Thursday - October 12th
12.00 - 13.00
Ephemeral ecologies: player paratexts at the end of the world
Lawrence May (University of Auckland)
In this Anthropocentric era of biospheric decay and collapse, the planet’s ailments inexorably permeate videogames. Lawrence discusses an ecocritical project studying online player communities and paratexts shared within them. Analysing player paratexts associated with Battlefield 2042, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and Cities: Skylines reveals users’ engagement with different modes of ecological thought during gameplay. This seminar will illustrate contemporary videogames as entwined with our catastrophic ecological conditions, and players as routinely engaged with questions of Anthropocentrism, capitalism, apocalypse and subjectivity.
Dr Lawrence May is a lecturer at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. His research explores meaning-making in player communities, the entanglement between videogames and the climate crisis, and the role of undead monstrosity within games.
Watch the live stream on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsDKHZEvIqs
Thursday - September 28th
11.00 - 12.00
The “Critiqueless” Critique of Gamification
Mikko Vesa
Gamification has emerged as a powerful play-derived managerial practice for (re)designing work and organizing. Scholarly critique of this practice is built around functional questions of “does gamification work?” and normative questions of “is gamification right?”. In his talk, prof. Mikko Vesa contributes to critical understandings of gamification in organizations and management. He argues for studying gamification as an ideology that gives rise to specific forms of power relations and identities in gamified organizations and workplaces. This critical lens helps researchers account for the (mis)use of games and gaming in organizations and to fulfil their ethical duty towards subjects whose life-worlds are consumed in its rhetoric and practice.
Mikko Vesa is an Associate Professor (tenured) of management studies at the Department of Management and Organization, Hanken School of Economics and an Adjunct Professor of Strategic Gamification at the University of Lapland. He has 15 years of experience in researching games, the gaming industry and gamification in the subject of business management and is a recognized authority in the field.
Watch the live stream on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV02RQeoLO0
Thursday - September 21st
12.00 - 13.00
Promises, Politics, and Pipelines: Implicit and Explicit Lessons from Games Higher Education
Alison Harvey
University degrees have become an essential criterion for a range of roles in the games industry, but the value of higher education remains contested. These contestations and the emphasis in diversity in discussions of talent and the pipeline from education to work tell us little about how games higher education functions and how it contributes to challenging inequalities in participation. In this talk, I explore the paradoxes and possibilities for change outlined by students and teachers in games higher education.
Alison Harvey is Associate Professor in the Communications program at Glendon College, York University. Her research and teaching focuses on issues of inclusivity and accessibility in digital culture, with an emphasis on gender and labour in digital games.
Watch the live stream on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajIgfS4yWJc
Wednesday - August 23rd
13.00 - 14.00
Game Studies without Culture? A Historical Review of Video Game Research in Korea
Tae-Jin Yoon
My presentation aims to conduct a meta-analysis of academic papers and books published on video game studies in Korea over the past 20 years in order to review trends in the field, identify key themes and methodologies, and summarise the main findings and contributions of the research. Given the rapid development of media technology, the changing industrial structure, and the chaotic legal and institutional environment, interest in people who play games has been reduced to psychological factors, and research on game culture remains scarce. It was for this reason that I decided to do an anthropological study of Korean game players. In addition to this, I will also introduce some interesting research papers on Korean gaming culture.
Tae-Jin Yoon is Professor at the Graduate School of Communication and Arts, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea. He is also the president of Game-n-Science Institute in Korea. His research focuses on a variety of topics, including television shows, video games and esports, webtoons, and the Korean Wave.
