Category: game studies

Games and Good Life

Another short article of mine (and also in Finnish): “Pelit ja hyvä elämä” discusses how research has addressed games’ negative and positive effects to quality of life, and moderation (the “golden mean”) in this context. This is in “Pelatkaa”, special issue of Pelit magazine 10/2010. Link: http://www.pelit.fi/index.php?id=tutustulehteen.

Two Faces of Game Cultures

I have published a short article in Finnish, titled “Kehittyvän pelikulttuurin kahdet kasvot” at the Finnish Cultural Foundation/Pirkanmaa web site, discussing the cultural potentials and frustrations that we face in digital gaming field today. Link: http://www.skr.fi/default.asp?docId=18253.

IR11 Online Fantasy Panel

I will be presenting today some of my analyses of the cultures of fantasy gaming in Internet Research Association’s conference (IR11) in Gothenburg. Together with Sebastian Deterding, Ashley Hinck and Ulrika Bennerstedt we will have a panel session titled “Fantasy and the Net”, based on our short papers. My own piece is titled “Aporias in Gaming Fantasy” where I look at some of the elements that complicate perception of fantasy as straightforward fulfilment of desires, and also point towards complexities in the construction of identity for ‘fantasy gamer’. Link to IR11 pages: http://ir11.aoir.org/

Yearbook 2010 / Pelitutkimuksen vuosikirja

Here is some information about the new Finnish Yearbook of Game Studies 2010 (English abstracts available in the downloadable PDFs, linked below):

Pelitutkimuksessa ajankohtaista etenkin rahapelitutkimus

Pelitutkimuksen vuosikirja 2010 on ilmestynyt sähköisenä osoitteessa
http://www.pelitutkimus.fi/vuosikirja-2010
Vuosikirjassa tarkastellaan jälleen niin digitaalisen pelaamisen historiaa,
nykytilannetta kuin tulevaisuuttakin.

Pelitutkimuksen vuosikirja on vertaisarvioitu, avoin tiedejulkaisu. Continue reading “Yearbook 2010 / Pelitutkimuksen vuosikirja”

Tieteen päivät 2011

Here is some advance information: I will be speaking together with Pauliina Raento and Tuukka Tammi about value and money in fantasy games in Tieteen päivät conference in Helsinki, 13th January 2011: http://www.pelisaatio.fi/ajankohtaista/61/

Lecturing in Oulu

There will be some game studies program in ‘Taiteiden yö’ event in Oulu this year. My own talk in Thursday Aug 26th will deal with games, ethics and effects (dealing with both the claimed positive as well as negative effects of games). The program is here: http://www.ouka.fi/kirjasto/Tiedote.asp?ID=15411

Continuum double call: new series in Game Studies

This might have been missed by some, so here is the call (I sit in the review board):

Double CFP: Continuum Approaches to Digital Game Studies Book Series (Edited Collection on Digital Role-playing Games and Edited Collection on First Person Shooters)

These two collections will be the first two titles in a larger series of edited volumes, Approaches to Digital Game Studies, published by Continuum. Continue reading “Continuum double call: new series in Game Studies”

Starting the new academic year, with Games Literacy

The academic year 2010-2011 starts officially only in September when the teaching starts. However, there is much going on already in August. I made an early start last week by lecturing in ‘Äidinkielen ja kirjallisuuden opetuksen foorumi 2010’ event (the literature and Finnish language teachers conference), where I argued (among other things) that we are moving in media technological terms more complex and ‘messy reality’, but that does not mean that traditional literacy skills and contents would suddenly become worthless. There does not really exist a separate and isolated thing called ‘multimedia literacy’, but rather an intermeshed complex of different skills, some of them related to images, some to text, but the skills of actively making media (and other materials our world offers us) our own, as well as interpersonal & communicational skills, become increasingly central for the future. – Link to the conference page: http://db3.oph.fi/koulutuskalenteri/ophtilaisuus.asp?ID1=1039

Goodbye Hypermedia, Welcome Interactive Media

This piece of news someone might have missed during the summer vacation period: the official name of new media studies will no longer be ‘hypermedia’ (despite the honorable tradition of the term, leading back to 1960s), but ‘interactive media’. There is a new discipline called Information Studies and Interactive Media in our university, where it is possible to specialize e.g. in game studies, social media or other fields of digital media research, starting from BA level, leading through research-oriented master’s degree, up to postgraduate studies and PhD. A Finnish language news page on this is here: http://www.uta.fi/ajankohtaista/yliopistouutiset/0710/2307a.html.

FINFAR 2010 fantasy researcher meeting program

In connection of Finncon 2010 science fiction and fantasy event, there will be again a speculative fiction researcher meeting. This year it will take place in 15–16 July in Jyväskylä (university library building, room B338). Here is the programme/papers presented:

Thursday 15 July

12-14    Ulla Viertola, Riikka Mahlamäki, Laura Piippo
14-15    Lunch
15-16:30 Aino-Kaisa Koistinen,  Mika Loponen, Päivi Väätänen

Friday 16 July

9:30-11 Sanna Lehtonen, Katja Kontturi, Jyrki Korpua
11-12   Lunch
12-13   Christos Angelis, Jenni Tyynelä