Creative TerritoriesExploring Innovation in Indie Game Production Contexts

and Connections

University West of England (Patrick Crogan)

Utrecht Game Studies Focus

Joost Raessens

May 20, 2014

1. Past

1998: Master New Media and Digital Culture

2008: 10th anniversary of the New Media programme

Serious games (Raessens)War games (Nieborg)Role-playing games (Copier)Pervasive games (Nieuwdorp)Cartography & games (Lammes)Renaissance experience (Rushkoff)

Past Research Projects

1. Playful Identities. From Narrative to Ludic Self-Construction (2005-2010) → Are digital information and communication technologies (games, websites, mobile) transforming the (construction of) personal and cultural identity?

2. GATE: Game Research for Training and Entertainment (2007-2012) → Research projects (Design rules for learning through simulated worlds), knowledge transfer, pilot projects (education healthcare)

3. GATE: The Playful Citizen: Power, Creativity, Knowledge (2010-2012) → Citizen science

2. Present

Being playful

Ludic activities

Game

Ludification of Culture

Recent Research Projects

1. AHRC: Creative Territories (Bristol, 2014-2015)

2. AHRC: Games and Social Change (Manchester, 2014-2015)

3. NUFFIC: Summerschool - Intensive Programme: Identity and Interdisciplinarity in Games and Play Research (2014)

4. NWO: Graduate Programme Game Research (2013-2018): Humanities & Computer Science

5. NWO Creative Industries: Persuasive Gaming. From Theory-Based Design to Validation and Back (2013-2017)

Example: Persuasive gaming. From theory-based design to validation and back

► Social science approach: understanding the persuasive effects► Humanities approach: understanding (the construction of) persuasiveness► Design approach: understanding the

design of persuasiveness

Persuasiveness

→ Not only: Proceduralism, procedural rhetoric (Ian Bogost)

→ Also: Player and context (Miguel Sicart)

→ Performance art with an agenda, players

are ‘forced out of their expectations’, setting up situations with meaning not conveyed, but jointly produced from the

design and the player’s interaction with

the design (Mark J. Nelson)

Assistant professor in New Media and Game Studies (1,0 fte)

Expertise (teaching and research)

Serious gamingPlayful media culturesPlayful communication, persuasive gaming and gamificationMobile and social media, data analysis and software studies

All of these areas of expertise should be grounded in a critical, media-theoretical approach.

3. Future

Utrecht University Focus Area Game Research

(2014-2017)

Center for Applied Games (Growing Games)

KIC - Knowledge and Innovation

Community in

Healthy Living and Active Ageing(Games & Gamification)

Horizon 2020 ICT 21Advanced

Digital Gaming-Gamification Technologies

ChangeIT – Civic Engagement(Leuphana)

Critical distance, complex understanding → critical,

cultural theorycreative territories

VERSUS

dominant forms of the digital economy, corporate values, and

presentismcreative industries

Thanks for your attention