That said, my work is very influenced by Ken McAllister's approach to
computer games, which he outlines in his book, Game Work: Language, Power,
and Computer Game Culture. You might be familiar with this book, but if not,
it takes a very rigorous, Marxist approach to understanding what he calls the
computer game complex--the various, interdependent socio-economic forces that
produce computer games.

My approach is also indebted to Roger Callois's notions of paidic (sp?) and
ludic modes of play, especially in the way that these notions seem to connect
with Derrida's notion of freeplay and the way he interrogates linguistic
structures and systems (if you think about it, a computer game is one large
linguistic system). All of these threads come together nicely (too nicely?)
in Baudrillard's work on simulation and hyperreality, which I think is
especially pertinent to computer games.

I think that we do disagree about the direction game studies should take, but
like you said, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. As Ryan pointed
out in a previous thread, this sort of conversation has the potential to
generate new knowledge and approaches to the topic of computer games and of
all the things that are (always already!)implicated in computer games and in
the larger questions of reading and writing and learning.

Sincerely,
Kevin Moberly