The last two weeks have been really busy time in Tampere game studies: first, we co-organised the Narrative Minds and Virtual Worlds conference together with sociology and literature (Mari Hatavara, Matti Hyvärinen and myself were the co-chairs). This conference featured 42 presentations and two keynotes by Marie-Laure Ryan and Jarmila Mildorf.
This week has been busy with the first Pelitutkimuksen päivä (the seminar of Finnish game studies) taking place in Wednesday, Olli Sotamaa as the main organiser on behalf of the Finnish DiGRA Chapter. The first Finnish (masters’) degree price in game studies was also awarded in that event; the winner was Gabriela Rodríguez with her work Learning in Digital Games: A Case Study of a World of Warcraft Guild from the University of Turku. The program also included presentations by Tero Pasanen and Jonne Arjoranta (on the discourses of game violence in Finnish media) and Tero Huttunen (problem gamers as the customers of youth and social work), followed by my comment talk.
Wednesday was also the pre-workshop day of the Physical and Digital in Games and Play seminar — the Hybbi workshop focused on creating concepts for playful hybrid products. Thursday and Friday have been the main seminar days, with 17 presentations. Our invited commentators this year are Annika Waern and Katriina Heljakka.
It will probably take a few days to get my mind to digest all the interesting presentations. There has also been really great discussion going in all of these events, so many thanks again for everyone involved!
frans goes blog 
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