Course 17: Game Studies

Yannick Rochat · University of Lausanne

Lecturer

Yannick Rochat is Assistant Professor of Game Studies at the University of Lausanne (UNIL) and co-founder of the GameLab UNIL-EPFL, where he investigates video games as cultural objects through interdisciplinary methods drawn from mathematics, network analysis, and digital humanities. He holds an MSc in Mathematics from EPFL and a PhD in Mathematics applied to Humanities and Social Sciences from UNIL (2014), and previously worked at the Digital Humanities Laboratory (DHLAB) of EPFL. His research covers the analysis of large corpora of game magazines, the documentation and preservation of Swiss video game heritage, research-creation, and the use of games in education and rehabilitation. He has coordinated the doctoral program in digital studies at UNIL and is a leading figure in the institutionalization of game studies in Switzerland.

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Lecture Overview

Overview

Rochat presents game studies as a broad, interdisciplinary field that overlaps naturally with digital humanities. His lecture introduces the field historically, surveys its main research directions, and shows how games can be studied, preserved, taught, exhibited, and used as cultural objects.

Main Points

Game studies draws on many disciplines because games combine code, design, visuals, narrative, performance, communities, and platforms.
Rochat presents the field as structurally similar to digital humanities: both rely on borrowing and combining methods suited to diverse objects.
The lecture reviews the development of game studies as a recognized field and points to conferences, journals, and local research groups.
Games can be studied from social, historical, educational, narratological, visual, technical, and archival perspectives.
Preservation is a major theme: video games are digital heritage and require archival strategies, documentation, and public mediation.

Examples Mentioned

The GameLab at EPFL
DiGRA and the institutionalization of game studies
Games in museums, public libraries, and played conferences
Preservation, e-sports, rehabilitation, and historical representation in games

Source transcript: transcripts/Course 17_Rochat_GameStudies.txt

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