UCL Games Shed is a network of critical games scholars with a shared vision, but diverse interests, including, but not limited to: games and culture, game localisation and accessibility, marginalised identities, games and education, games and visual cultures, games and decoloniality, and histories of games. Collectively we seek to foster community, bringing together scholars in the field of critical game-related studies to develop and challenge existing paradigms in videogames scholarship.

Games are – and have always been – seen as a source of infinite money. Implicit in this discourse is an initiative to make games what they are not: apolitical, acultural, ‘neutral’. We stand contrary to this exclusionary view of games. Instead, we prioritise play as a way to foster community, creativity, and critical action.

We invoke here the shed – an annex that often holds only what is deemed less valuable, or relevant for specific, particular situations – as the ideal space to build up our network. The shed, in its informal and improvisational nature, allows us to reimagine and act on what we believe games research should be about.

The Games Shed is affiliated to the ReMAP (Research on Media, Arts and Play) centre