Gaming the System

[NOTE: A version of this work was presented at the 2013 Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference. Here is a PDF of the slide deck.] Measured Representation We’ve seen the fight for diversity in videogame culture gain ground in recent years. Women, people of color, and LGBTIQ identifying individuals and communities have productively re-framed and countered the [...]

In the past year, I have been struck by how often I see videogames as informing other media productions. Up until recently, games were often thought of as struggling for legitimacy by trying (and inevitably failing) to represent/approximate “reality” and/or appealing to more respected art forms. Academics, designers, fans, and media have all been guilty [...]

The Need for Videogame Literacies Kick-Ass is an important film for videogame scholars to see, especially with an audience. Many have made the claim that videogames have influenced film, but this influence has never been more apparent to me than in Kick-Ass. However, my concern is not with tracking the obvious visual/stylistic similarities (e.g. the first [...]

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 [...]