Ph.D. Candidate John W. Borchert edited, gamevironments #9 (2018), special issue on Video Gaming and Death. This special issue of gamevironments (the peer-reviewed journal for the International Academy for the Study of Gaming and Religion) explores what video-games can tell religious studies about death, and what religious studies can help us understand about death in games. Death has been an imminent threat to gamers since the earliest cabinet arcade games, lurking at game’s edges and directing negotiations of narrative and play. Video games in one way are about the constant presence of death, as defining the boundaries of play. After death, games ask players to try again -- video games then, in another way, are about overcoming death. The hope in curating this collection was to demonstrate how the study of video-gaming and religion can ground itself in a thematic and further itself through this investment. Many of these pieces evidence not only phenomena of death in games, but also forward theories and methods for understanding relations between video gaming and death, and each piece offers the hope of sustaining and generative work.
Contributions to the issue by Syracuse University Department of Religion include: