The interesting new book, New Directions in the European Fantastic (edited by Sabine Coelsch-Foisner) has been published by Winter Verlag. It includes my article titled “The Global and Local in Fantastic New Media: The Case of Finland”, which is based on the keynote I delivered in the EUROFAN conference. You can find more information about the book from these places at least:
Category: game studies
anything games, games research related
Pelit, pelimaailmat ja fantasian kautta voimaantuminen
[In Finnish] Tässä on luentorunkoni Tieteen päivät 2013 -esityksestä “Pelit, pelimaailmat ja fantasian kautta voimaantuminen”. Muut puhujat sessiossa “Verkkomaailmat – uhka identiteetille vai voimaantumisen mahdollisuus?” olivat Janne Matikainen, Susanna Paasonen ja Tere Vadén.
Lantrek mediaseminaari
[Speaking about game culture studies in Lantrek event in Finnish] Lantrek 2013 pelitapahtuman yhteydessä järjestetään mediaseminaari “Pelaamisen ja oppimisen ulottuvuudet” huomenna 11.1.2013. Ohjelmassa on monta kiinnostavaa alustusta; oma luentoni on otsikoitu “Digitaalinen kulttuuri ja pelitutkimus”. Lantrek-sivut: http://www.lantrek.org/2013/
Edit: tässä on myös itse seminaarin ohjelma: Pelaamisen ja oppimisen ulottuvuudet -ohjelma.
Tieteen päivät: verkkomaailmat-sessio
[In Finnish] Tieteen päivät 2013 alkaa tänään ja tarjoaa jälleen laajasti erilaista mielenkiintoista tutkimustietoa ja keskustelua. Osallistun puheenjohtajana ja alustajana tällaiseen sessioon sunnuntaina, 13.1. klo 12:00-14:00 Helsingin yliopiston päärakennuksen salissa 5 (3. kerros), tervetuloa kuulemaan:
Verkkomaailmat – uhka identiteetille vai voimaantumisen mahdollisuus?
Puheenjohtaja: professori Frans Mäyrä (Tampereen yliopisto)
- Professori Frans Mäyrä (Tampereen yliopisto): Pelit, pelimaailmat ja fantasian kautta voimaantuminen
- Yliopistotutkija Janne Matikainen (Helsingin yliopisto): Identiteetti verkossa – keksittyä vai todellista?
- Professori Susanna Paasonen (Turun yliopisto): Trolleja, meemejä ja vihapuhetta – nettikeskustelujen tunnelataukset
- Professori Tere Vadén (Aalto-yliopisto): Kuinka monta ensimmäistä Internet-vallankumousta maailmaan mahtuu?
Tapahtumaan on vapaa pääsy.
Hybrid Touch
A new Windows laptop with a touch screen is an intriguing proposition. After a couple of days of playing around with my new ASUS Vivobook X202E, I am pretty convinced: there are few obvious challenges, but apart from those, this is clearly the direction our media and information use will be heading in the future.
It is not only about having screen and keyboard and a touchpad as alternative ways of interacting with the same old windows, settings, applications and services. The increased freedom in interaction modalities feels liberating, and having the new (“Metro”) interface and the classic desktop both available is also contributing to the feeling that using a computer is now fundamentally altered. The touch screen is probably just an intermediate step; there are already some systems that come with pattern and movement recognition software that will recognize gestures, and when we are in the millimeter class of precision (see: https://leapmotion.com/), there is nothing stopping developers from coming up with games and utilities that will react to a blink of an eye or wrinkle on a brow. Gestures will feel unnatural in some situations, spoken commands in some others, like mouse, keyboard or touch screen all have their non-optimal use contexts — but all together, all these increasing alteratives will make it more free and more natural to do what we want to do, where-ever we want to do that.
The hybrid interface of Windows 8 is an obvious work-in-progress thing. Sometimes you click something in the Metro tiles and are suddenly taken to the traditional desktop app. Sometimes you will find a Metro-looking UI element stuck in the middle of traditional Windows stuff. It is confusing, to say the least. But I find it exhilarating: finally we have something interesting happening, something new. And it is not obvious what the right solutions to these multiple challenges and problems (of interacting with a plethora of different functionalities, applications and services with multiple different interaction techniques) will be. So: there is going to be interesting times ahead! Already it puts a smile to my face when with a flick of a finger I jump from blog writing to spreadsheet and then into Angry Birds Space, that works beautifully, like many other touch-enabled games that I tested from the Windows Store.
This ASUS laptop itself is also a sort of compromise. If a really optimal, top-of-the-line ultrabook with a fast SSD, touch screen and all the latest bells and whistles costs here perhaps around 1200 euros, this thing was only half of that. The 11,6″ touch screen is fine for me: it is bright, sharp and responsive, even while there is light leaking through from the corners and viewing angles are far from perfect. The processor could be speedier, there could be more memory (there is 4 GB), and the keyboard definitely would profit from backlit keys, but I am not complaining too much. The battery is too small to keep up on the road (it goes for maybe 3-4 hours and cannot be replaced by user), but I will be using this thing in home. The hard drive is larger than your typical SSD (320 GB nominal capacity, divided into two logical drives), but it is of course slower (and makes a bit of noise now and then) as compared to a solid state disk. So, there is one potential upgrade target, if wanted. But reinstalling the OS (and paying for a new licence key, as the preinstalled OEM Windows 8 does not come with a valid, user-accessible product key), all the drivers and all the applications — plus rehearsing all those tweaks and modifications to the OS I have done already — all of that feels too much hassle right now. ASUS has done admirable job in preparing so nice a package to the market in this price. Mechanical construction is solid, keyboard is very good, touchpad also ok, and it is easy to compare this e.g. to Macbook Air, even while I personally would not want to move into using the Mac OS. So, to conclude: small laptop that feels just right for me, right now. An interesting learning and testing environment.
eEemeli 2013: Oppimispelit ja pelillisyys oppimisessa
(Spreading word about the competition of the best playful / edugame of Finland) eEemeli on valtakunnallinen laatukilpailu parhaan interaktiivisen median oppimisratkaisusta. Kilpailun tavoitteena on kannustaa toimijoita luomaan ja kehittämään uusia e-oppimisratkaisuja sekä löytää uusia hyviä käytänteitä ja menestystarinoita. Kilpailusta lisää: http://eoppimiskeskus.fi/eemeli
Pervasive Media without Borders
Having spent some time travelling to the other side of the world recently, I have come to think about the role of Internet, content and technology a bit differently than before. The key lesson has been how useless the promises of various media and service ecosystems are, if you cannot access them. You might have bought access to a streaming media service that would be really useful for you and your family while you are away from your friends and family, but you cannot use it, since streaming media is just extremely expensive. Or you might go out and buy a DVD or Blu-ray, but you cannot play it on your device, since it is coming from another “Area” than that of the content you just bought. It is no matter if you try using your iTunes content, something that you could buy from Google Play, or from Microsoft – all those shiny devices and smart services are inherently fragile, dependent on whether there is an open Wi-Fi hotspot somewhere (probably with a 50 megabyte/30 minutes download cap), where you could try to make them run for a moment.
Having to admit that living with unlimited Internet broadband in a well-connected Western country definitely frames this issue as a “First World Problem”, but the lack of a global, pervasive Internet backbone is an issue larger than that. As long as our network technologies are based on high-speed access that is restricted to few urban centres, the true usefulness and radically democratizing potential of Internet and connected services remains limited at best. We need much more ambitious endeavours to get the entire planed connected: this is an issue that can be backed up by commercial, political and even ecological reasons. Establishing solid, reliable links between people living in their villages in the South and the North as well as in the East and the West, can promote local empowerment as well as global collaboration and exchange that is qualitative leap over the current situation.
Satellite data is prohibitively expensive today, but if the initiatives in this area would be given a high enough priority, there is no stopping us having a truly networked world where the global “infosphere” of sharing and communication would be available on equal basis, regardless of the geographical location.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all readers of this blog!
Hamilton, Wellington, Auckland
Our visit in New Zealand is soon over; after Christmas we will start packing and then return to the land of snow.
The visit has been an inspiring and memorable experience. Many thanks to Gareth Schott and his colleagues in the department of Screen and Media Studies of the University of Waikato for hosting the visit. Thanks also to the Nokia Visiting Professor grant and the Marsden Fund for making the visit possible.
In addition to Hamilton we have visited several other places in New Zealand, particularly in the North Island. Volcanoes, hot springs, geysers, waterfalls, kiwi birds and kiwi fruits – we have seen it all.
There has been a couple of special visits: I gave a talk about the game research in the Classification Office and we took the opportunity to do sight-seeing in Wellington for a couple of days. Another major trip was to the South Island: we flew to Queenstown via Christchurch, with the aim to do a day-trip and cruise to Milford Sound. Unfortunately the road to Milford was closed and our day-trip cancelled. We spent two days in Queenstown instead. Finally, there was kind invitation to come and see the work of game art and programming students in Media Design School in Auckland. Interesting demonstrations and a lively, interesting city.
There is much to write from all kinds of interesting experiences in New Zealand, but since I am typing this with the small iPhone keyboard, I have to stop now. (Good and affordable Internet connections are not among the strengths of this country.)
Merry Christmas – Meri Kirihimete ki a koe me te whānau!
Call for Papers: Physical and Digital in Games and Play seminar
Call for Papers: Physical and Digital in Games and Play seminar
May 29-31, 2013, University of Tampere, FINLAND
Digital games have had a visible role on the contemporary rise of game cultures and game studies, but there are still under-explored research areas in the relation of digital games to other forms of games and play, including e.g. traditional card and board games, play with physical toys, paper-based puzzles, and physical sport games. The research carried out in such areas holds potential for both interesting comparative work in theoretical and empirical game studies, as well as for serving inspiration for experimental design research into hybrid, digital-analogue or augmented game designs.
‘Physical and Digital in Games and Play’ seminar invites presentations from multiple topics related to the unique characteristics of physical play or digital play, as well as to the interplay of these two. The aim of the seminar is to bring together scholars of games and play from diverse fields and to stimulate dialogue between them.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
• Theoretical analyses of hybrid games, hybrid toys and hybridity in games
• Case-studies of hybrid play products
• Hybrid experiences in physical and digital play
• Toy design and designer toys
• Board game and table top game design
• Sports and exergames
• Game franchising and IP
• Collectibles cultures
• Cosplay
• Augmented reality games
• Live action role-playing
• History of toys
• Avatar/Body/Doll
• Digital copy vs. physical copy
• Game industry vs. toy industry
• Folk games, folk toys and player created hybridity
• 3D Printing and games
• Games and art, playgrounds and museums, toys and readymade
• Physical and digital in gambling
The seminar is the ninth in the annual series of game studies working paper seminars organised by Game Research Lab at University of Tampere. Due to the work-in-progress emphasis, we strongly encourage submitting late breaking results, working papers and/or submissions from graduate students. Early considerations from projects currently in progress are most welcome, as the purpose of the seminar is to have peer-to-peer discussions and thereby provide support in refining and improving research work in this area. Tentative plans have been made on a publication of selected papers.
The papers to be presented will be chosen based on extended abstract review. Full papers are distributed prior the event to all participants, in order to facilitate discussion.
The two-day event consists of themed sessions that aim to introduce current research projects and discuss ongoing work in studies of games industry, innovation and design processes. The seminar will be chaired by Professor Frans Mäyrä (School of Information Sciences, University of Tampere). There will be invited paper commentators who will be announced later.
The seminar will be held in Tampere, Finland and will be free of charge; the number of participants will be restricted.
Important Dates
* Abstract Deadline: February 25, 2013
* Notification of Acceptance: March 11, 2013
* Full Paper deadline: April 22, 2013
* Seminar dates: May 29-31, 2013
Submission Guidelines
The extended abstract submissions should be between 500-1000 words (excluding references). Abstracts should be sent to <physicaldigitalseminar {at} gmail.com> as plain text only (no attachments). Guidelines for submitting a full seminar paper will be provided with the notification of acceptance.
Our aim is that everyone participating has been able to read materials submitted to the seminar. Therefore, the maximum length for a full paper is set to 6000 words (excluding references). Note also that the presentations held at the seminar should encourage discussion, instead of only repeating the information presented in the papers. Tentatively, every paper will be presented for 10 minutes and discussed for 20 minutes.
Seminar web site: http://physicaldigitalseminar.wordpress.com/
Event page at Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/397317950347657/
Organised by: http://gamelab.uta.fi
University of Tampere / SIS, TRIM / Game Research Lab
Research Gate
There are these days several services that aim to serve the function of being an “Academic Facebook”: an easy-to-use service with various dynamic, social media functionalities for sharing and following the research work that we are doing. The ones that I have occasionally tried to update include Academia.edu, and ResearchGate.net – the latter is a new one that seems to grow fast due to its ‘viral’ settings: it both automatically grawls the net and add publications that might be yours, making it a matter of just a couple of clicks to add them to your publications listing. And, they also by default mail all your co-authors asking them to become members, too. While this kind of strategy of aggressive growth might look borderline spammy, I can only hope our official publication registry system at the University of Tampere would make life as easy. (I still have not got around updating my publications and other academic activities from last 6 months, sigh…) Link: my ResearchGate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frans_Maeyrae/
frans goes blog 
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