HST6405 - Video Games: History, Culture and Representation from Pac-Man to Pokémon

A truly transnational industry with a current annual value of $100 billion and an estimated 1.2 billion players worldwide, the video game has had an incalculable impact upon global culture. This QMUL Model module traces the origins, development, socio-cultural significance and critical appreciation of the form from its beginnings in the amusement arcades to the mobile games of the present day. Considering video games as uniquely interactive visual sources, the module will employ a diverse range of methods, approaches and critical contexts, from the circumstances of socioeconomic national production in Japan, Europe and the US to global gaming cultures, the representation of history, the video game’s relationship to cinema and the theoretical ways in which we might understand the nature of human leisure and play.