peripherals. They are also subject to material hybridization, paratextual framing, and processes of de-, and re-materialization.

Gaming no longer only takes place as a "closed interactive experience" in front of TV screens, but also as broadcast on streaming platforms or as cultural events in exhibition centers and e-sport arenas. The popularization of new technologies, forms of expression, and online services has had a considerable influence on the academic and journalistic discourse about games. This anthology examines which paratexts gaming cultures have produced - i.e., in which forms and formats and through which channels we talk (and write) about games - as well as the way in which paratexts influence the development of games. How is knowledge about games generated and shaped today and how do boundaries between (popular) criticism, journalism, and scholarship have started to blur? In short: How does the paratext change the text?

Media narratives inform our ideas of the future - and Games are currently making a significant contribution to this medial reservoir. On the one hand, Games demonstrate a particular propensity for fantastic and futuristic scenarios. On the other hand, they often serve as an experimental field for the latest media technologies. However, while dystopias are part of the standard gaming repertoire, Games feature utopias much less frequently. Why? This anthology examines playful utopias from two perspectives. It investigates utopias in digital Games as well as utopias of the digital game; that is, the role of ludic elements in scenarios of the future.

The volume addresses the matter of participatory media practices as playful appropriations within current digital media culture and artistic research. The aim is to explore and trace the shifting boundaries between media production and media use, and to develop concepts and methodologies that work within participatory media cultures. Therefore the articles explore and establish nuanced approaches to the oftentimes playful practices associated with the appropriation of technology.

Das Lehrbuch bietet einen zuganglichen und umfassenden UEberblick uber die grundlegenden Ansatze der interdisziplinar ausgerichteten Game Studies. Durch die ubersichtliche Einteilung in die Themenbereiche Spiele, Schnittstellen und Spieler empfiehlt es sich sowohl als Grundlage fur kultur-, medien- und filmwissenschaftliche Seminare wie auch als kompakte Einfuhrung fur Quereinsteiger. Die wichtigsten Felder, Ansatze und Methoden dieser neuen, vielschichtigen und hochgradig dynamischen Disziplin werden anhand zentraler Begriffe vorgestellt und anschaulich an ausgewahlten Beispielen entwickelt. Einen besonderen aus kultur-, medien- und filmwissenschaftlicher Perspektive relevanten Schwerpunkt bilden die bisher wenig beachteten asthetischen Zugange zur audiovisuellen Gestaltung der Videospiele.