Replicación y extensçao: The missing Latin American experience in global games scholarship

From their development in the early 1960s to their global prominence today, video games are an increasingly ubiquitous feature of entertainment culture. Likewise, video games and their supposed and actual effects on players feature prominently in public discourse and academic research. However, international scholarly outlets have largely omitted the Latin American experience with video games, despite the region’s sustained and growing gaming culture—in some cases, with gameplay rates that outpace regions that are more commonly featured in scholarship (such as the United States). This essay presents as a broad call for scholarship that directly engages with Latin American gamers and gaming culture, as part of larger efforts to move media communication research towards authentic and meaningful global engagement.