Benjamin Beil & Gundolf S. Freyermuth 
Playful Materialities [PDF ebook] 
The Stuff That Games Are Made Of

Game culture and material culture have always been closely linked. Analog forms of rule-based play (ludus) would hardly be conceivable without dice, cards, and game boards. In the act of free play (paidia), children as well as adults transform simple objects into multifaceted toys in an almost magical way. Even digital play is suffused with material culture: Games are not only mediated by technical interfaces, which we access via hardware and tangible peripherals. They are also subject to material hybridization, paratextual framing, and processes of de-, and re-materialization.

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Benjamin Beil (Prof. Dr.) is a professor of media studies and digital culture at the department of media culture and theatre at Universität zu Köln. His research interests include game studies, inter- and transmediality, digital media in museums, and participatory cultures.
Gundolf S. Freyermuth (Prof. Dr.) is a professor of media and game studies and co-director of the Cologne Game Lab at TH Köln. He is also an associate professor of comparative media studies at ifs Internationale Filmschule Köln.
Hanns Christian Schmidt is a professor for Game Design at Macromedia University for Applied Sciences (Cologne) and a research assistant at the Institute of Media Culture and Theater at the University of Cologne.
Raven Rusch is an artist, musician and game developer. He
is co-ceo of the start-up neoludic games, and works part-time as research assistant at the Cologne Game Lab of the Technical University Cologne.