Tag: PhD

End of level for Gonzalo Frasca

Billede004(8)
Former Urugayan ITU resident and PhD program co-sufferer Gonzalo Frasca just (yesterday) told the world how games, play, and rhetorics are connected thus earning himself the non-refundable title of PhD.
Because of exams I could only attend the esteemed candidate’s presentation (thus missing out on the subsequent Q&A fun) but what I heard seemed both coherent and science-like. I cannot be more specific since I was concentrating on taking low-quality pictures with my clumsy phone.

Congratulations, Dr.

Anne Mette Thorhauge defends game PhD

Anne Mette Thorhauge defendes her PhD dissertationAnne Mette Thorhauge of Copenhagen University just defended her (Danish) dissertation entitled The Computer Game as Communication Form. Topic-wise, Anne Mette’s work seems quite close to my own, so I look forward to reading her text soon. I might, perhaps, disagree with her conceptualization of rules as something “established and maintained by communication”, but it could just be a definition issue and life is surely too short to argue about those.

Either way: Congratulations Anne Mette :-)

PhD defense completed – get ready

Dr Schmith

This Thursday I succesfully defended my PhD thesis entitled Plans and Purposes: How Videogame Goals Shape Player Behaviour (slides / preliminary dissertation final dissertation).

The opponents asked reasonable questions, the technical equipment worked flawlessly, the post-defense red wine was half-decent, and any post-defence tension was relieved through honorable Guitar Hero combat. Thanks to everyone who showed up.

And a warm congratulations to ex-roomie Miguel Sicart who defended his thesis on games and ethics yesterday (Miguel’s preliminary thesis).

I’ll be uploading the final version of my thesis as soon as it’s ready.

Mission completed.

(oh and I love the Germanification of my name on the ITU posters. It has a nice academic ring).

PhD defense
– “Look, players ARE rational. End of story”.

First European symposium on Computer Games and Emotions

… will be held at ITU on Monday 27.11.2006.

From the official page:

Monday November 27th 2006, 8:30-16:15

IT University of Copenhagen, Rued Langgaards Vej 7, 2300 Copenhagen s, Auditorium 2. How to get here.

The emotional dimension of computer games has has in the recent years became a popular focus for game research and development. While new games appear dubbed as “emotional rollercoaster rides”, academic research projects attempting to understand games and emotions pop up on the fields of game studies, psychology and HCI, to name a few. Even if one does not subscribe to David Freeman’s statement that the next revolution in games is emotional, the topicality of emotions as both a subject and an approach for computer games research seems evident.
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