Category: game studies

I usually write and read too much in work to have much energy left to blog about research lit over here, but an exception: I have been reading today the new book from Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture (New York University Press, 2006), and I wholeheartly recommend it. Approaching media convergence as human activity rather than bunch of multimedia features, this book discusses important concepts with the help of such cultural texts as Survivor, American Idol, The Matrix, Star Wars, The Sims, Harry Potter, and 2004 American presidential campaign, among many other interesting subjects. Fans, participation and collective intelligence are in Jenkins’ key focus while exploring the ongoing developments in convergence culture.

Amazon.com link.

I wrote recently a newspaper article (published in Aamulehti, June 6, 2006) on the direction of game design and research. In summary, I think that examples like Nintendo‘s Wii control and the emphasis on easily accessible games appealing to ‘non-gamer’ audiences are promising signs, that the need for true multimodality in game design (not only multimodal interfaces, but the support for multiple modes of gameplay and style) is also something that at least some people in game industry seem to recognize. But any true evolution in game cultures will require also public recognition for games’ cultural significance, including education (meaning also us in universities, and the Ministry of Education funding us) paying serious attention to games. See the pdf manuscript version: link to article (in Finnish).