Abstract
In the current discourse on media education, computer games are primarily discussed as media offers, often disregarding the fact that playing games implies a culturally shaped, active and social engagement with the game as artefact, set of rules and history. In this article, a methodological-theoretical approach is developed and specified against the background of educational-theoretical and learning-theoretical considerations, which allows for the pedagogical comprehension, description and analysis of computer games as a specifically situated media-cultural practice. If computer games and their play are thematised as a transformation and production of cultural experiences, then the question of the pedagogical dimension of computer game(s) arises anew. This opens up a field of research that calls for a differentiated approach to media education. The present media-pedagogical and cultural-theoretical approach to the phenomenon of computer games builds on the theoretical roots of games research and understands games as a medial-cultural action.
