The ITU has just posted a number of PhD scholarships.
You may be most interested in project proposals within the Innovative Communication area; for instance Uses of online media genres in political communication.
Send forth the applications.
Tag: Opslag
New essay on games in culture
I’ve just published a brief essay on Game Research entitled No Medium is an Island: An essay on the Video Game and its cultural neighborhood. It makes comparisons between the cultural history of video games and that of film. The comment field at the bottom of the page is open :-)
My ITU Game Lecture on 5 Sep
On 5 September (15:00 – 17:00) I’ll be speaking at the ITU as part of the Game Center‘s Game Lecture Series.
Title: A practical guide to winning and losing: How players deal with shame, glory, and each other
Abstract: A computer will handle the rules of a game in a fair-minded algorithmic fashion. Players, however, will not. To players, interaction during play (and how to deal with victory and defeat) entails a complex negotiation of social norms. Based on empirical data on multi-player gaming, this talk will explore how players handle competition, collaboration, shame, and glory as they strive to achieve the game goals.
Game Lecture at ITU tomorrow: Can you make them cry without tearing your hair out?
Can you make them cry without tearing your hair out?
– Emotional Characters
Associate Professor Katherine Isbister, Rensselaer Politechnic Institute
Time and Place:
Thursday June 7th, 16:15-17:30. Auditorium 3, ITU.
Continue reading Game Lecture at ITU tomorrow: Can you make them cry without tearing your hair out?
Players’ Realm anthology launched
Players’ Realm: Studies on the Culture of Videogames and Gaming which I’ve edited along with Patrick Williams has now been published. There’s info on the book’s own page and it is available at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and at other self-respecting book dealers.
I have a chapter in the book entitled Who Governs the Gamers? Political Power in Large Game Worlds which examines how classical debates of political theory relate to game worlds.
I’d like to thank everybody involved for their dedicated and professional attitude towards the project.
Dissertation arrives in print
My dissertation has arrived in printed form. If you’d like a copy, come by the office or drop me a line.
Game positions offered
The IT University (http://www.itu.dk/), home of the Center for Computer Games Research (http://game.itu.dk), is seeking applicants for two positions as Associate or Assistant Professor of game development. Continue reading Game positions offered
Plans and Purposes: Final version of dissertation
I’ve now uploaded the final version of my dissertation Plans and Purposes: How videogame goals shape player behaviour (4.5MB PDF).
It differs from the previously uploaded draft by having fewer obvious typos. Nothing of substance was changed, I assure you. More info is available at the PhD page.
A canon of significant games
Some time ago the Danish minister of culture initiated an effort to establish a series of cultural “canons”, listing the most important works in a range of genre/media.
This initiative, of course, spurred on all kinds of ignored forms of expression to publish their own lists. And so, along with colleagues from the Danish game researcher network spilforskning.dk and at the suggestion of Multimedieforeningen (the Danish game business association), I have been involved in picking out the 20-something most important videogames ever. In our humble opinion, of course.
And the listed are… (with links to descriptions in Danish):
- Adventure
- Civilization-serien
- Computer Space
- Death Race
- Donkey Kong
- Doom
- Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty
- Elite
- Final Fantasy-serien
- Gauntlet
- Grand Theft Auto-serien
- Madden
- Maze War
- Microsoft Flight Simulator
- MUD1
- M.U.L.E.
- Myst
- Neverwinter Nights
- Pac-Man
- SimCity
- Soul Calibur
- Spacewar
- StarCraft
- Tetris
- The Elder Scrolls-serien
- The Sims
- Ultima Online
- World of Warcraft
Our initiative has recieved some attention. For instance:
- Berlingske Tidende: Computerspil får ny kanon
- Computerworld: De mest betydningsfulde computerspil i verden
- TV2 Nyhederne (2/1-2007): Kanon for computerspil og De mest betydningsfulde spil
New article on videogames and economic game theory
The Christmas issue of Game Studies has hit the streets. This implies that my own article The Games Economists Play – Implications of Economic Game Theory for the Study of Computer Games has now been revealed.
Here’s the abstract:
It is a source of confusion that economists for decades have worked on “game theory” while studying economic behaviour. However, while not focused on games in the recreational sense this perspective does provide a highly meticulous complementary framework for the understanding of computer game structure and player behaviour. This article attempts to extract useful analytic concepts and insights from economic game theory and to give suggestions for how these might be put to concrete use in the study of computer games. A non-technical introduction is given, the framework is applied to computer games, a brief case study is performed and finally ideas for future research are presented.
What more can you ask for?
And hey, merry Christmas out there.