Peripheral Religions and Games. Introduction

This introduction presents the conceptual framework for the special issue Peripheral Religions and Games, peripheral religions and the relevance of focusing on such within the context of game culture studies. Considered as a rarely explicitly, but often implicitly understood phenomenon of religion in the context of game cultures, the goal of this special issue is to explore the presence, function, and design of peripheral religions and religious practices both across the fields of digital and analogue games. Based on previous research in religious studies and theology, and rooted in practice research, peripherality will be mapped out as a socio-cultural, relational, practice based, and context-based category for specific communities of religious practice. In parallel, through mapping out the conceptual framework, the specific perspectives applied by the authors of this special issue are introduced.