Gaming the System

I had the opportunity to visit the University of Southern California’s Game Innovation Lab (GIL) last August. Directed by Tracy Fullerton, GIL is a significant component of the now vibrant indie game development scene. GIL is largely responsible for proving that academic game development can gestate innovative and relevant design that escapes the ivory tower and [...]

Education Beyond Edu-games Researching and designing educational videogames continues to be one of the most popular forms of research within the critical tendency of game studies. Without question, the push to leverage the strong and unique persuasive and educational aspects of games via the design of new games is a worthwhile endeavor. However, focusing on [...]

I think it is important for those of us in media studies, and not just with a game studies focus, to teach how to “read” and interpret videogames given their budding status as one of the dominant media forms of the near future. This is particularly important if you subscribe to McKenzie Wark’s central argument [...]

In the past when I have taught race in videogames for my freshman composition classes I have had a hard time explaining how to push beyond representational critiques of racial signification. Naturally students are more adept at analyzing the visual presentation and iconography of race in games than breaking down the more subtle and technical [...]

Twitter is the current hot social network and, for once, I think it is justified. As others have pointed out, what makes Twitter useful is its adherence to simplicity in design and features and the ability to be followed but not follow, or, its asymmetry. Academics have been especially intrigued by its functionality in the classroom [...]