The Winding Road to Discovery: A Review of Gaming Matters: Gaming Matters: Art, Science, Magic, and the Computer Game Medium

            In this review of Ruggill and McAllister's Gaming Matters: Art, Science, Magic, and the Computer Game Medium, I seek to locate their argument within the larger framework of the game studies medium, specifically in that sparsely populated space between macro- and micro-focused game scholarship. This reviewer sees this book as a welcome and needed exploration of the computer game medium and the vast and various artifacts that are part of that medium. Though like so many attempts to define and taxonomize that have come before, Gaming Matters cannot place the computer game medium within a solid construction because of the fluidity and magic inherent to the medium. Despite this, Ruggill and McAllister through their whimsical and multidisciplinary approach offer a comprehensive and intriguing look at the computer game medium that is often forsaken in games research in favor of its larger and smaller constituent parts.