Profiling Academic Research on Digital Games Using Text Mining Tools

Academic research on digital games has been conducted for over 30 years. However, the abundance of disciplines conducting research on the topic makes it challenging for the interested to get a holistic and comprehensive account of past digital game studies. Yet, sophisticated text mining tools designed for structured science information resources, such as the ISI Web of Science or INSPEC, make it possible to conduct insightful literature studies that profile and visualize large knowledge domains. The primary aim of this paper is to profile the research literature from the ISI Web of Science on digital games. More than 2.100 studies between years 1986-2006 were found using a set of digital games-related search words. Secondly, the aim is to find out what are the current “hot” research topics and research trends of the near future. Our profiling study demonstrates that digital game research is indeed highly multidisciplinary, covering more than 170 subject categories of the ISI Web of Science. When combining these categories into larger areas of science, it was found that the three most prominent areas are the Social Sciences (including e.g. psychology and communication), the Health Sciences (e.g. experimental psychology, psychiatry and pediatrics), and Information and Communication Technologies and Mathematics (e.g. computer science theory and methods, software engineering). The fields of Engineering and Arts & Humanities are also well represented in digital game research, although to a much lesser amount. The research in ICT (computer science, information systems etc.) seems to have grown the fastest in the last 10 years. Author