virtual worlds — |Game Studies Blog|

Dear Player: Confessions of a Pokémon Eater

I crave candy. It’s a hunger I share with 7yr-olds and cartoon characters. Much has been written about how this primal urge, Niantic’s Pokemon GO, is either saving or dooming a generation (and its road traffic). But we’ve had ARGs and fandoms before, why is this craze proving so provocative?

Dear Player: Bioshock Infinite, Repaying a Debt

have a dream where I open my office door. It’s black and white, and I know I’ve done many things, but I don’t know what I’ve lost in the process. The virtual is tragic and farcical, here and not here, welcoming and reifying, and in playing BioShock: Infinite we see its price.

Dear Player – Games as Landscape: Learning to Live in Virtual Worlds

From side-scrolling levels to open-world fields of play, games generate space. From their inception, games have had to deal with the problems and possibilities of virtual spaces. In both making and playing we create spaces which are seen, heard and felt - psychological, philosophical and creative. Many games provide beautiful backdrops, but how do they allow us to interact with them as landscapes, to discover, break and reshape worlds?