Gaming the System

Game Studies Research and Critical Blindspots

by Tanner Higgin — University of California, Riverside
July 10, 2009 – 16:42

It was refreshing to be around so many different people from so many different backgrounds at the Games, Learning, and Society (GLS) conference in June, specifically because they were all incredibly excited about games. The conference had just a slight tinge of fangirl/boyism that was endearing and, in some ways, quite productive. After all, in a field such as game studies it is often glaringly obvious in some research that the scholar had not played the game much. ... read more »

Games, Learning, and Society 5.0 Talk: Analyzing Race in Games

by Tanner Higgin — University of California, Riverside
June 18, 2009 – 02:46

Last week I attended the Games, Learning, and Society conference. I also presented a talk there on a panel entitled “Representations of Self and Other in Games” which was a pleasure because it was one of the few explicitly political panels at the conference. Given the educational focus of the conference and the large attendance by designers and educators, much of the dialogue was about how to design educational games and the consequences of learning in gamespace. ... read more »

Erik Loyer Stories as Instruments pt. 2 or Intuitive Game Design and ...

by Tanner Higgin — University of California, Riverside
June 02, 2009 – 22:01

This is a follow-up to a previous post. ... read more »

Jenova Chen “Art, Entertainment, and Video Games”

by Tanner Higgin — University of California, Riverside
May 30, 2009 – 03:04

Jenova Chen, creative director of thatgamecompany graciously accepted my invite to give a talk at the University of California, Riverside for a research group I am a part of this week. Our research this year has focused on play with a particular interest in historicizing and expanding play beyond the boundaries of the common conceptualization of the digital game. Jenova was a perfect capstone to the year as his work in expanding the emotional spectrum of games is part of this project. ... read more »

Of Myth, Genocide, and License Plates

by Tanner Higgin — University of California, Riverside
May 28, 2009 – 18:33

I saw this license plate on a truck today and was shocked by the connections to some issues I have been dealing with in my composition course this quarter. One of the selections we read from the popular culture criticism collection Signs of Life is by David Goewey. ... read more »

Teaching Transcoded Race in Videogames

by Tanner Higgin — University of California, Riverside
May 23, 2009 – 05:35

In the past when I have taught race in videogames for my freshman composition classes I have had a hard time explaining how to push beyond representational critiques of racial signification. Naturally students are more adept at analyzing the visual presentation and iconography of race in games than breaking down the more subtle and technical ways race is coded into gameworlds. ... read more »

Twitter in the Classroom: Backchanneling a Film Screening

by Tanner Higgin — University of California, Riverside
May 11, 2009 – 22:23

Twitter is the current hot social network and, for once, I think it is justified. As others have pointed out, what makes Twitter useful is its adherence to simplicity in design and features and the ability to be followed but not follow, or, its asymmetry. ... read more »

Antihumanism

by Tanner Higgin — University of California, Riverside
May 06, 2009 – 22:21

Today N. Katherine Hayles gave a talk as part of a speaker series on Science Fiction at the University of California, Riverside. It was entitled “Vernor Vinge’s Rainbow’s End and the Macropolitics of Global Spatialization.” ... read more »

Erik Loyer’s Stories as Instruments pt. 1 or Why Isn’t Bigger Always ...

by Tanner Higgin — University of California, Riverside
April 10, 2009 – 22:20

Crossposted on Gameology.

Read part 2 here.

Interactive media artist Erik Loyer, perhaps most well known to academics as Creative Director of Vectors: Journal of Culture and Technology visited the University of California, Riverside earlier this week to give a talk titled “Stories as Instruments.” ... read more »

Power Table

by Tanner Higgin — University of California, Riverside
April 24, 2008 – 22:17