Beyond the Industry. A Bordieuan Cartography of the Video Game Field

Pierre Bourdieu's sociological framework has become foundational in Game Studies, underpinning fundamental concepts like Mia Consalvo's gaming capital, Graeme Kirkpatrick's gamer habitus, and Brendan Keogh's video game production field. This article synthesizes research deploying Bourdieu's triad—field, capital, and habitus—to construct a cartography of the video game field. Our theoretical-methodological intervention offers: 1) the exploration of new zones beyond the video game industry; 2) the description of the various types of capital(s) valued in these spaces; and 3) the analysis of the most common habitus deployed within them. Following Deleuze and Guattari's cartographic approach, we frame this not as prescriptive theory but as a navigational tool for mapping fluid territories of practice. The model's boundaries are consciously delimited by both historical temporality and Bourdieusian theory's operational scope.