This is a list of books/chapters/articles in my library that are relevant to my gaming interests. This list is not exhaustive — there are several titles that I have not added to the list yet and many more that I do not own/have not read. Items in this list are not necessarily reflections of my personal beliefs and ideas.
I have broken the list into categories. Some books may span multiple categories, but I have only listed them in what I consider their primary category. Scan all titles to find relevant reading!
BIOGRAPHIES and ETHNOGRAPHIES
Barrowcliffe, M. (2009). Elfish Gene Dungeons, Dragons and Growing Up Strange. New York, NY: Soho Press, Inc.
Corneliussen, H., & Rettberg, J. W. (2011). Digital culture, play, and identity: a World of Warcraft reader. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Darzentas, D. P., Brown, M. A., Flintham, M., & Benford, S. (2015). The Data Driven Lives of Wargaming Miniatures. Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems – CHI 15. doi:10.1145/2702123.2702377
Day, F. (2016). You’re never weird on the Internet (almost): a memoir. New York, NY: Touchstone.
Dibbell, J. (1999). My tiny life: crime and passion in a virtual world. Holt Paperbacks.
Goffman, E. (2008). Interaction ritual: essays in face-to-face behavior. New Brunswick, NJ: AldineTransaction.
Mazzanoble, S. (2007). Confessions of a part-time sorceress: a girls guide to Dungeons & Dragons. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast.
Mazzanoble, S. (2011). Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Dungeons & Dragons: One Woman’s Quest to Trade Self-Help for Elf-Help. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast.
Nardi, B. A. (2010). My life as a night elf priest: an anthropological account of World of warcraft. Ann Arbor, MI: Univ. of Michigan.
Senft, T. M. (2008). Camgirls: celebrity and community in the age of social networks. New York, NY: Lang.
Stark, L. (2012). Leaving mundania: inside the transformative world of live action role-playing games. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press.
COMMUNITY
Chee, Florence, and Smith, Richard. (2007). “Online gamers and the ambiguity of community: Korean definitions of togetherness for a new generation.” In M. Consalvo and C. Haythornthwaite (Eds.), AOIR Internet Annual. Volume 4, New York: Peter Lang Publishers, pp. 165-184.
Fine, G. A. (2002). Shared fantasy: role-playing games as social worlds. Chicago, IL: Univ. of Chicago Press.
King, B., & Borland, J. (2014). Dungeons & Dreamers: A Story of How Computer Games Created a Global Community. ETC Press.
Bowman, S. L. (2010). The functions of role-playing games: how participants create community, solve problems and explore identity. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company.
CULTURE
Byers, A., & Crocco, F. (2016). The role-playing society: essays on the cultural influence of RPGs. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc.
Dyer-Witheford, N., & Peuter, G. D. (2009). Games of empire: global capitalism and video games. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Ewalt, D. M. (2013). Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and The People Who Play It. New York, NY: Scribner.
Jenkins, H. (2006). Fans, bloggers, and gamers: exploring participatory culture. New York, NY: New York University Press.
Konijn, E. A., Utz, S., Tanis, M., & Barnes, S. B. (2009). Mediated interpersonal communication. New York, NY: Routledge.
Mäyrä, F. (2007). An introduction to games studies: games in culture. London: SAGE.
Pearce, C. (2011). Communities of play: emergent cultures in multiplayer games and virtual worlds. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Phillips, W. (2016). This is why we cant have nice things: mapping the relationship between online trolling and mainstream culture. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Turkle, S. (2013). Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Wark, M. (2007). Gamer theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wright, J. T., Embrick, D. G., & Lukács, A. (2010). Utopic dreams and apocalyptic fantasies: critical approaches to researching video game play. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
EFFECTS of GAMING
Bissell, T. (2011). Extra lives: why video games matter. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
Embrick, D. G., Wright, J. T., & Lukács, A. (2014). Social exclusion, power, and video game play: new research in digital media and technology. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
McGonigal, J. (2012). Reality is broken: why games make us better and how they can change the world. London: Vintage.
Yee, N. (2015). Proteus paradox: how online games and virtual worlds change us – and how they don’t. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
ETHICS
Chee, Florence, Taylor, Nicholas, and de Castell, Suzanne. (2012). “Re-Mediating Research Ethics: End-User License Agreements (EULAs) in Online Games.” Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society. Sage Publications. Vol. 32(6), pp. 497-506.
GAMING HISTORIES / BACKGROUDS
Anthropy, A. (2012). Rise of the videogame zinesters: how freaks, normals, amateurs, artists, dreamers, dropouts, queers, housewives, and people like you are taking back an art form. New York, NY: Seven Stories Press.
Berg, R. H. (1977). Wargame design: the history, production, and use of conflict simulation games. New York, NY: Simulations Publications.
Donovan, T. (2017). It’s all a game: the history of board games from Monopoly to Settlers of Catan. New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books.
Hansen, D. (2016). Game on!: video game history from Pong and Pac-Man to Mario, Minecraft, and more. New York: Feiwel et Friends.
Kane, M. (2008). Game boys: professional videogaming’s rise from the basement to the big time. New York, NY: Viking.
Perla, P. P. (1990). The Art Of Wargaming: A Guide for Professionals and Hobbyists. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press.
Peterson, J. (2012). Playing at the world: a history of simulating wars, people and fantastic adventures, from chess to role-playing games. San Diego, CA: Unreason Press.
Tresca, M. J. (2011). The evolution of fantasy role-playing games. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.
GENDER
Cassell, J., & Jenkins, H. (1998). Chapter 1: Chess for girls? feminism and computer games. In J. Cassell, & H. Jenkins (Eds.), From barbie to mortal kombat: Gender and computer games (pp. 2-45) Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Chess, S., & Shaw, A. (2015). A conspiracy of fishes, or, how we learned to stop worrying about #GamerGate and embrace hegemonic masculinity. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 59(1), 208-220.
de Castell, S., & Bryson, M. (1998). Chapter 11: Retooling play: Dystopia, dysphoria, and difference. In J. Cassell, & H. Jenkins (Eds.), From barbie to mortal kombat: Gender and computer games (pp. 232-261) Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Denner, J., & Campe, S. (2008). Chapter 9: What games made by girls can tell us. In Y. B. Kafai, C. Heeter, J. Denner & J. Y. Sun (Eds.), Beyond barbie & mortal combat: New perspectives on gender and gaming () MIT Press.
Gee, J. P., & Hayes, E. (2010). Women and gaming: the Sims and 21st century learning. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gonzales, A., & Houser, S. (2017). Girl code: gaming, going viral, and getting it done. New York, NY: Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins.
Kafai, Y. B., Richard, G. T., & Tynes, B. M. (2016). Diversifying Barbie and Mortal Kombat: intersectional perspectives and inclusive designs in gaming. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon University, ETC Press.
Lin, H. (2008). Chapter 5: Body, space, and gendered gaming experiences: A cultureal geography of homes, cybercafes, and dormitories. In Y. B. Kafai, C. Heeter, J. Denner & J. Y. Sun (Eds.), Beyond barbie & mortal combat: New perspectives on gender and gaming () MIT Press.
Romine, M. (2006). Chapter 18: Fantasy to frag doll: The story of a gamer princess. In A. Newitz, & C. Anders (Eds.), She’s such a geek!: Women write about science, technology & other nerdy stuff (pp. 162-173) Seal Press.
Shaw, A. (2012). Do you identify as a gamer? gender, race, sexuality, and gamer identity. New Media Society, 14(1), 28-44.
Shaw, A. (2014). Gaming at the edge: Sexuality and gender at the margins of gamer culture. USA: University of Minnesota Press.
Taylor, T. L. (2008). Chapter 4: Becoming a player: Networks, structure, imagined futures. In Y. B. Kafai, C. Heeter, J. Denner & J. Y. Sun (Eds.), Beyond barbie & mortal combat: New perspectives on gender and gaming (pp. 50-65) MIT Press.
Wells, K. (2006). Chapter 1: Really good for a girl . In A. Newitz, & C. Anders (Eds.), She’s such a geek!: Women write about science, technology & other nerdy stuff (pp. 2-13) Seal Press.
Check out this Oxford bibliography on Feminism and Queer Game Studies. It includes titles I’ve listed here, as well as some additional titles.
LIBRARIES and GAMES
See this post of mine for an annotated list of books, articles, and resources for creating and running gaming programs in libraries: Gaming in Libraries: An Annotated Bibliography
See articles and podcast interviews that I’ve done on gaming in libraries on my Media page
Cross, E., Mould, D., & Smith, R. (2015). The Protean Challenge of game collections at Academic Libraries. New Review of Academic Librarianship, 21(2), 129–145. https://doi.org/10.1080/13614533.2015.1043467
Jones, B. M. (2003, June 6). Hidden Collections, scholarly barriers: Creating access to unprocessed Special Collections Materials Innorth America’s research libraries. Association of Research Libraries. Retrieved from https://www.arl.org/resources/hidden-collections-scholarly-barriers-creating-access-to-unprocessed-special-collections-materials-innorth-americas-research-libraries/
Moore, J. E. (1995, July). A History of Toy Lending Libraries in the United States Since 1935 (dissertation). ERIC – ED390414 – A History of Toy Lending Libraries in the United States Since 1935. Education Resources Information Center. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED390414.
Nicholson, S. (2009). Go back to start: Gathering baseline data about gaming in libraries. Library Review, 58(3), 203–214. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530910942054
Nicholson, S. (2013). Playing in the past: A history of games, toys, and puzzles in North American Libraries. The Library Quarterly, 83(4), 341–361. https://doi.org/10.1086/671913
Pappas, J. (2017, February 3). Circulating Board Game Collection. Programming Librarian. Retrieved from https://programminglibrarian.org/programs/circulating-board-game-collection
Robson, D., Phillips, J., & Guerrero, S. (2018). Don’t just roll the dice: Simple solutions for circulating tabletop game collections effectively in your library. Library Resources & Technical Services, 62(2), 80. https://doi.org/10.5860/lrts.62n2.80
Sich, D. (2012). Dungeons and downloads: Collecting tabletop fantasy role‐playing games in the age of downloadable pdfs. Collection Building, 31(2), 60–65. https://doi.org/10.1108/01604951211229854
Slobuski, T., Robson, D., & Bentley, P. J. (2017). Arranging the pieces: A survey of library practices related to a tabletop game collection. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, 12(1), 2–17. https://doi.org/10.18438/b84c96
PLAY
Henricks, T. S. (2015). Play and the human condition. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Henricks, T. S. (2006). Play reconsidered: sociological perspectives on human expression. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Huizinga, J. (1971). Homo Ludens: a study of the play element in culture. London: Paladin.
RESEARCH METHODS
Boellstorff, T., Nardi, B., Pearce, C., & Taylor, T. (2012). Ethnography and virtual worlds: a handbook of method. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Booth, W. C., Colomb, G. G., & Williams, J. M. (2008). The Craft of Research. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Priest, S. H. (2010). Doing media research: an introduction. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
STORYTELLING
Cover, J. G. (2010). The creation of narrative in tabletop role-playing games. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc.
Harrigan, P., & Wardrip-Fruin, N. (2009). Third person: authoring and exploring vast narratives. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Montfort, N. (2005). Twisty little passages: an approach to interactive fiction. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Wardrip-Fruin, N., Harrigan, P., & Crumpton, M. (2006). First person: new media as story, performance, and game. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Wardrip-Fruin, N., & Harrigan, P. (2010). Second person: role-playing and story in games and playable media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.