Arcade Academia Podcast

Arcade Academia
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Using MLA, APA, and any citation necessary to level up our understanding of how video games intersect with real life. arcadeacademia.substack.com

Episodes

  1. 1d ago

    Arcade Academia Episode 3: FNAF, Recreational Fear, and Why We Love Horror With Prof. Ashley Brandon

    By Emily Reuben and Daley Wilhelm Welcome to episode three of Arcade Academia. We’re Emily Reuben and Daley Wilhelm, two lifelong scholars finally using our journalism backgrounds and master’s degrees to do something more than write just another gaming hot take. Arcade Academia isn’t a gaming news podcast: each episode is an exhaustively researched deep dive into scholarly examinations of video games. In this episode, we spoke with filmmaker and Associate Professor of Film, Television, and Media Arts at Quinnipiac University, Ashley Brandon. Ashley directed the award-winning horror-comedy Yummo Spot and teaches a course at Quinnipiac titled “Be Afraid,” in which she teaches students about the influences of horror on culture. To celebrate spooky season, we spoke with Ashley to learn more about the genre: Why do we love horror? Are horror games like Five Nights at Freddy’s appropriate for children? What potential benefits can children gain from exposure to scary content? Thanks for reading Arcade Academia Podcast! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work. The following transcript has been edited for clarity and readability. Daley Wilhelm: Welcome back to Arcade Academia. I’m Daley Wilhelm. Emily Reuben: And I’m Emily Reuben. Daley Wilhelm: In honor of spooky season, we wanted to examine the booming business of horror games. We spoke with Ashley Brandon, an associate professor of film, television, and media arts at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, about how children interact with horror media, especially mascot horror games like Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNAF). Emily Reuben: As a caveat before we jump in, much of the research on horror falls under film and media studies rather than gaming. What does exist usually focuses on violence, not horror as a broader genre. As we all know, horror doesn’t always correlate with violence, so research on film and spectatorship is definitely different from gaming and interactive play. But we can apply research done on film and media to the medium of gaming. Daley Wilhelm: That said, we are always looking for more subject-matter experts, and we’re just scratching the surface of what we can cover in horror gaming. Like Emily said, violence is one angle that we mean to address in a later episode. But for this one, we wanted to focus on mascot horror as a subgenre and what we could find about children interacting with the genre as a whole, rather than just the medium of video games. Emily Reuben: Now, with the housekeeping out of the way, happy Halloween everybody! Here is Professor Ashley Brandon. Ashley Brandon: I’m Ashley Brandon. I’m a professor of film, television, and media arts at Quinnipiac University, but I am also a filmmaker, primarily working in the horror genre as a director and an editor. Aside from that, I also teach several courses on horror. I teach a variety of film production courses: directing, cinematography, and post-production. But really, my favorite course that I teach is on horror. It’s called Be Afraid. We go over the history of horror and horror and society, but then we also talk about queer horror, Black horror, and the students are not only researchers in the class, but they are also horror filmmakers who are making horror films. So I’ve always been interested in horror. It’s like primarily what I love making and teaching most. Emily Reuben: We saw you did some work for Bloody Disgusting. What was that? Ashley Brandon: Yeah, so I made a short film. It would have come out in 2024. It’s kind of a surreal horror-comedy called Yummo Spot. It’s a spec for a feature that I’m working on. It’s like very Adult Swim-esque in terms of it being awkward horror. We played the festival circuit: Fantastic Fest, a bunch of really amazing genre festivals, and Bloody Disgusting saw it at a festival and decided to pick it up for their Bloody Bite series, which is a short horror film series they do. You can see it on Tubi, Screambox, and other platforms, but that was really awesome. I love Bloody Disgusting, so it was like so cool. Emily Reuben: Bloody Disgusting and Fangoria are some of my favorite publications ever, so you are just like the coolest person to me right now. But that kind of brings us to the question: why does horror appeal to people in the first place? Ashley Brandon: That’s like the age-old question, right? Because initially, when you think of something horrific, it has such a negative connotation, right? It’s like, why would anyone want to experience anything horrific? So how is this genre of media that is banking on making you scared and horrified one of the most popular genres out there, right? It’s really contradictory, right? It all comes down to something known as recreational fear. People, when they talk about it, it mostly has to do with horror media. But recreational fear is also one of the reasons why people are afraid to go on roller coasters, but then go on them, or why people are afraid to bungee jump but then go bungee jumping. It’s an experience that simulates fear where everything is still safe. You still experience the fear, but safety measures are in place. There’s a strong likelihood that you’re going to end up fine physically and mentally. Your well-being will be fine. Recreational Horror In his 1990 book, The Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of the Heart, philosopher Noël Carroll coined the term “the paradox of horror” to address the seemingly paradoxical enjoyment people felt from watching horror media. How is it that people derive enjoyment from experiences that are meant to be frightening? Building on Carroll’s research, Danish researcher Mathias Clasen and his colleagues at Aarhus University began instead to use the term “recreational fear” to describe people seeking out haunted house attractions, looking for the mixture of fear and enjoyment that can be found in games with jump scares similar to those that can be experienced (enjoyed?) in a horror game like Five Nights at Freddy’s. Indeed, according to a study on a haunted house attraction (complete with a man wearing a pig mask and wielding a chainsaw) by Aarhus University’s Recreational Fear Lab, “The behavioral data suggest that both fear and enjoyment are intrinsically connected to surprise” (Anderson et. al., 2020). Ashley Brandon: Since the dawn of time, we've been telling horror stories around fires, right? Storytelling has always incorporated horror, fear, or danger in some way. And so we’ve been practicing recreational fear for a long time. Recreational fear makes us feel good. So when we’re scared, playing a game or watching a movie, and something scary is about to happen, we have a psychological change, but also a biological change that happens to our bodies. We get a release of chemicals and hormones like dopamine, adrenaline, and definitely a little bit of cortisol as well. These make us feel electric and alive because what we’re actually tapping into is fight or flight. So we sense danger, threat. This is happening instinctively. We can’t really control fight or flight once the horror passes. So let’s say the jump scare passes, and as the tension goes down, all of that energy and those chemicals are still in us. They don’t just disappear. But what happens is something called the excitation transfer theory: that energy transfers into something different. That typically becomes feelings of calm, joy, relief, and euphoria. So really, when we’re watching horror, and we don’t die watching it — we get through the scare — when we get off the roller coaster, we’re really chasing a high when we watch something scary because our body, in a very coincidental way, has a reward system for surviving tough things. Excitation transfer theory Excitation transfer theory was developed in the 1970s by media psychologist Dolf Zillman. The example of watching a thrilling or else scary movie is often used to explain the process: the film creates psychological and physiological arousal… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arcadeacademia.substack.com

  2. Jul 10

    Arcade Academia DLC 2: Gaming Sexism with Amanda C. Cote

    by Emily Reuben and Daley Wilhelm Click here to listen to Arcade Academia DLC 2: Gaming Sexism with Amanda C. Cote. In our last episode, we attempted to untangle the ties between so-called girl games, cozy games, and the overall rise of casual gaming. Our research into the origins of the sometimes maligned term of “casual gaming” led us to an excellent, enlightening read: Gaming Sexism: Gender and Identity in the Era of Casual Video Games. Amanda C. Cote’s book gave voice to the experiences of women in gaming spaces, detailed the strategies they employed to coexist peacefully within those spaces, and examined why women frequently experience hostility while playing online. The invalidation of women gamers was spoken about as a given in the previous episode, the default state of the gaming industry after developers decided that boys were the more profitable audience. Therefore, we were especially eager to speak with Cote about her research into the roots of how gatekeeping and gaming unfortunately go hand in hand. 🎧 Credits: Hosts: Emily Reuben and Daley Wilhelm Guest: Amanda C. Cote Music: “Magic Escape Room” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 🎧 Follow us on: Spotify— Arcade Academia Instagram — @arcadeacademia BlueSky — @arcadeacademia.bsky.social YouTube — Arcade Academia Daley — @daleywwrites on Instagram|@daleyday.bsky.social on BlueSky Emily — @ereuben4915 on Instagram | @songofthenight.bsky.social on BlueSky RESOURCES Cassell, Justine, and Henry Jenkins, editors. From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games. MIT Press, 1998. Chess, Shira. Ready Player Two: Women Gamers and Designed Identity. University of Minnesota Press, 2017. “Connell’s Concept of Hegemonic Masculinity Explained.” The Sociology Guy, 25 Aug. 2025, https://thesociologyguy.com/2025/08/25/connells-concept-of-hegemonic-masculinity-explained/. Consalvo, Mia, and Christopher A. Paul. Real Games: What’s Legitimate and What’s Not in Contemporary Videogames. MIT Press, 2019. Cote, Amanda C. Gaming Sexism: Gender and Identity in the Era of Casual Video Games. New York University Press, 2020. Hall, Stuart, et al. Selected Writings on Race and Difference. Duke University Press, 2021. Sarkeesian, Anita. “Anita Sarkeesian Visits Professor Melanie Klein’s Class_Part 2.” Breatheasy Productions, 9 Oct. 2010. Shaw, Adrienne. Gaming at the Edge: Sexuality and Gender at the Margins of Gamer Culture. University of Minnesota Press, 2014. Sheffield, Brandon. “Opinion: The Hardcore Niche.” Game Developer, 3 July 2008, www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/opinion-the-hardcore-niche. Vossen, Emma. “The Magic Circle and Consent in Gaming Practices.” Feminism in Play, edited by Kishonna L. Gray, Gerald Voorhees, and Emma Vossen, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, pp. 205–220. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arcadeacademia.substack.com

  3. May 1

    Arcade Academia Episode 2: Gabbing about “Girl Games” with Ashley Rezvani

    By Emily Reuben and Daley Wilhelm Welcome to episode two of Arcade Academia. We’re Emily Reuben and Daley Wilhelm, two lifelong scholars finally using our journalism backgrounds and master’s degrees to do something more than write just another gaming hot take. Arcade Academia isn’t a gaming news podcast: each episode is an exhaustively researched deep dive into scholarly examinations of video games. In this episode, we explore the concept of “girl games.” What differentiates a girl game from other video games? Are girl games a thing of the past? What girl games are there today? We asked Ashley Rezvani, an assistant professor of game design and interactive media at the University of Montana, to help us dissect this fascinating and sometimes controversial subject. A special thank you to Ash Rezvani for listening to our theories and sharing her research and experience. You can check out more of her insights into game studies and game design on her YouTube channel, The Magic Circle. Ash and her two brothers are the founders of Ludonaut Games, a board game company that will soon launch its first card game, “In A World,” on May 6, 2026. You can check it out at ludonautgames.com and/or preorder it on Amazon. 🎧 Credits: Hosts: Emily Reuben and Daley Wilhelm Daley Guest: Ashley Rezvani | @themagiccircle on YouTube | Ludonaut GamesMusic: “Magic Escape Room” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arcadeacademia.substack.com

  4. Jan 22

    Arcade Academia DLC 1: Player Participation in Video Game Preservation

    by Emily Reuben and Daley Wilhelm Mattel Electronics’ Intellivision console, released in 1979, was a direct competitor to the Atari 2600. Though not as well-remembered today, the Intellivision gets credit for introducing the concept of downloadable content, or DLC, into the world of gaming. The 1980 online service PlayCable allowed gamers to download games to their Intellivision via their cable TV connection. The 1997 real-time strategy game “Total Annihilation” is credited as the first game to expand via DLC. Developer Cavedog Entertainment regularly added new units, scenarios, and maps for players to download for free. Today, DLC is almost an expected aspect of most video games. It allows game developers to freshen up their titles with new content without releasing a whole new game. We’re doing the same with our podcast: our first episode focused on video game preservation, a complicated and ever-evolving subject. Happily, the publication of our inaugural episode attracted the attention of subject matter experts in the field. Rather than move on from game preservation, we wanted to take full advantage of the additional insights we were given and make a special, extra episode as a kind of DLC expansion. And thus we have Arcade Academia’s first DLC—an interview with Alysha Connor, a preservation specialist at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia, on the complexities of preserving and presenting video games. 🎧 Credits: Hosts: Emily Reuben and Daley WilhelmGuest: Alysha Connor | The Powerhouse MuseumMusic: “Magic Escape Room” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 🎧 Follow us on: Spotify— Arcade Academia Instagram — @arcadeacademia BlueSky — @arcadeacademia.bsky.socialYouTube — Arcade Academia Daley — @daleywwrites on Instagram | @daleyday.bsky.social on BlueSky Emily — @ereuben4915 on Instagram | @songofthenight.bsky.social on BlueSky This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arcadeacademia.substack.com

  5. 11/19/2025

    Arcade Academia Episode 1: Preserving Video Game History — An Interview with Preservationists Phil Salvador and Andrew Borman

    by Emily Reuben and Daley Wilhelm Thanks for reading Arcade Academia Podcast! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. In the inaugural episode of Arcade Academia, hosts Emily Reuben and Daley Wilhelm finally use their journalism backgrounds and M.A.s to do something more than write just another gaming hot take. Arcade Academia isn’t a gaming news podcast: each episode is an exhaustively researched deep dive into scholarly examinations of video games. This very first episode concerns the legacy that video games will leave behind. Speaking with Phil Salvador, the library director of the Video Game History Foundation, and Andrew Borman, director of preservation at The Strong National Museum of Play, this episode explores the world of video game preservation and the steps the industry is (and isn’t) taking to protect video game history. 🎧 Credits: Hosts: Emily Reuben and Daley Wilhelm Guests: Andrew Borman — @borman.bsky.social | museumofplay.orgPhil Salvador — @philsalv.bsky.social | gamehistory.orgMusic: “Magic Escape Room” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 🎧 Follow us on: Spotify— Arcade AcademiaInstagram — @arcadeacademiaBlueSky — @arcadeacademia.bsky.socialYouTube — Arcade Academia Daley — @daleywwrites on Instagram |@daleyday.bsky.social on BlueSkyEmily — @ereuben4915 on Instagram | @songofthenight.bsky.social on BlueSky RESOURCES Bailey, Dustin. “Fallout Creator Tim Cain Says He Was ‘Ordered to Destroy’ His Personal Archive of the RPG’s Development: ‘Individuals and Organizations Actively Work against Preservation.’” GamesRadar+, 24 Apr. 2025, www.gamesradar.com/games/fallout/fallout-creator-tim-cain-says-he-was-ordered-to-destroy-his-personal-archive-of-the-rpgs-development-individuals-and-organizations-actively-work-against-preservation/. Bailey, Dustin. “Publishers Are Absolutely Terrified ‘Preserved Video Games Would Be Used for Recreational Purposes,’ so the US Copyright Office Has Struck down a Major Effort for Game Preservation.” GamesRadar+, 25 Oct. 2024, www.gamesradar.com/games/publishers-are-absolutely-terrified-preserved-video-games-would-be-used-for-recreational-purposes-so-the-us-copyright-office-has-struck-down-a-major-effort-for-game-preservation/. Bailey, Dustin, and Leri, Michael. “‘30 Years of History Reside in Our Tape Backups’: PlayStation’s Building a Game Preservation Mineshaft Vault with 200 Million Files Going back to a 1994 Build of PS1 JRPG Arc the Lad.” GamesRadar+, 28 Mar. 2025, www.gamesradar.com/games/30-years-of-history-reside-in-our-tape-backups-playstations-building-a-game-preservation-mineshaft-vault-with-200-million-files-going-back-to-a-1994-build-of-ps1-jrpg-arc-the-lad/. Barbosa, Alessandro. “PS3, PS Vita Stores Will Not Be Closing as Sony Backtracks on Controversial Decision.” GameSpot, 19 Apr. 2021, www.gamespot.com/articles/ps3-ps-vita-stores-will-not-be-closing-as-sony-backtracks-on-controversial-decision/1100-6490312/. Bonthuys, Darryn. “Why Game Preservation Is so Important to Microsoft.” GameSpot, 5 Apr. 2021, www.gamespot.com/articles/why-game-preservation-is-so-important-to-microsoft/1100-6489733/. Bradford, Matt. “Gabe Newell: Piracy Is an Issue of Service, Not Price.” GamesRadar, 25 Oct. 2011, www.gamesradar.com/gabe-newell-piracy-issue-service-not-price/. Buckley, Sean. “Nintendo’s EShop Closures Are Putting Generations of Games out of Reach.” Engadget, 29 Mar. 2023, www.engadget.com/nintendos-eshop-closures-are-putting-generations-of-games-out-of-reach-140052823.html. Cifaldi, Frank. “Preserving Game History: It’s Just Us.” Gdcvault.com, 2025, gdcvault.com/play/1034967/Preserving-Game-History-It-s. Cifaldi, Frank. Video Game History Hour. Podcast, “Episode 122: Save the Games Recap,” Video Game History Foundation, 8 Jan. 2025, gamehistory.org/episode-122-save-the-games-recap/. Dinsdale, Ryan. “YouTuber Spends $22,000 to Buy Every Wii U and 3DS Game ahead of Nintendo EShop Shutdown.” IGN, 20 Mar. 2023, www.ign.com/articles/youtuber-spends-22000-to-buy-every-wii-u-and-3ds-game-ahead-of-nintendo-eshop-shutdown. “E.T. And the U.S Market Crash.” National Videogame Museum, thenvm.org/objects/e-t-and-the-u-s-market-crash/. Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies . 28 Oct. 2024, public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2024-24563.pdf. Good, Owen S. “Sony Confirms PlayStation Store for PS3, PS Vita Closing This Summer.” Polygon, Polygon.com, 29 Mar. 2021, www.polygon.com/22356858/playstation-store-shut-down-ps3-ps-vita-psp-date-redownload-purchases/. Accessed 18 Nov. 2025. Khalil, Jirard. “I Bought EVERY Nintendo Wii U & 3DS Game before the Nintendo EShop Closes.” YouTube, 18 Mar. 2023, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujHUMG0Uovs. Lex Briscuso. “Netflix to Remove ‘Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’ from Platform in an Effort to Ditch Interactive Programming.” IGN, 9 May 2025, www.ign.com/articles/netflix-to-remove-black-mirror-bandersnatch-from-platform-in-an-effort-to-ditch-interactive-programming. Moon, Mariella. “Sony Has Been Backing up Its PS5 Game Builds as Part of a Preservation Effort.” Engadget, 29 Mar. 2025, www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/sony-has-been-backing-up-its-ps5-game-builds-as-part-of-a-preservation-effort-150025423.html?src=rss&guccounter=1. “Museum Obtains Rare Demo of Id Software’s Super Mario Bros. 3 PC Port.” Ars Technica, 13 July 2021, arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/07/museum-obtains-rare-demo-of-id-softwares-super-mario-bros-3-pc-port/. Ore, Jonathan. “Preserving Video Game History Is about More than Nostalgia.” CBC, 17 Jan. 2017, www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/video-game-preservation-movement-1.3937421. Orland, Kyle. “Can an Online Library of Classic Video Games Ever Be Legal?” Ars Technica, 25 Apr. 2024, arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/04/can-an-online-library-of-classic-video-games-ever-be-legal/. Parrish, Ash. “Saints Row Developer Volition Permanently Shuts Down.” The Verge, 31 Aug. 2023, www.theverge.com/2023/8/31/23854126/volition-shuts-down-embracer-group-saints-row. Robarge, Drew. “From Landfill to Smithsonian Collections: ‘E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial’ Atari 2600 Game.” National Museum of American History Behring Center, 15 Dec. 2014, americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/landfill-smithsonian-collections-et-extra-terrestrial-atari-2600-game. Ruberg, Bo. “Bio & Contact / Our Glass Lake.” Ourglasslake.com, 2022, ourglasslake.com/about/. Ryan, Jim. “PlayStation Store on PS3 and PS Vita Will Continue Operations.” PlayStation.Blog, 19 Apr. 2021, blog.playstation.com/2021/04/19/playstation-store-on-ps3-and-ps-vita-will-continue-operations/. Salvador, Phil. “Statement on the DMCA 2024 Triennial Review Ruling | Video Game History Foundation.” Video Game History Foundation, 25 Oct. 2024, gamehistory.org/dmca-2024-statement/. Salvador, Phil. “Survey of the Video Game Reissue Market in the United States.” Zenodo, 10 July 2023, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7996492. Scott, Ross. “Stop Killing Games.” Stop Killing Games, www.stopkillinggames.com/. “SIGGRAPH Asia 2024.” Siggraph Asia 2024 Tokyo, 30 Oct. 2023, asia.siggraph.org/2024/index.html. “Square Enix, Capcom, Taito, and Sega aim to archive past development materials to preserve historical assets for research and exhibitions [SIGGRAPH Asia 2024],” Game Makers Japan, 12 Dec. 2024, gamemakers.jp/article/2024_12_27_89320/. “The Digital Millennium Copyright Act.” www.copyright.gov, 2022, www.copyright.gov/dmca/. Totilo, Stephen. PlayStation’s Extraordinary Effort to Preserve Its Game-Making History. 28 Mar. 2025, www.gamefile.news/p/playstations-extraordinary-effort. “Unacceptable Loss: Video Game Preservation in Libraries and Archives,” Software Preservation Network, 2025, www.softwarepreservationnetwork.org/unacceptable-loss-video-game-preservation-in-libraries-and-archives/. Wheeler, David. “Digital Preservation Symposium at the Strong Draws Global Gamers to Rochester.” WHEC.com, 22 Aug. … This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit arcadeacademia.substack.com

    Arcade Academia Episode 1: Preserving Video Game History — An Interview with Preservationists Phil Salvador and Andrew Borman
  • 5 Episodes

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Using MLA, APA, and any citation necessary to level up our understanding of how video games intersect with real life. arcadeacademia.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Arcade Academia
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    5
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Arcade Academia
  • Show Website
    Arcade Academia Podcast