Ludosis in Video Game Ontology or How to Live within a Mess
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22435924 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Maro Y Malenko (0009-0000-4173-3671, National Research University Higher School of Economics), Amir M Abu Makhadi (0009-0001-9456-1516, National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 225-253 |
| Publication date | 2026-03-09 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Galactica Media: Journal of Media Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2658-7734 • E-ISSN: 2658-7734 |
| Publisher | Limited Liability Company Scientific Industrial Enterprise - Genesis. Frontier. Science (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.46539/gmd.v8i1.625 |
| OpenAlex | W7134278879 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 25 |
From its very beginning, the field of game studies is haunted by the question of video game ontology: what is a game and what are its fundamental components? Numerous authors, such as Ian Bogost and Alex Gekker, have written on the impossibility of establishing an exhaustive ontology of games. At the same time, game design frameworks, such as MDA or SSM, are being continuously developed, being ontological models themselves, designed for practical application. Striving to compare extant models, many authors in game studies employ the term “ontology” in an uncritical manner, haphazardly inheriting meanings from different disciplines: ranging from philosophy to technical fields. In order to work through the resulting contradictions, the article proposes an overhaul of the video game ontology project, taking into account its roots in computer science, borrowing the concept of conceptualization from the latter—and using this concept to replace the pursuit to pin down the fundamental metaphysics of video games. Drawing from Ian Bogost’s “flat video game ontology” and the post-humanities, the article argues for the necessity of “democratizing” video game metaphysics—so that static models and fundamental definitions are surpassed by mutable conceptualizations made by multiple actors involved in the construction of games (or in their “ludosis”). By analogy with “infra-language” of actor-network theory, the article offers a “ludosis-language”, which can be employed to juxtapose, modify, and construct different ontological models of video games. A project of an interactive platform called LUDOSIS is also described, in order to outline a possible operationalization of the ludosis-language.
Conceptualization · Game art design · Game design · Game Developer · Game studies · Ontology · Video game · Digital Games and Media · Educational Games and Gamification · Information Systems Theories and Implementation
Unit Operations
The Art of Game Design
A New Philosophy of Society
How Long Is the Coast of Britain? Statistical Self-Similarity and Fractional Dimension
Toward principles for the design of ontologies used for knowledge sharing?
Against Game Studies
An Introduction to Game Studies
Beyond Nature and Culture
Staying with the Trouble
Latour's empirical metaphysics
On Actor-Network Theory. A Few Clarifications, Plus More Than a Few Complications
| Highly cited | No |
|---|