Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2024, Popular Culture

Retro video game collecting has seen an increase in popularity in the recent decade, however, with the increase in popularity of digital gaming and digital media the retro video game collectors are an endangered subculture of the video gaming industry due to the increase in digital gaming and the disappearance of the physical commodity. This research takes an autoethnographic approach and uses theories such as, Pierre Bourdieu's theories regarding capital and the field, Karl Marx's theory of commodity, and Ray Oldenburg's theory of the Third Place to explain the importance of this subculture and why retro video game collecting is worth researching.

Committee: Kristen Rudisill Ph.D (Committee Chair); Jeremy Wallach Ph.D (Committee Member) Subjects: Epistemology