Article in AKGWDS Jubilee Volume

Published on February 12, 2026 by Nils Bühler, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

The Working Group on Humanities Research and Digital Games (Arbeitskreis Geisteswissenschaften und Digitale Spiele, AKGWDS) has turned 10 years old and will release a jubilee volume to mark this occasion. The volume looks back at the group's most important topics of debate. I was invited to reflect on the relationship between history and digital games in these debates: What role did history in games, the history of games, and the history of game contexts play? The article is now available as an article in the AKGWDS blog.

My conclusion (in summary): The debate culture in AKGWDS has established history within games strongly, while the other perspectives should be further developed. A broader integration especially of the game and game context history can help to question assumptions and understand media representations of history differently.