Game Studies is an interdisciplinary field which synthesizes literary, social scientific, artistic, and computational approaches to understand how games, computational media, and play shape society, technological development, culture, and the human sense of self. Since its founding in the early 21st century, games research has moved to incorporate design practice as well, leading to exciting challenges in synthesizing critical analyses of culture with the production of new forms of interactive and experiential media. In response to these challenges, Rensselaer established the first Ph.D.-granting program in Critical Game Design in the United States. Its faculty and students are scholars, storytellers, programmers, artists, and media makers at the global forefront of this rapidly emerging field and industry.
Program Overview
Students who earn a graduate degree in Critical Game Design (CGD) learn to blend literary, social scientific, and interpretive scholarly approaches with the arts, programming, and design. They are students who embrace working across the boundaries of traditional scholarly disciplines, and who are committed to deep understandings of the cultural and material dimensions of interactive media.
The curriculum reflects the program’s interdisciplinary scholarship and practice. Students take a series of seminar courses in historical, political, and cultural analyses of interactive and experiential media; experiment in games and interactive design studios; and learn multidisciplinary research practices. Rotating classes featuring cutting edge research in game studies and game design are offered each semester, covering such topics as cultural heritage and historical simulation, phenomenology of media and interactivity, sound and musical play, and participatory play research with local communities. Students have the opportunity to learn from and collaborate with scholars in media studies, the arts, cognitive science, economics, and science & technology studies.
Critical Game Design students are generally supported as Teaching Assistants or Research Assistants, and are mentored to apply for an array of internal and external fellowships. After coursework, PhD students complete a comprehensive examination demonstrating their knowledge of the scholarly fields of game studies and design. Following a successful examination, and in consultation with a Doctoral Committee, students write and defend a Dissertation Proposal and Literature Review and undertake independent research on a self-defined topic. Dissertation research and writing lead to doctoral defense within 2-3 years.
Admissions
The CGD community is scholarly, highly creative, and committed to critical analysis of and experimentation with games and interactive media. Our students come from a highly diverse population of graduate students from varied yet complementary backgrounds such as media studies, STS, literary studies, computer science, and contemporary art.
Questions about the doctoral program in Critical Game Design should be directed to the Graduate Program Director, Professor Jim Malazita.
Program Outcomes
Our Critical Game Design PhD program prepares students to:
- Conduct scholarly analysis of historical and contemporary cultures of games and experiential media.
- Critically analyze the material, computational, political, and aesthetic domains that shape, and are shaped by, games and experiential media.
- Produce ludic media projects that extend or investigate the cultural, political, aesthetic, and technical dimensions of games and experience design.
- Design and articulate research problems and conduct independent, original, and significant research.
Spotlight
Critical Game Design PhDs in residence have access to the Games Grad Lounge, adjoining the co-located offices for graduate students and faculty in Rensselaer’s West Hall. Students work with faculty and staff to curate the Interactive Media Archaeology Lab, a repository of retro game consoles, CRT TVs, board games, and textual and paratextual archival game materials. PhDs also collaborate and conduct research in the design and making facilities in the Corridor of Creativity, work on VR and CAVE simulation and experimental media in the Emergent Reality Lab, and use studio space in West Hall for personal research projects. Games & Experiential Media department faculty and students annually attend the Game Developer Conference, and graduate students participate in regular local brownbags, colloquium presentations, and public events. Each year, students design, host, and run the regional Critical Game Design Graduate Conference @ Gamefest, bringing together games graduate scholars from across the northeast US and Canada.
Read about our current PhD students:
After Graduation
Recent and current students conduct a wide array of research, including games and health, platforms and labor, spatial and cultural audio, idle games and motivation, alternative and radical interface design, ethnographies of queer gaming communities, and feminist readings of dating sims. Graduates from this program have been hired into tenure-track and teaching positions in game design and game studies programs across the US, and apply their skills within industry and policy spaces as consultants, directors, writers, artists, and analysts.