Now others at [Denver University] seem to be paying attention. "Can you imagine if we really succeed, if we get twenty students into this laboratory to do physics experiments?" says Hill excitedly. "Putting them into a nuclear control room and letting them do things and destroy things and not letting them get hurt? Think of what this means. Imagine how powerful this can be for education."

But not everyone was thrilled when the story hit the online newspaper Inside Higher Ed last year. "Second Life isn't stable enough to test something that important," one commenter wrote. "Why not make a program that will actually simulate that properly? Second Life doesn't even stand up to normal 'game' quality. It can't even properly simulate a car."

Zing! The accessibility of Second Life is cited as a reason institutions are having 'notable' results with their virtual counterparts, but I'd be curious to know how 'notable' is being defined.

With help from the feds, a Denver scientist helps Second Life go nuclear [Denver Westword News via TerraNova]

The Power of Tangential Learning [Edge]

“(The) Chinese have invented some interesting ways to play with the in-game economy (not the real world economy). Ways that I have not observed here in two years of studying ‘World of Warcraft.’

“Chinese players are more attuned to the aesthetics of the game. At least they mention them more in interviews. They talked more about color schemes, animations, architecture, and so on more than American players.

She notes that Chinese players are less likely to play with add-ons and modifications because they like the 'challenging' version of the game better. Well, whatever works. Nardi will be completing her research along with a doctoral student; hopefully her final paper will shed more light on little-studied areas and not just broad generalizations of the obvious.

UCI tackles ‘World of Warcraft’ mystery [OC Register]

Are these findings representative of all virtual worlds, or all MMOs, or all fantasy titles? I have my own speculations (pretty solid for fantasy diku games), and I welcome yours. Of course, until other developers open their doors in a similar fashion, it'll all remain speculation.

What can you expect from future reports? Our subsequent papers will involve research on gender differences, role players, economic modeling, social networks, group success and failure, raiding, detailed player behavior metrics, trust and community, and many others currently in the hopper. As we develop more and more metrics from the player behavior data, we will be merging these with the psychological, demographic, and attitude data from the survey. In other words, for the first time we will know who they are, what they think, and what they do on a truly systematic level.

The article itself is a quick read, and the data is condensed in charts if you're too lazy to read the full article. I'm looking forward to 'future installments' — what other oddball stats will crop up?

"Who plays, how much, and why? A player census of a virtual world" [Wiley InterScience via Terra Nova]

There’s always a ‘but.’ The thing that struck me most about Anne Allison’s otherwise interesting essay was for me –- a “gamer” and someone who writes about games –- was that she clearly had little experience with games themselves. As it turned out, she was apparently inspired to look into the Pokémon phenomenon after her children started playing; beyond purchasing and observing, she herself had no experience with gaming. My criticisms weren’t aimed at her thinking or writing or research, per se – no, my quibble was with nit-picky details that didn’t quite ring true.

On the Inside Looking Out

One of the fascinating bits of being an academic is that we can attain “expert” status while being “outsiders.” For some of us, our outsider status is almost a given. It’s impossible for me to be an “insider” when writing about the late nineteenth century or the 1930s or even the 1980s. And really, that’s OK. Generations of social scientists and academics in the humanities have built careers and a sizeable body of work and solid conclusions while being outsiders. The dissonance comes when dealing with topics where “insider” status is a necessary for “expert” status. In the gaming world, outsiders don’t generally become experts –- writers don’t get picked up just because they can write well on any subject. A certain hands-on familiarity with our subject is demanded of us. It is almost a given that gaming is part of our daily life, independent of writing – something that is impossible to replicate when I’m looking at, say, 1930s advertisements.

Allison, a fine anthropologist who has a fascinating body of work on Japan, was clearly an outsider. And it occurred to me that as people (academics) get more and more interested in gaming of various forms, virtual worlds, and the like, the more of this sort of scholarship we’re going to see. At this point in time, I think many people are still a little too lost when it comes to, say, MMOs to write an article tackling the issue – I chatted with one of my advisors, who is a technophobe in his daily life but reasonably enthusiastic regarding subjects that aren’t widely studied yet (in his case, film, and most recently underground and independent film in China), about my plans to do a more current look at the Chinese gaming milieu. To my great surprise, he thought it was a fabulous idea, and added that plenty of academics would like to look at such issues in China and Korea, but don’t know where to start.

But what about when people do start realizing where those starting points are? Do we have whole books to look forward to that just “don’t get it”? And really, who am I to say another academic just doesn’t “get it,” when their scholarship is otherwise unimpeachable? Am I privileging the fan voice? Am I engaging in the same sort of behavior that privileges the ‘native’ voice –- the idea that, say, my Chinese friends are simply more capable of being good Chinese historians than I? It’s not so much an issue of privileging as a difference on opinion as to what constitutes ‘expert’ status. Anne Allison –- as fine an anthropologist as she is -– wouldn’t stand a chance of attaining ‘expert’ status with her writing about the game industry. It’s clear from her writing that she is an ‘outsider.’ But where oh where are those insiders? How is it that I study at a school that houses people like Noah Wardrip-Fruin of Grand Text Auto, and I still get the curious stare when delineating my weekend responsibilities?

Inside Out, Outside In

Part of my problem when grappling with this issue is that I simply cannot break away from my disciplinary boundaries. Oh, sure, an article here or there is one thing, but the idea of writing my dissertation or staking my career on gaming? Even if I could convince my advisors — a dubious proposition at best — I just couldn’t bring myself to make the leap. I’m sure I’m not the only person facing such a dilemma. While game studies provides a safe haven for many people, it never would’ve occurred to me to go to graduate school for it — I’m not sure I’d even been particularly happy. I like what I study, but I also like branching out — and I have a suspicion that means I’m going to be sandwiched in between two fields that don’t really want my work, at least as it relates to gaming.

Systemic change is difficult to affect in academia. Critiques of the ‘traditional’ academic structure abound, and there are plenty of people trying to think ‘outside the box.’ Unfortunately, even the “outside of the boxers” frequently wind up reinforcing the box — it’s difficult to get outside the structure totally. Our studies and careers are predicated on being able to fit into some category or another. Specialization is the name of the game, and once something gets really entrenched, it frequently becomes a means to an end.

The Afterlives of Game Studies?

I admit I harbor some suspicion for ‘_______ studies’ programs, be it ‘Asian studies’ or ‘American studies’ or ‘game studies.’ This stems partly from the fact that area studies (of which East Asian 'studies' is an honored part) is the granddaddy of all those other studies programs — which means we’ve had considerably more time to ruminate on the meaning of our ‘field’ and the benefits and limitations of the (in theory) multidisciplinary approach to a particular area. We also have a collection of books with frightening (for a youngster at the beginning of his or her career) titles such as Learning Places: The Afterlives of Area Studies, with even more terrifying essays contained within. The great cynics of area studies make scientists’ doom and gloom predictions about global warming sound positively cheery in comparison.

One of the greatest critiques is that despite the best intentions of most of these sorts of programs, they frequently wind up becoming an end unto themselves — not a space for a variety of disciplines to gather, but a discipline in and of itself. I have the utmost respect for many of the ‘game studies’ academics I’ve had the pleasure of having exchanges with, but I have to wonder where the field is going to be in 20 or 30 years — will we be seeing a volume entitled Playing Games: The Afterlives of Game Studies? One would hope not, but surveying the scene from the area studies corner of the Academy leaves me with a slightly sour taste in my mouth. While I don’t think Ian Bogost et al. need to worry about being put in service to the 21st century equivalent of the Cold War, I’d be surprised if some of the same things that have tripped up area studies don’t wind up being obstacles for our much younger disciplinary cousin.

Blundering Towards Enlightenment

At the Kotaku pre-E3 party, an MA student introduced himself to me and queried me regarding my academic path. He expressed some surprise when I said I was an historian — ‘Oh, but I thought you were in game studies?’. He looked mildly disappointed when I said no, just a boring modern Chinese historian here. It got me thinking — will ‘game studies’ become an exclusive club, like many other ‘studies’ are? What boxes on the CV are we going to have to mark to be considered valid and serious researchers of games? How is the discipline hierarchy going to shake out?

There are clearly a lot of interesting and creative people currently working on gaming in an academic context, and I sincerely hope that ‘game studies’ continues to be a place where academics from a variety of disciplines (but common research theme) have space to share. I hope that even the older and stodgier disciplines like my own will begin to come around to the idea that games and gaming are legitimate fields of inquiry, and valid sources to draw from. This, perhaps, is the greatest challenge: academics are frequently cranky and highly defensive of their respective disciplines. Many of us do cross boundaries with ease, but it can be a tough row to hoe when it comes to breaking new paths, especially when it comes to what constitutes an appropriate source base. It took quite some time for film to develop into an accepted source for historical study, for example, and students of material culture still find themselves up against a brick wall when talking to certain colleagues.

I’ll admit that I won’t be upsetting the apple cart in history any time soon — I wouldn’t be allowed to write my dissertation on such a ‘new’ topic as gaming or virtual worlds in China, even if I wanted to, and it would probably be academic suicide (at least as far as traditional history departments are concerned). That doesn’t mean I’m not going to throw my hat into the ring, of course — but trailblazing visionary/rebel I am not, at least not when it comes to arguing for games. I already have a little notebook with references, citations, and impressions for my not-so-far-away article, but the constraints of working within a reasonably stuffy discipline mean that until I have tenure, it’s a sideline. An interesting and productive sideline, but a sideline nonetheless. I do hope that there will be room for my future students to maneuver between the rigid, traditional structure and the ‘upstart’ fields like game studies.

Game studies, like any discipline, will be going through growing pains — we’ve been writing histories for thousands of years and it seems that every year brings some new problem that needs to be hashed out. Michael Abbott of the Brainy Gamer addressed some of these issues in a recent interview that appeared on GameSetWatch:

… there is already a field called game studies, and some of us aren't comfortable with where that's going or don't feel we quite fit in there. Game studies is taking a fairly traditional academic approach to research and scholarship, and as a professor who has done my share of papers and conferences, I'm trying to go another way. I want to write about games at the place where they are being discussed most vigorously, online and amongst gamers. I greatly respect what game studies is doing - and I've benefited from this work - but I've reached the point in my career where I'm not terribly interested in traditional academic research anymore.

In many respects, we’re coming from the same position and, at the same time, pretty far apart. It’s not that I’m not interested in traditional academic research regarding games, I’m simply interested in it on my own terms – and in my own field. I wonder, though, if that leaves me on the outside looking in and the inside looking out. It’s an odd gap to straddle — I just hope it's not an impossibly wide gap to bridge.

But it is possible to shift the paradigm, so why don't older institutions follow suit?

For one thing, they don't consider games "academically respectable," Bartle asserts. For another, computer games staff don't get included in research assessment submissions, because there are no first-class journals specific to the medium — and, of course, major universities just don't see any money in it, he says.

Bartle, who is currently a Principal Fellow and Visiting Professor at the Department of Computing and Electronic Systems at Essex University, explained ruefully: "None of this would matter if it were without consequences. Unfortunately, there are consequences."

Modern universities focus on training in the way that vocational schools do, says Bartle, while older ones have a tradition of education.

My first reaction is 'Well, duh.' Academia is built on tradition and regularity (there is a reason 'disciplines' have that name), so trailblazing a new path is not the easiest of tasks. Even a move to shift perceptions of 'standard' disciplines is likely to be met with suspicion and skepticism. On the other hand, many of those older or less progressive institutions are sloooowly coming around. But the process isn't going to happen overnight, and I wouldn't expect to see 'training in the way that vocational schools do' at an Ivy League institution near you any time soon. I'm also not convinced that's necessarily a bad thing - just as students flock to particular institutions to study under renowned experts in well-established fields, why wouldn't we expect the same out of people wishing to study gaming?

MUD Co-Creator Bartle Criticizes Gaming And Academia Divide [GameSetWatch]

There's not much yet, but if Ryan can stick to the book-a-week premise, I think there will be a nice and very accessible collection of reviews and thoughts on a wide variety of books. It's one of those things I've added to my feeds and just hope it doesn't peter out.

The Secret Books of Game Design [Words on Play via Grand Text Auto]

I’d like to conduct in-depth interviews with all types of people involved in the creation process, from programmers and testers to visual artists and music composers, as well as game developers, producers and visionaries ....

Another part of my research is to collect oral histories from gamers and game developers regarding their experiences playing games, specifically during "epochal" moments, like when Lord British was assassinated in Ultima Online. Some people also happened to record those moments, and it would be very interesting to collect those artifacts for the cultural record.

I'll be curious to see how this project develops, since it could potentially be very influential in how other collections begin organizing and preserving new media and video games more specifically. The idea of oral history is a particularly good one — the historian in me is glad people are working on things like this now, as opposed to scrambling when it's almost too late.

University of Texas at Austin Looks at MMO Preservation [Game Culture] & LJ Talks to Megan Winget, Who Studies Preservation of Online Games [Library Journal] [via GameSetWatch]

We also spoke on the difficulties of it being a stable field .... He was comfortable with the term game criticism, but had some reservations. Like the rest of us, he is nervous.

"Narrative games are barely past the infant stage, and critical commentary and analysis about them are even less developed," he warned. "Everyone is still trying to figure out who everyone else is, and in this process communities form themselves. We are on the ground floor of this effort to try to figure out how to talk intelligently about video games - how to analyze them and develop a critical language to discuss them. We're not like other disciplines (I'm not even sure I would call us a discipline yet), because we're all figuring this out together; we don't even have the terms yet."

He told me, "Part of our trepidation about what to call it is that there is already a field called game studies, and some of us aren't comfortable with where that's going or don't feel we quite fit in there ...."

A lot of us are treading (or going to tread) in a relative no man's land — outside our 'home' disciplines, but not at home in game studies. In any case, it's an interesting interview — and the whole series is definitely worth a look. There's some wonderfully thoughtful musings and discussion about gaming, the gaming community, and beyond.

Game Community Interviews, Part 4 - The Brainy Gamer's Michael Abbott [GameSetWatch]

Perhaps "manifesto" is too strong a word for what I'm describing, but at the moment I can't think of a better one. Most dictionaries define the term as a public declaration of intentions, motives or views. Beyond that simple definition, however, manifestos are intrinsically anti-status-quo. Regardless of its framework - politics, ideology or art - a manifesto is a defiant call for change and an implied "Who's with me?" All of the people I'm about to describe are plugging into something that sounds very much like a collective manifesto to me.

Many people currently writing about narrative and game design do share a lot of commonalities in thinking, so some sort of 'collective manifesto' (even just informally speaking) does make sense. Anyways, Abbott's roundup isn't particularly long, but worth a read; he's done the work for you when it comes to pulling out some particularly salient bits of the essays.

Narrative manifesto [Brainy Gamer]

This paper reviews what we know so far about gold farming, seeking to provide the first systematic analysis of the sub-sector. It assembles available data at the sectoral, enterprise and worker level. Five main analytical lenses are then applied. Economic analysis shows how exchange rate variations and scale economies do and do not impact gold farming; and the strong influence of information failure in the purchase of virtual items: known as "real-money trading". Analysis from the perspective of industrial sociology charts the commoditisation and globalisation of the sub-sector, while value chain models identify resource dependencies and power inequities. Enterprise analysis investigates enterprise entry, existence and progression, and outlines the competitive forces shaping the sub-sector's development; particularly threats. Developmental analysis investigates the impact of this sub-sector in macro and micro terms. Finally, there is a sociological analysis of the role played by perceptions and other social forces.

I've got it saved for future reading, and from what I've seen, it's definitely worth a look if you're interested in issues of RMT and gold farming. It is long (and academic!), but think about wading through if you're feeling inspired.

Current Analysis and Future Research Agenda on "Gold Farming" [IDPM Working papers via Terra Nova]

This is a nice look at the making of Winterbottom and designing in an academic setting; I enjoyed the parts of the game I got to take a look at, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes from here. The USC program is really pretty exciting, in that their students and graduates are actually going on to do something.

[via IndieGames]

The How They Got Game project is pleased to announce that we will be starting up a new journal, with the title Historical Studies of Digital Entertainment Media. The new journal will be edited by Matteo Bittanti and Henry Lowood (me). We have been working with a group of authors for the first issue, which we hope will be published Winter 2009. The theme for this first issue will be "Digital Games: Historical and Preservation Studies." We hope soon to be able to announce the members of the editorial board.

Did we mention that the journal will be published exclusively on-line? We will be using the Open Journal System of the Public Knowledge Project, which has a good track record as a publishing system for refereed academic and scholarly publications. We intend that authors will retain all rights to their contributions.

Of course, ideas are welcome for future issues and contributions to the journal.

The trend towards open access academic journals is pretty cool; I don't think JSTOR is ever going to go entirely by the wayside, but there's increasing acceptance of online-only and open access publishing (a definite positive for academics vying for tenure in a publish-or-perish world). I'll be keeping tabs on this one as it develops — Eludamos is pretty interesting, but this journal sounds tailor made for some of my interests. Huzzah!

Historical Studies of Digital Entertainment Media [How They Got Game via GameSetWatch]

... We tested whether fantasy gamers conform to the Law of Demand, which states that increasing the price of a good, all else equal, will reduce the quantity demanded. We created two exactly equivalent worlds, and randomly assigned players to one or the other. The only difference in the two worlds was that the price of a single good, a health potion, was twice as high in the experimental world than in the control. We allowed players (N = 43) to enter and play the environment for a month. We found that players in the experimental condition purchased 43.1 percent fewer of the potions, implying a demand elasticity of -0.431. This finding is well within the range one expects for normal economic agents. We take this as evidence that the Law of Demand holds in fantasy environments, which suggests in turn that fantasy gamers may well be economically normal. If so, it may be worthwhile to conduct controlled economic and social experiments in virtual worlds at greater scales of both population (thousands of users) and time (many months).

This is kind of a less cool version of the WoW plague research, still my favorite example of academic research utilizing MMOs. As noted by the WoW researchers, virtual worlds may offer the potential to conduct research that would be impossible using real people (like, say, unleashing a plague upon the world).

A Test of the Law of Demand in a Virtual World: Exploring the Petri Dish Approach to Social Science [via Terra Nova]

I mentioned the Games, Learning & Society Conference in Madison, Wisconsin back when a call for papers was put out. Michael Abbott of the Brainy Gamer has some interesting notes on the conference, which was held this past Thursday and Friday. The wrap up of the keynote speech, delivered by James Gee of Arizona State University, is an interesting meditation on the role of games (and not just 'edutainment') in education:

Gee sees broad implications for students in this regard. “Give students smart tools and let them use them and modify them to suit their purposes.” Such self-motivated learning moves students away from merely consuming knowledge and encourages them to produce knowledge and apply it in meaningful ways. Furthermore, Gee observed, when communities form around these activities, they are linked by a common endeavor, rather than by race, class, gender, or disability.

Gee clearly situates video games within an overall theory of learning and literacy with genuine power to transform students and equip them to address complex problems. If passion communities could be formed to solve real-world problems like hunger and environmental degradation, Gee believes we would be much better equipped to face these issues head-on. The challenge, according to Gee, isn't just about teaching our kids; it's about ensuring they have a viable world to live in.

Abbott's discussion of the environment of the conference — sounding quite different from your typical academic/professional gathering — is also worth a read.

GLS - Beyond Games and the Future of Learning [The Brainy Gamer]

Of course, any position either overtly against or in defense of gaming is likely to be controversial right now, and GamePolitics has been documenting the argument between University of Michigan professor Brad Bushman and the book's authors. Bushman published an article in the Detroit Free Press essentially disputing Kutner and Olson's findings:

Violent video games are not the only risk factor for aggression, or even the most important factor, but they are definitely not a trivial factor. Parents should carefully monitor what video games their children play this summer, instead of being lulled into a false sense of security about the effects these games can have now and well into the future.

Bushman also criticizes the authors' methods as well as their study findings, prompting Kutner and Olson to respond in comments to GamePolitics:

Dr. Bushman’s statement that video games directly reward violence is only partly accurate; anyone who actually plays video games knows that players are not always rewarded for acting violently, and in fact are often penalized immediately or later on (even in parts of Grand Theft Auto IV). The content and consequences in video games are extremely varied, which is one reason that studying their influence is so difficult.

Finally, regarding his experimental study of Dutch teenagers playing a game for 20 minutes in a lab: Those teens are fully aware that no researcher will allow them to act in a way that causes permanent physical harm to someone. Dr. Bushman may be a bit too credulous – a view that is supported by a quote from that Surgeon General’s report.

It's interesting to hear both sides of the argument, and heartening to hear that the authors are willing to publicly defend their findings even though they're controversial.

Grand Theft Childhood Authors Respond to U of Michigan Prof's Criticism [GamePolitics]
Grand theft summer vacation [Detroit Free Press, via GamePolitics]

It's been a while since the Space Giraffe kerfluffle where Yak Minter threw a hissy fit in his blog regarding poor scores given to the XBLA psychedelic shooter (and the point where it was compared to Joyce's Ulysses, but I came across an interesting piece recently that talked about Space Giraffe in reference to (wait for it) a piece of literary theory known as 'authorial intent.' The post-structuralist conception is (at least in part) that the critic's will and opinion always supercedes that of the author. What does this have to do with Space Giraffe? Well, it's one way to look at why there was such heated discussion over Space Giraffe:

The collision between the Llamasoft's eccentric design aesthetic and the expectations of entire modern internet did not fall in Minter's favor .... At least a couple of online discussions link to a post on Minter's personal blog where he expresses muted optimism at the game's tepid sales after its launch last summer, and another on the game's official development blog where he angrily rebuffs players (and reviewers) who find the game too difficult or unfriendly to "man up and grow a pair", ranting that the expectation of the modern gamer to encounter some easy tutorial levels followed by a steady-but-gentle difficulty curve is more pandering to the masses than a time-tested refinement in game design philosophy.

This alone paints an interesting portrait of a truly old-school game designer discovering the sort of controversy that would arise only as a result of the almost anachronistic insertion into the XBox Live Arcade catalog that Space Giraffe represents - a brand-new, high-definition, surround-sound game that still somehow feels like it's from 1985. What brings it all around to my thoughts on authorial intent are articles like this one, where Minter insists that Space Giraffe is not a followup to Tempest. Except... it totally is. I put forth that not a single person who has played the original Tempest, and who has had no contact with Minter's own thoughts on Space Giraffe's design, will fail to immediately think "Aha! Tempest!" upon seeing the newer game. Furthermore, even if they like the game enough to stick with it and discover all the ways that it's different - and there are indeed many - they will still consider it a Tempest offshoot.

It's not a particularly long piece, and many may cringe at the collision of literary theory and, uh, gaming, but it's not that often we see such a visceral response from an auteur to critics that stretches out over a period of time.

On Authorial Intent and Space Giraffes [The Gameshelf]

SoftWhere 2008 videos [Grand Text Auto]

Danks introduced the concept for PlayStation-edu — "It's mostly about getting schools hardware, to learn how the actual platform works. Not for research and development, for computer science and engineering, and not for art. The goal is to reach the people who care about the metal — engine level coders who like to write in assembly."

"Consoles and multi-core are here to stay," continued Danks. "Beyond that all things change and you need to learn the basics at the low level. So Assembly is here to stay!"

"A lot of schools are treating game education like trade school," argued Danks. "Too many students can’t explain a pointer, can’t explain memory caches, can’t explain bus contention, can’t explain how a complier works, cant explain a software rasterizer, can’t explain a race condition…"

He goes on to talk about the legal agreements that will be required and the three tier structure of the program. Sounds like a promising idea, but academia is very hard to change — and slow to come around in many cases. We'll see how long it takes this idea to take root.

Sony's Danks Details PlayStation-edu Initiative [Gamasutra]

I'm still on a semi-enforced vacation from academia, but I couldn't resist reading some of the essays found on electronic book review. The essays are a selection from two MIT Press books, First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game and Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media. There are a bunch of interesting essays (and some not-so-interesting ones, I'm sure), on topics ranging from IF to WoW to more general ruminations on narrative, stories, gaming in general:

The First Person thread is a collaboration among electronic book review, MIT Press, and editors Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. It explores a new model for connection between online publishing and traditional edited books in which printed works are not only reproduced electronically but also substantially expanded via responses to the collection (ripostes) and enriched by incorporation into the ebr database. This thread includes almost all the contents of a trilogy of edited collections published by MIT: First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media, and a not-yet-announced final volume. The material in these volumes and on ebr represents a new level of dialogue between creators and critics about emerging forms of fictional and playable experience.

This is very cool, because books from academic presses are frequently (a) hideously expensive and (b) hard to get. I'm one of those people that likes to purchase my books, so I can underline and bracket and dog ear to my heart's content, but there are a couple of classics that will not be part of my personal collection since they now go for $250+ thanks to small publishing runs. I think it's a great move to offer these sorts of books that do hold interest for a wider audience for free, and in an electronic format. Part of a new trend, perhaps?

thread: First Person [electronic book review via Emily Short]

I poked my head in to the public 'pecha kucha' session for UCSD's SoftWhere 2008, but couldn't stay for the whole thing since I had a paper to write and was feeling really under the weather; I did get a chance later to talk with one of my professors, who participated in the event, and have been checking out the roundups floating around the internet at this point. I've got my own opinions on the '___ Studies' ghetto, being part of it myself — though an attempt to create a field of 'software studies' is, at the very least, not burdened with Cold War politics. Anyways, there are some concise (and not so concise) appraisals of the event floating around. Anne Helmond, who presented on the relationship between search engines and the blogosphere, had this to say:

The title of the workshop ‘SoftWhere’ embodies the question of demarcating an area of study. Our current society is penetrated by and shaped by software and should thus be subject to appropriate critique. The ubiquity of software has led to a software culture and we are now living in a software society. What does it mean to live in such a software society instead of an industrial society? A world which is created by software is opaque and that is why we need to study software. We should question the streams behind, embedded in and woven through our society and look at what is happening behind the screens. SoftWhere? SoftEverywhere!

Liz Losh has a much longer and detailed explanation of the various presentations, of which there were a great many, spanning a lot of subjects, over at virtualpolitik. I've heard videos of the presentations might pop up in the future — considering the bite-sized nature of the presentations, I hope they do. And the format of confining academics to six minutes and forty seconds of presentation time? Brilliant.

SoftWhere 2008: Software Studies Workshop [Anne Helmond] & Speed Dating [virtualpolitik]

This study investigated how fans and producers of media texts negotiate text integrity, which is defined as an ideal about the validity, wholeness, and truth of the text. An evaluation of previous research in fan studies revealed four essential issues underlying fan-producer interaction. These four issues led to the study’s four research questions, which centered on fan perceptions of ownership of a text, construction of status-relationship between fans and producers, construction of status-relationship among fans, and how fans envisioned their labor contribution to the game development process. Research questions were addressed using a discourse analysis of the forum interactions of fans of the digital-game series Fallout. The investigation focused on fan and producer interaction surrounding the release of the controversial next installment in the Fallout series, Fallout 3. Using previous literature and data gathered, the study proposed a model for fan-producer negotiation over text integrity that can be applied to fan-producer interaction in multiple contexts.

As noted at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, "Stay clear if you’re the sort of person who thinks it’s intrinsically funny if anyone calls a videogame a 'Text.'" Probably a wise consideration for many academic gaming works, but it's a thesis built on an interesting premise, and a hell of a lot shorter than a dissertation.

Fallout Fans: Negotiations Over Text Integrity In the Age of the Active Audience [Ryan Milner via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

Nick Montfort and Andrew Stern have published the text of their very interesting speech given at the Electronic Literature Organization "Visionary Landscapes" conference; the subject is ELIZA, the 1966 parody of a Rogerian therapist — more correctly, it's where the next ELIZA-like program (in terms of influence) is going to come from and what it may look like. It's an interesting piece, coming from the perspective of "bigger and flashier is not always better":

We begin by assuming that computation and literary art are inherently very powerful. That is, we assume it is not essential to have recourse to networked communication, massive knowledge bases, or even graphics capabilities to develop a provocative, affecting project that inquires about important issues. In thinking about a such a project, we are seeking an antidote to today’s ever larger and complex computer applications — sixty-hour game quests within expansive virtual worlds, mashups of intricate Web technologies, and massively feature-bloated operating systems. A small yet powerful and surprising computer program would be both pleasurable and provocative because of its simplicity and clean concept. So we simply assume, rather than trying to prove, that while more elaborate systems may be interesting in some ways, a new system on the scale of Eliza can still have the sort of broad impact today that Weizenbaum’s computer character did more than forty years ago. Given that, we ask, what specific qualities would this system have?

It's worth a read through if you're interested in this sort of stuff (there's a nice, concise discussion of other systems that have had a big impact, from Tetris to SimCity to Google); Mark Marino has already posted a response.

Provocation by Program: Imagining a Next-Revolution Eliza [GrandTextAuto]

The goal is to fare well and advance socially and economically, with players advancing from “tourists” to “residents” and finally to “citizens” of modern China. At the different stages, players encounter quests, have access to learning materials – including live Chinese tutors – and can organize and participate in social activities.

Among the many tasks players can complete in the tourist stage are ordering a taxi, exchanging currency and checking into a hotel in China.

“Games are supposed to be fun and educational,” Zhao said. “With this one, we have struck a good balance.”

I wonder if the Zon! cabbies are as chatty as the guys in Shanghai or Taipei. It's a neat idea for facilitating language acquisition — if only it weren't in hateful jiantizi.

Virtual China: Online game teaches Chinese culture, language [MSU Today]

The $1,000 winning design "Escape Your Boyfriend's Room" by Jorge Goyco is an interesting point and click game that manages to get both the warning signs of an abusive relationship across as well as how you can get yourself out of the relationship. I loved the look of the game and its approach to the subject matter really impressed me.

The first runner up $100 prize was handed out to "A Walk in the Park by Jared Sain." I loved the look of the game. My only suggestion is that maybe the game could do a better job of explaining how to get out of an abusive relationship. The final $100 runner-up was "Decisions, Decisions by Mark Kakareka"

Judges for the contest were my brother, Drew Crecente; Simon Carless, director of the Independent Games Festival; Stephen Totilo, of MTV and huge brain fame, Georgia Tech prof Ian Bogost and Dr. Elizabeth Richeson, a psychologist, Texas Psychological Association Board member, and my mom.

The winning entries were quite innovative, but more importantly I think this particular contest reiterates the mantra that video games can deal with important and delicate issues appropriately.

My understanding is that Drew plans to run the contest again next year. I hope it has just as many good entries. Hit up the site to check out the winners.

Jennifer Ann's Group

More than $2 million in grants is being handed out to teams researching how video games can improve players' health.

While the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation doesn't plan to announce the dozen research teams who will be awarded the grant money until Thursday, they did say that the funded studies will explore topics ranging from how motion-based games may help stroke patients progress faster in physical therapy to how people in substance abuse treatment can practice skills and behaviors in the virtual world to prevent real-world relapses.

I'd like to think that at least one is looking at the WiiFit and how it does at raising awareness of BMI, but maybe it's too soon for it to have soaked into academia.

It's heartening to see that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the nation's largest philanthropy devoted to improving the health of Americans, has decided it's worth investing so much money to "explore how games can increase physical activity and enhance prevention, self-management of health conditions".

Hit the jump for the full release.

VIDEO/ONLINE GAMES FOR HEALTH: 12 RESEARCH TEAMS FROM ACROSS U.S. RECEIVE MAJOR GRANTS

Awards go to researchers in CA, FL, IN, ME, NC, NY, SC, VT and WA; Studies explore how games can increase physical activity and enhance prevention, self-management of health conditions

PRINCETON, NJ. More than $2 million in grants will be awarded to 12 research teams to help strengthen the evidence base that supports the development and use of digital interactive games to improve players’ health behaviors and outcomes. The grantees will be announced during a live, phone-based news event (with full Q&A) at 1:30 p.m. EDT Thursday (May 29, 2008).

This is the first round of grants to be awarded from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through its Health Games Research national program, based at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Funded studies explore topics ranging from how motion-based games may help stroke patients progress faster in physical therapy to how people in substance abuse treatment can practice skills and behaviors in the virtual world to prevent real-world relapses.

News event speakers will be:

* Debra Lieberman, Ph.D., communication researcher, Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research, University of California at Santa Barbara; and

* Chinwe Onyekere, program officer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Pioneer Portfolio.

TO PARTICIPATE: Join this live, phone-based news conference (with full, two-way Q&A) at 1:30 p.m. EDT on May 29, 2008 by dialing 1 (800) 860-2442. Ask for the “health games grants” news event.

CAN’T PARTICIPATE?: A streaming audio replay of this news event will be available as of 6 p.m. EDT on May 29 at http://healthgamesresearch.org/.

About the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on the pressing health and health care issues facing our country. As the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans, the Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change. The Foundation's Pioneer Portfolio supports innovative ideas and projects that may trigger important breakthroughs in health and health care. Projects in the Pioneer Portfolio are future-oriented and look beyond conventional thinking to explore solutions at the cutting edge of health and health care. When it comes to helping Americans lead healthier lives and get the care they need, the Foundation expects to make a difference in your lifetime. For more information, visit www.rwjf.org/pioneer.

About the University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) is one of 10 universities in the University of California system, and is one of only 62 research-intensive institutions elected to membership in the prestigious Association of American Universities. The distinguished 980-member faculty includes five Nobel Prize winners and scores of elected members or fellows of elite national academies and associations. The campus is also home to 12 national centers and institutes, eight of them sponsored by the National Science Foundation. U.S. News and World Report's guide, "America's Best Colleges," ranks UCSB number 13 among all public universities in the nation. For more information, visit www.ucsb.edu.

UCSB's Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research (ISBER) brings together researchers from many academic disciplines in order to foster collaboration and span the boundaries between the social and behavioral sciences, the humanities, and the physical and biological sciences. For more information, visit www.isber.ucsb.edu.

The Health Games Research national program office at UCSB conducts and supports research to enhance the quality and impact of interactive games used to improve health. For more information, visit www.healthgamesresearch.org or contact the program at healthgamesresearch@isber.ucsb.edu.

Michigan State University is hosting an interdisciplinary conference from October 9-11 called Meaningful Play, exploring "the potential of games to entertain, inform, educate, and persuade in meaningful ways." They're seeking submissions from a pretty wide swath of people: "Submissions are sought from both researchers and practitioners in academia and industry. Graduate and advanced undergraduate students are also encouraged to submit either jointly with an academic/member of industry or alone." If you've got a paper you've been sitting on, or something that will be ready by 1 July (the submission deadline), full details are below the jump [via Water Cooler Games]:

Meaningful Play 2008, which takes place October 9-11, 2008, is an interdisciplinary academic conference that explores the potential of games to entertain, inform, educate, and persuade in meaningful ways. The conference includes thought-provoking keynotes from leaders in academia and industry, peer-reviewed paper presentations, panel sessions (including academic and industry discussions), innovative workshops, roundtable discussions, and exhibitions of games.

Submissions are sought from both researchers and practitioners in academia and industry. Graduate and advanced undergraduate students are also encouraged to submit either jointly with an academic/member of industry or alone.

While any topic related to games for entertainment and learning is appropriate to submit to Meaningful Play 2008, topics of particular interest include:

1) Exploring meaningful applications of games

* Games to change attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors (including social impact games and personal health games)
* Games to stimulate creativity or innovation
* Games to build social skills
* Games to advertise (advergames) and persuade
* Games to exercise specific cognitive functions
* Games to explore personal beliefs and help make decisions
* Games to build knowledge and skills (games for learning)
* Serious games for history and cultural heritage learning

2) Issues in designing meaningful play

* Game design for specific audience segments
* Player types and play styles
* Story and storytelling in games
* Competitve and cooperative play (single player, multiplayer and massively multiplayer)
* Balancing entertainment and serious goals
* Repurposing entertainment games for serious purposes
* Unintended and unexpected effects of games
* Using psychology and neuroscience to design and understand games
* Evaluation and assessment of game impacts
* Barriers to the adoption of serious game

Submission deadline is July 1, 2008.

Complete details on Meaningful Play 2008 are available at:
http://meaningfulplay.msu.edu

Sometimes, success is partially a matter of being in the right place at the right time — and sometimes, no matter how much you may want something, you're not going to get it. So Brian Nathanson discovered while trying to break into the gaming industry (and not succeeding). His points on standardizing education are well taken (especially in terms of bridging "the gap between trade schools, academic game programs, and the industry"), but he lost me when he started talking about what the industry should be doing in the hiring process:

I just want the industry to be aware that there are people out there with deep passion and love for this medium who simply want a chance. Even a phone interview would be nice. I'm not telling the industry to give every Joe Sunday a career, but at least talk to people who claim they are passionate. Find out if they are talking through their nether regions or not.

I believe the game industry would be pleasantly surprised to find that those on the outside really just want to make appealing games, the same as someone with a Grand Theft Auto title on her resume.

A part of life, at least in a lot of fields, is that passion only counts for so much. I have no doubt that I beat out other equally as passionate people in landing positions at both a top PhD program and Kotaku; 'passion,' after a certain point, doesn't enter into the equation. I know there are passionate people desperate to enter academia and make their own contribution, only to be rebuffed year after year; we get scores of emails and IMs wanting to know how to get started and break into the industry. Wanting it really badly isn't enough — what really sets you apart from the hundreds or thousands of other people who are also passionate and want to do [fill in the blank]?

From the Outside Looking In [GameCareerGuide]

We mentioned Michael Abbot (of the Brainy Gamer) and his efforts to put together a great syllabus for his history of RPGs class; as promised, he's now posted the reading list (required readings will be culled from this list, but it's a pretty nice little bibliography for background reading). At this point, it just includes traditional books and articles, but he's planning on expanding it to online and popular media sources, as well as other good ideas sent in by people who are keeping tabs on this project:

You'll find some esoteric stuff here, but every title is germane to the subject in one way or another. I've also included books like Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces and Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, portions of which I plan to assign as foundational texts.

So far the bibliography only includes traditional materials (books and academic journals). I'm working on supplementing the list with online and popular media resources devoted to RPGs ...

Here's the list. If I've omitted a title you think should be included, please let me know. If you have a favorite website or online essay devoted to RPGs (history, analysis, special focus on a single game or developer, etc.), please feel free to drop me a comment. I'll be sure to add it to the list I'm working on, which will be posted here in a few days.

It's quite an impressive list, and if you've got room on your list of things to read, wander over and check it out — or add your own suggestions for good go-to sources for a class of this nature.

RPG syllabus - books and journals [The Brainy Gamer]

If you're going to be in San Diego and free next Wednesday afternoon, UCSD is hosting a public portion of their "SoftWhere 2008" at the UCSD campus Lots of people are involved (including names like Ian Bogost), and the public portion will be a rapid-fire format of quick presentations. A reception will be held afterwards. The full release is after the jump — I'll be taking the afternoon off to check it out:

Wednesday, May 21st, from 12:30-5:30pm, the Software Studies Initiative at
UC San Diego invites you to attend a public event:

SoftWhere 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 12:30-5:30pm
UCSD Faculty Club, Atkinson Pavilion
Reception to follow
RSVP to softwarestudies@gmail.com
directions: http://facclub.ucsd.edu/mod_AboutUs/Directions.aspx

Software studies is a research field that examines software and
cyberinfrastructure using approaches from humanities, cultural criticism,
and social sciences. The public session will feature a rapid series of
short presentations by key national and international figures in this
emerging field. The format is 5-10 minute speed-talks, modeled on the
popular "Pecha Kucha" format, in which each presenter is allowed a slideshow
of 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds. Attendees can expect a collage of
diverse perspectives on what it means to live in software society and how to
study it.
http://workshop.softwarestudies.com/

Off-Campus Participants:

Ian Bogost (Georgia Institute of Technology)
Geoff Bowker (Santa Clara University)
Benjamin Bratton (UCLA / SCI-Arc)
Matthew Fuller (Goldsmiths College, University of London)
N. Katherine Hayles (UCLA)
Matthew Kirschenbaum (University of Maryland)
Peter Lunenfeld (Art Center College of Design)
Mark Marino (USC)
Michael (Mateas (UCSC)
Nick Montfort (MIT)
Rita Raley (UCSB)
Casey Reas (UCLA)
Warren Sack (UCSC)
Phoebe Sengers (Cornell)
Doug Sery (MIT Press)
Chandler McWilliams (UCLA)

Campus Participants:

Lev Manovich (UCSD)
Noah Wardrip-Fruin (UCSD)
Jeremy Douglass (UCSD)
Amy Alexander (UCSD)
Barry Brown (UCSD)
Jordan Crandall (UCSD)
Kelly Gates (UCSD)
Brian Goldfarb (UCSD)
Jim Hollan (UCSD)
Stefan Tanaka (UCSD)
Geoff Voelker (UCSD)

ABOUT SOFTWARE STUDIES
http://softwarestudies.com

Google searches and Amazon recommendations, airline flight paths and traffic
lights, email and your phone: our culture runs on software. How does
software shape the world?

Software is a layer that permeates all areas of contemporary societies.
Therefore, if we want to understand contemporary techniques of control,
communication, representation, simulation, analysis, decision-making,
memory, vision, writing, and interaction, our analysis can\'t be complete
until we consider this software layer. Social scientists, philosophers,
cultural critics, and media and new media theorists now seem to cover all
aspects of the IT revolution, creating a number of new disciplines such as
cyber culture, Internet studies, new media theory, and digital culture. Yet
the underlying engine that drives most of these subjects - software - has
received little or no direct attention. Software is still invisible to most
academics, artists, and cultural professionals interested in IT and its
cultural and social effects. But if we continue to limit critical
discussions to the notions of "cyber," "digital," "new media," or
"Internet," we are in danger of always dealing only with effects rather than
causes; the output that appears on a computer screen rather than the
programs and social cultures that produce these outputs.

Following on the first Software Studies Workshop organized by Matthew Fuller
(Rotterdam, 2006), the workshop SoftWhere 2008 @ UCSD is an invitation-only,
foundational event bringing together key U.S. figures in this emerging area.
The workshop will discuss what it means to study software cultures, and the
direction and goals of Software Studies as an emerging movement. Our goal is
for the workshop to result in publishing a founding statement on the field,
as well as initiate a set of interdisciplinary project collaborations. The
workshop will take place in Atkinson Hall, home of Calit2, a preeminent
research center for future computing and telecommunication, where the
Software Studies Initiative @ UCSD is located and currently collaborating
with researchers on several exciting projects. The workshop has also been
timed to precede (and coordinate with) the the HASTAC II conference which
will begin in nearby UC Irvine on the evening of Thursday May 22.

The majority of the workshop will be closed sessions, however, the Pecha
Kucha on Wednesday afternoon is open to the public. Seating is limited and
RSVP is required by May 19 to softwarestudies@gmail.com.

The workshop is sponsored by Calit2, CRCA, HASTAC, UCDARNet, and the UCSD
Visual Arts Department.

Looking for new reading material? A new book is out examining WoW, and is available from Amazon for the nice price of $19.77 (not bad for a book coming from an academic press!). I'm personally really fond of edited volumes, and this one sounds pretty interesting — both in the contents and background of the research. Scott Rettberg, one of the contributors, explains:

Hilde G. Corneliussen and Jill Walker Rettberg ... edited this volume, which is the first book-length anthology to carefully read the culture of the world’s most popular massively multiplayer online game. The anthology is the product of a unique collaboration. The volume’s contributors all played the game together for a year in a guild of academics known as “The Truants” before writing their chapters, each of which examines the game from a different theoretical/analytical bent. There are thirteen chapters in the book.

According to the publishing blurb, they're cutting a pretty wide swath here:

The contributors examine the ways that gameworlds reflect the real world—exploring such topics as World of Warcraft as a "capitalist fairytale" and the game's construction of gender; the cohesiveness of the gameworld in terms of geography, mythology, narrative, and the treatment of death as a temporary state; aspects of play, including "deviant strategies" perhaps not in line with the intentions of the designers; and character—both players' identification with their characters and the game's culture of naming characters. The varied perspectives of the contributors—who come from such fields as game studies, textual analysis, gender studies, and postcolonial studies—reflect the breadth and vitality of current interest in MMOGs

I'm currently up to my neck in reading on Japanese imperialism, but this is definitely on my list of to-dos this summer.

Digital Culture, Play, and Identity: A World of Warcraft Reader [GrandTextAuto]

When you take or teach courses called, for example, Game Studies 101; when you hold a degree in "new media studies" (wink, wink); when you publish your research in a journal called Game Studies; or when you actually are a professor of game studies, you end up feeling like you know what games do - and what they should do.

That wouldn't be so bad - it's business-as-usual for academics, in fact - if game studies didn't harbor what amounts to a desperate need to lay claim to ownership of game design as well as theory. It turns out that they don't just want to write articles and grant Ph.D.'s - they want to design our games, too.

Well, Ian Bogost — one of those people Travis is referring to — fired back

A considerable portion of my first book and my other writings object to the very idea that game studies stands alone. You cite a three-year-old prolegomenon by Aarseth, one meant as a provocation (something he's known for), and decide to attribute it to all game scholars. You make a "plea to gamers to turn the tables on Aarseth and other doyens of game studies" (myself included). Many (most?) of us already have done work to turn those very tables. Do you actually read any game studies scholarship?

Oh, snap. I consider myself lucky to be in a field that doesn't really suffer from a 'real world' vs. 'academic' split — we have enough drama amongst ourselves. The debate continues in the comment sections of both pieces, and is worth paging through if you have the time.

Quibus Lusoribus Bono? Who is Game Studies Good For? [Escapist] & A Response to Roger Travis [Ian Bogost] [both via GrandTextAuto]

In fact, what is most disturbing to me is that Malone's papers aren't cited more often, or indeed, required reading for game designers.

The papers are packed full of little observations which remain as poignant today as ever. For instance, in the 1980 paper Malone notes in the context of the way the game communicates success and failure to the player:

...performance feedback should be presented in a way that minimized the possibility of self-esteem damage.

This is a lesson that a staggering number of videogames have never learned! Most players are easily discouraged, and yet a macho, conqueror-style ethos is still quite prevalent, with failure being met with abuse and ridicule (even in an otherwise charming game such as Katamari Damacy - although at least in this case a touch of humour offsets the problem).

Definitely worth a read through, as most Only a Game posts are.

Malone on Curiosity [Only a Game]

Historical scope - I want to expose students to the historical arc of RPGs, reflecting their origins and evolution. I realize I could spend weeks on mimesis, Tolkien, PnP Dungeons and Dragons, etc., but I'm keen to get them playing and studying electronic games as soon as possible.

Breadth - It's important that I provide students with a wide range of RPG games encompassing a variety of gameplay and design variations. The syllabus needn't be a "greatest hits" collection. A classic like Chrono Trigger may or may not make the list depending on how many other Square-developed SNES JRPG titles make the list ....

Impact - I want to assign games that have made a notable impact or illustrate important transitions in the evolution of the medium

RPG syllabus - the big list [The Brainy Gamer]

Game courses in engineering schools tend to be focused on solving technical challenges, whereas design programs focus on the innovation of gameplay. To produce the best possible student game, these two forces need to collaborate.

For interdepartmental game classes to work, I feel the focus should always be on what is best for the project. Collaborative game development should be approached as more than a system of technical features. In the case of Winterbottom, learning to work on a team was more important to the student engineers than getting the recording features to work. Although learning to solve technical challenges is extremely important for students, in a class where the object is to make a good game, the focus should be on just that.

All of this makes me pretty glad I'm part of a 'lonely discipline,' where we're more or less turned loose to do our own thing. An interesting read and worth a look if you're interested in what goes on in the hallowed Ivory Tower.

Student Postmortem: USC's The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom [GameCareerGuide]

More and more, [David Edison of GayGamer.net] sees a split between two extremes. "I see popular thought divided starkly between those who play, enjoy or appreciate interactive media and those whose feelings fall somewhere along the lines of 'I hate videogames,' 'Videogames are for kids' and 'There is no redeeming value to be found in gaming.' If you take the latter group, you hear two contradictory beliefs: that videogames are a children's medium, and that videogames are too violent and explicit for children. Just those two conflicting biases alone would be enough, I think, for a person unfamiliar with videogames to throw up their hands and be done with the subject until someone more invested works it all out."

There are some nice thoughts on the subject from a reasonably diverse (gaming) crowd, and it's worth reading if you have the time.

The Myth of the Media Myth [The Escapist]

The fourth annual Games, Learning & Society (GLS) Conference will be held July 10-11, 2008 in Madison, Wisconsin. Sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education and the Academic ADL Co-Lab, the GLS Conference fosters substantive discussion and collaboration among academics, designers, and educators interested in how game technologies - commercial games and others - can enhance learning, culture, and education. Speakers, discussion groups, and interactive workshops will focus on game design, game culture, and games' potential for learning.
For three years the GLS Conference has been the space for academics, industry leaders, educators, and policy makers to meet and to engage, not just in industry building, but in serious discussion about the current state of the field: where we ought to be headed, and what impact games can and ought to have on culture and society. We are planning the biggest and best year ever for this very important gathering, and we hope you will join us.

This two-day conference will be held at Frank Lloyd Wright's Monona Terrace Convention Center, overlooking downtown Madison's beautiful Lake Monona. Conference highlights include: a special session of hands-on workshops designed by and for videogame researchers and designers; a two-day lounge featuring Chat 'n' Frag sessions with key scholars and designers; fireside chats with industry leaders and special guests; a game room; webcasts of selected conference sessions; and our signature Thursday night dinner party.

We invite creative and interactive proposals for presentations, discussions, symposia, workshops, debates, respondents, and exhibits on topics and issues related to conference themes. To continue providing a high-quality program, all submissions will go through peer review and be evaluated with respect to quality, originality, clarity, and relevance to conference themes. Based on positive feedback from last year's conference, we especially encourage interactive session formats such as workshops, debates, and hands-on events for the GLS lounge.

Complete submission guidelines are listed inside the submissions site at http://glsconference.org. Submission format includes: Title; Abstract (500 words or less); Author name(s), picture(s), and short bio(s); and lastly, whether you would like your presentation to be considered for an interactive (workshop, chat 'n' frag, poster) or more expository (symposium, plenary) session. Submissions are due online by March 31, 2008.