Month: October 2009

Kolumni, Profile 2.09, originally uploaded by FransBadger.

(This column piece is in Finnish, but the main point is to set the ‘learning through games’ discourse in context, and challenge it by approaching games and play as an end in themselves, as autotelic phenomena.)

Kolumni: “Oppia Peleistä” (julkaistu: Profiili, 2/2009, s. 26-27)

Pelit ovat näinä päivinä näkyvästi otsikoissa: toisaalta hehkutetaan peliteollisuuden saavutuksia ja pelimyyntilukuja, jotka tuntuvat uhmaavan taantumankin vaikutuksia. Toisaalta pelit helposti nousevat otsikoihin myös silloin kun haetaan syitä nuorison henkiseen pahoinvointiin tai fyysisen kunnon rappioon. Harvemmin pysähdytään pohtimaan, mitä pelaaminen itse asiassa nykyihmiselle merkitsee. Mitä pelatessa oppii? Continue reading “Kolumni, Profile 2.09”

The Games as Services research project (Pelit palveluiksi) studies the impact of online distribution and publication to game industry, game design and player experiences. Recently some new results were published, pointing out how online gaming and game playing in general has become more acceptable among wider audiences. On the other hand, one finding of the study was that many (60 %) of the respondents still preferred to have a physical product of the game at hand. Link to more information (in Finnish): http://www.uta.fi/laitokset/infim/tutkimuskeskus/ajankohtaista.html?id=39949.

Our new survey, Player Barometer 2009, provides comprehensive information about all types of game playing in Finland. The study is freely available as a Finnish language PDF download from here — and it also includes a short English abstract.