events – Page 17 – frans goes blog

Jane McGonical: Game us a better reality

This TED video is definitely worth sharing. Jane McGonigal, a game designer and researcher, makes a bold and entertaining claim that we actually need to play more online games to solve the world problems. Not convinced? Maybe you need to hear what she has to say:

Digarec lecture visit

In February 4th, I will be doing a lecture visit to Potsdam, who are running an interesting Digarec lecture series. My title is “The Dual Structure: Experiencing Digital Games in the Intersection of Gameplay and Media” and you can find an abstract of it from here:

http://www.digarec.de/2010/01/25/digarec-lecture-february-4-2010-with-frans-mayra/#more-911

There should be materials and even a video recording or transcript available online later, so check it out some time after the lecture. [Edit: fixed couple of typos in 6th of February, 2010.]

Gambling studies seminar, Helsinki

Gambling studies seminar, 26.10.2009, originally uploaded by FransBadger.

Pictured is Dr Per Binde, who was the opening speaker of the gambling/gaming studies seminar which takes place today in the University of Helsinki premises. The seminar is organised by Pelitoiminnan tutkimussäätiö (Finnish Foundation for Gaming Research), and you can find more, including the presentation abstracts from the web page:

http://www.pelisaatio.fi/ajankohtaista/20/

The Beatles: Rock Band in INFIM opening party

091020091295, originally uploaded by FransBadger.

I just had to blog this photo, playing the Beatles as the Rock Band version was just so much fun in the opening party of our new department (INFIM) and research centre (TRIM — Tampere Research Center of Information and Media). — You can probably see Timo Nummenmaa as Ringo (drums), and Olli Sotamaa doing the Lennon/McCartney parts (singing, guitar).

Social play in Mindtrek conference

Jaakko Stenros presenting, 30.09.2009, originally uploaded by FransBadger.

Jaakko Stenros is here presenting our paper titled “The Many Faces of Sociability and Social Play in Games”, which emphasises the social aspect of almost all play experiences, and which is not restricted to multiplay (as implemented inside the game app, or even in the surrounding service). Mindtrek conference pages are at: www.mindtrek.org. Other papers from our gamelab team include Nokia co-authored paper on game evaluation methods by Hannu Korhonen, Janne Paavilainen and Hannamari Saarenpää, as well as Markus Montola and Timo Nummenmaa collaborating on paper applying game achievement systems to enhance user experience in photo sharing service, and Annakaisa Kultima presenting paper on casual design values.

Tietoyhteiskunnan uusi vaihe

Finnish Parliament (Eduskunta) will publish a book titled Tehokkuudesta jakamiseen – tietoyhteiskunnan uusi vaihe (From Efficiency to Sharing – the New Phase of Information Society) at October 13th — it is an interesting collection of writings, edited by Demos Helsinki, including also some of my views about the developments towards ludic society, or increase of playfulness in different levels of our media, culture and society.

New games research in DiGRA-09, Brunel

DiGRA-09 @ Brunel, UK, 2.9.2009, originally uploaded by FransBadger.

This week the bi-annual Digital Games Research Association’s international conference takes place in Brunel, UK (the conference pages are here). Near Uxbridge, outskirts of London, the conference is a rather cosy event, with not exactly similar kind of large crowds that have filled the previous three conferences in Utrecht, Vancouver and Tokyo. This has the double effect of comfortable familiarity on the other hand, and perhaps some lack of impetus on the other. But the quality of research looks fine, and that is the most important single thing, of course. Some more photos in my Flickr account, and you can also search for #digra to see the stream of Twitter updates from the audiences of various ongoing sessions. Really great to be in this kind of conference again (missing my family badly, though.)

Nokia and University of Tampere into Collaboration

24.08.2009, originally uploaded by FransBadger.

Photo from today’s press conference that announced the collaboration agreement between Nokia Research and University of Tampere. The idea is to expand the research collaboration into interesting new fields and strengthen existing collaboration areas, such as Human-Computer Interaction and Games Research. Pictured is professor Roope Raisamo (speaking), Rector Kaija Holli and Laboratory Director (NRC) Jyri Huopaniemi (sitting).

Our little lion

21.08.2009, originally uploaded by FransBadger.

The second lion to our family, the little brother was born to Luka today, at five minutes past seven in the evening. Long waited, the birth was finally quick (albeit not painless, like these things tend to go). Happy? Yes. Tired? Very. Now we just stare at his little round face, and try to understand.