[Phill and Dr. Rachael Hutchinson, co-founders of the University of Delaware’s academic program in Game Studies and eSports, with five of UD’s best cosplayers at the opening of the UD eSports Arena, February 2020]

When I arrived to the University of Delaware in 2010, I began working with my colleague Dr. Rachael Hutchinson to bring together a network of scholars, students and staff with a mutual interest in studying and analyzing video games and game culture.

We established UD’s Game Studies Research Group in 2012, in which we held critical discussions of game-related research with our colleagues from UD Libraries and the Departments of Art, Communication, English and Computer & Information Sciences. As Co-Directors of the Game Studies Research Group, Rachael and I led the development of UD’s first interdisciplinary Game Studies Minor, which has been active since Fall 2015.

In 2017 I became Chair of the Game Studies program, and in 2019-2020, we established further connections with colleagues in Music, Sport Management and Business Administration, which led to the establishment of an undergraduate BA Major in Game Studies and eSports starting in Fall 2021. That major has become a “destination degree” attracting students from near and far, and it has been my honor to lead the program over the past several years as the program has come into its own and begun to flourish.

I feel fortunate to be part of such a vibrant and active community of scholars in game studies and related fields at UD, and I look forward to growing and expanding our course offerings, campus programming and scholarship related to Game Studies and eSports in the coming years.