Through the Looking Glas

After the great Tampere Spring Seminar on Gamebooks back in 2022 I’ve been working on a special issue for the Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds. Together with fellow guest editors Souvik Mukherjee, Hanna-Riikka Roine and Jaakko Stenros we managed to gather a fine collection of articles the relationship between games en books. The special issue is out now!

So, what is it about? To quote from the abstract of our editorial: “Games and books, understood in the broadest possible sense, interrelate in numerous different ways. Books and games can take each other’s form; they inspire and augment, expand and specify, contextualize and transform one another. We can ‘read’ games, and we can ‘play’ books. [The special Issue] discusses game-book hybrids, gamebooks, as complex entities worthy of their own attention. The focus is specifically on the intersections of games and books (instead of, for instance, games and literature, or games and narratives) as these offer a site for a fruitful cross-disciplinary work”.

Within the editorial we discuss games and books as interdisciplinary sites of research and even manage to produce a typology for game books (see below). The special issue contains a range of articles each highlighting different aspects of cultural objects and phenomena which can be located somewhere between book and game, and reading and playing. Have a look in the table of contents. I want to extend my gratitute to all the contributors, as well as the Journal’s editors Sonia Fizek and Melissa Kagen. 

Apart from editorial work as well as co-authoring the editorial itself, I also contributed the full article titled “Playing with the gamebook: The Final Hours interactive storybooks as playful paratexts”. In it, I explore a series of interactive storybooks called The Final Hours which present stories and other audiovisual and even interactive elements about the making of various well known games such as Half-Life: Alyx, Tomb Raider, and Mass Effect 3.  Here’s the abstract:

This article discusses an interactive storybook series titled The Final Hours which provides behind-the-scenes perspectives on the creation of certain video games. The focus is on how the specific interactive, playful elements which make up the reading – or playing – of these books provide forms of engagement which deviate from more traditional paper-based books on the making-of games. The analysis is situated within ongoing discussions about the role of paratextuality in and around games, in this case focusing on the question how these storybooks give shape to players’ understanding of games and game production through playful interactions with the making-of games. To account for the medium specificity of this type of interactive books, the paratextual analysis also connects to studies on paper-based pop-up or ‘movable’ books, a genre often associated with play, providing not just insights into paratextual functions but also highly ludic form.

Last night, I was the guest in the podcast-length NPO Radio 1 show “De Nacht Van…” (“The Night of…”) talking about games, the industry, its culture and so forth. Thanks to the team for the great intro they made, as well as the engaging talk itself – very enjoyable. A video of the entire thing (in Dutch) can be found here (or click on picture below). There’s a great little report in there on game history as well. And I was allowed to pick the songs they played in between – so I couldn’t help myself to sneak in Portal’s “Still Alive”.

We’re once again organizing the Week of the Game at Utrecht University, this time held between Monday 15 and Friday 19 April. Hosted by the Center of Games Research, the Week will see a series of  researchers and research projects presenting their work through workshops, presentations and mini-conferences.

The full programme can be found HERE. Have a look!

I will be involved in organizing a workshop in Monday the 15th called Game design as pedagogy together with colleagues Jasper van Vught and Stefan Werning. In this workshop, we will discuss the value of co-creation of games as a teaching method. Rather than learning from or through a game product, this approach focuses on creating multiple iterations (prototypes) of a game, making the game design process the site for knowledge transfer. In this workshop, we will explain the background of the approach and its various benefits. Then we will actively work on a low-key game design assignment.  If you want to join, you can register via  j.f.vanvught@uu.nl.

We will also be launching the new and improved. UU game research website during this week.

On September 20, 2023, the Dutch Media Literacy Network (Netwerk Mediawijsheid) organized an expert event in which researchers, educators, developers and other literacy-related groups convened to discuss the current state of Educational games and apps. The main question w

as how we can improve media literacy skills through the use of digital games. The trigger for this event was a research project by research teams from Utrecht University (including myself) and Erasmus University Rotterdam called “DIGITAL LITERACY GAMES: Digital games designed to support digital literacy skills acquisition”. It was funded by a KIEM Go-Ci grant by Regieorgaan SIA (part of NWO). The results of this research project were presented during the event and, among other presentations, formed the basis for several expert discussions. It was an interesting event with lots of inspiring presentations and discussions.

The results of this expert event have now been published in a report called Enhancing Effective Media and Digital Literacy through Digital Games: Insights and Advise from Research and the Work Field (translated from Dutch), authored by Jeroen Jansz (EUR), me (UU) and Teresa de la Hera (EUR) with support from Laura Cañete Sanz, Julia Kneer (EUR), and Jasper van Vught (UU). The main results, including nine main recommendations based on these results, are presented on the website of the Dutch Media Literacy Network here.

The full report can be downloaded directly via this link. A short 10-points design tips document for effective media literacy games based on the research project can be downloaded directly via this link.

Last year I participated in the taping of an episode of De Dikke Data Show for Dutch broadcaster VPRO, a tv programme focused on bringing digital culture-related topics to a young audience. The episode I was involved in not surprisingly focus on games, and on Fortnite specifically. That episode has now been shown on tv and has also been released online. It turned out great, with lots of attention to the various political economic sides and socio-cultural pervasiseness of Fortnite. And I even managed to score my first victory royale together with host Jard Struik – on tv no less 😉 The episode can be found below.

VPRO | De Dikke Data Show | Fortnite from NOUVEAU FILM on Vimeo.

A little update on some media appearances I did I’d like to share – all in Dutch though. First, I was a guest in the ongoing Onder Mediadoctoren podcast hosted by Linda Duits and Vincent Crone. We had a long an interesting talk on e-Sports, and the podcast crew also shot some interesting items on the topic. The podcast can be found here, the full video recording of the session can be found below.

I was also invited as an expert to talk about how games draw our attention in the documentary series TMI: Aandacht created by the folks at Human Factor for Dutch television broadcaster Powned over at NPO3. The episode I’m in deals with game design principles and how they are being used to lure us in and keep us in play far beyond entertainment games. Well-written, engagingly presented through animation: it’s an interesting series, so have a look:

I’m proud to announce the release of The Playful Citizen:  Civic Engagement in Mediatized Culture, a book edited by Sybille Lammes, Michiel de Lange, Joost Raessens, Imar de Vries and myself and published by Amsterdam University Press in the new Games and Play book series.  Here’s the book’s premise from the publisher’s site:

In the last decade, digital media technologies and developments have given rise to exciting new forms of ludic, or playful, engagements of citizens in cultural and societal issues. From the Occupy movement to playful city-making to the gameful designs of the Obama 2008 and Trump 2016 presidential campaigns, and the rise of citizen science and ecological games, this book shows how play is a key theoretical, methodological, and practical principle for comprehending such new forms of civic engagement in a mediatized culture.

The Playful Citizen explores how and through what media we are becoming more playful as citizens and how this manifests itself in our ways of doing, living, and thinking. We offer a pluralistic answer to such questions by bringing together scholars from different fields such as game and play studies, social sciences, and media and culture studies.

The book offers contributions from scholars including William Uricchio, Anne-Marie Schleiner, Jeroen Jansz, Eric Gordon, Douglas Rushkoff, and many others. The book is available on paper through the publisher’s website or other online book retailers, as well as freely available through open access here!  If you just want to browse the table of contents or want to read the first chapter, in which we elaborate on the notion of the playful citizen, go here.

Backside blurbs:

“A completely innovative aspect is the agenda of analyzing media and citizenship in contemporary culture through the lens of play. Media studies, game studies, and cultural studies will benefit from this, as will political practice.” – Mathias Fuchs, principal investigator at the Centre for Digital Cultures at Leuphana University Lüneburg, editor of Rethinking Gamification

“What a splendid edited collection, a thoughtful and well-researched anthology that both summarizes the state of the art at the intersection between play and political theories, and presents insights on future lines of research.” – Miguel Sicart, professor at the IT University of Copenhagen, author of Play Matters

I was recently interviewed by Dutch broadcaster VPRO for the 90m long documentary created by Maarten Slagboom on the role and impact of smartphones in the ongoing ludification and gamification of culture and society. It’s was broadcast on June 10 and can be viewed below or by clicking here (all in Dutch).

Please also have a look at the great mobile short film they made to accompany the documentary. It’s called MarkyMark87 and can be watched here. Please watch it on a smartphone though or the effect won’t work.