Gaming no longer only takes place as a closed interactive experience in front of TV screens, but also as broadcast on streaming platforms or as cultural events in exhibition centers and e-sport arenas. The popularization of new technologies, forms of expression, and online services has had a considerable influence on the academic and journalistic discourse about games. This anthology examines which paratexts gaming cultures have produced - i.e., in which forms and formats and through which channels we talk (and write) about games - as well as the way in which paratexts influence the development of games. How is knowledge about games generated and shaped today and how do boundaries between (popular) criticism, journalism, and scholarship have started to blur? In short: How does the paratext change the text?

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Benjamin Beil is a professor for media studies and digital culture at the Department of Media Culture and Theater at the University of Cologne. Gundolf S. Freyermuth is a writer, media producer, and co-founder of the Cologne Game Lab of the Technical University Cologne (in 2010, together with Prof. Björn Bartholdy). 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.