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:
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.
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).
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.
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.
Another new book — I received yesterday my copy of Suomalainen muotoilu 3 (“Finnish Design 3”), a big illustrated volume, published by Weilin+Göös. My article is an introduction to what research has to say about digital culture and design, with particular emphasis on game and virtual world design. More information is here and here.
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.
DiGRA Finland and the Creation of Game Studies research project have jointly today published the first Finnish Yearbook of Game Studies (Pelitutkimuksen vuosikirja). It provides an overview into the history and present focus areas of games research through multiple research articles, as well as research and book reviews. The yearbook is peer-reviewed and openly available online here: http://www.pelitutkimus.fi/vuosikirja-2009
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.)
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).
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