This is
the first volume to apply insights from the material turn in philosophy to the study of play and games. At a time of renewed interest
in analogue gaming, as scholars are looking beyond the digital and
virtual for the first time since the inception of game studies in the 1990s,
Material Game Studies not only supports the importance of the (re)turn to the analogue, but
proposes a materiality of play more broadly.

Recognizing the
entanglement of physical materiality with cultural meaning, the authors in
this volume apply a range of theoretical approaches, from material eco-criticism
to animal studies, to examine games and play as existing within worlds of
matter. Different chapters focus on the material
properties of board, card and role-playing games, how they are designed and made, how they are touched and played with,
and how they connect with other human and nonhuman things.

Bringing together
international scholars, Material Game Studies defines
a new field of material game studies and
demonstrates how it is a valuable addition to wider debates about the
material turn and the place of embodied humans in a material world.