Communications of the ACM
Getting Serious About Global Gaming
A gamer plays along with the pattern of Jubeat, an electronic rhythm game, at an arcade in Nagoya, Japan.
Credit: Geoffrey Rockwell
University of Alberta researchers have developed a network designed to bring together academia and the gaming industry.
The researchers are addressing a broad range of questions about how electronic games can be used for education, defining the line between literature and gaming, and finding ways to preserve electronic games. "We as faculty need to make sure that we’re looking at this global phenomenon," says Alberta researcher Geoffrey Rockwell.
He says the gap between the games industry and the games studies community has resulted partly because of cultural differences and how computer games are studied. In addition, Rockwell says both academia and the gaming industry need to find a way to preserve electronic games. "We have to provide an answer to the question of the preservation of interactive media," he says. "Much of the important art of the last 50 years--and by that I don’t mean fine art but human art--has been interactive media."
Rockwell notes that games are being integrated into every aspect of society, and emerging games are changing ideas not only about who gamers are, but also about what constitutes a game.
From University of Alberta
View Full Article
Abstracts Copyright © 2012 Information Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA
No entries found