Big fish: Prestige and admiration in game studies scholarship

Game studies is a wide and shallow field that is still developing an identity in academia. This study demonstrates how a descriptive social network analysis can examine admiration and prestige in a relatively small academic field. The results of this study suggests that: male and female game scholars were more likely to admire male game scholars over female game scholars and the group with the highest prestige were full professors while the group most admired were associate professors/senior lecturers. Visual analyses highlight the role of geography, gender, and rank as key indicators of admiration and prestige. Limitations and conclusions focus on the breadth of games scholarship and the definition of this emerging field.