Speaking at Indiana University, Georgia Tech

Indiana University

12:30-1:45 pm on Friday, March 28, 2008
Indiana University Bloomington, Dept. of Telecommunications, Room RTV 226

Talk: Games for Making Friends and Enemies: A Small Theory of Games in Social Contexts.

It is easy to forget that before the single player video game, most video games were for more than one player. In this work in progress talk, I will argue that many of the more successful multiplayer games, from Parcheesi to Rock Band to Animal Crossing acquire their power by piggybacking on existing social relations, thus acquiring many layers of meaning when played, as well as ambiguously threatening to rewrite these relations. By use of digital and non-digital examples, I will outline a theory of how games acquire meaning from the context in which they are played.

Georgia Tech

Monday, March 31st
TSRB 132
1:30-2:30 pm

Talk: Hardcore players of casual games: Locating the “casual” in casual games.

Casual games are usually described as relaxing games to be played for short periods of time, but studies have shown that many players of casual games play more than 10 hours a week. In essence, it seems that casual players play in “hardcore” ways. In this talk I will discuss the problematic distinction between “hardcore” and “casual” players by examining the new field of casual games and answering the question: Should we talk about casual games or casual players?