By admin on May 9, 2013
My colleague Samuel Tobin and I are co-editing a special issue of Reconstruction all about the video game arcade. I’ve copied the full CFP down below. Please pass along and consider submitting. We are seeking articles, reviews, and anything else you can dream up. You can learn more about Reconstruction here, but generally, it’s a peer-reviewed, MLA-indexed journal of cultural studies.
Here’s an Instagram photo of me doing some really glamorous library research on arcades.
If you have any questions or want to make sure your idea is in-line with what we’re thinking, feel free to drop me a line. I’ll be happy to clarify things as much as I can.
Reconstruction 14.1: The Undead Arcade (to be published March 2014)
This special issue of Reconstruction seeks explorations of the world, practices, histories and possibilities of the Video Arcade and associated spaces in the 20th and 21st centuries. The Video Arcade has recently been described, in both popular and scholarly works, as “dead” and yet it retains a curious vitality and visibility. From Wreck it Ralph and TRON: Legacy to Dave & Buster’s and Barcade, the video arcade is at once both dead and alive, a topic both for misty-eyed backward glances and innovative entrepreneurial revival. This paradoxical state of affairs makes the arcade both a difficult and important object for scholarly inquiry, one that demands a diversity of approaches, methods and perspectives. We invite you to participate in the process of critically assessing the Video Arcade’s unique cultural position through this special issue.
We welcome scholarly essays from any disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspective that touch on the concept of the Video Arcade. How might we make sense of the video arcade in the broader context of public amusements and youth culture? What might arcade as object of nostalgic longing tell us about technology, spectatorship, and culture, and what are the theoretical limitations of examining the arcade through this lens? What can be learned from critical engagement with cabinet-boards as platforms, or with cabinets as designed objects, furniture, or novelites? Through these and related queries, this special issue asks contributors to consider both what the Video Arcade was and what it has become over time and the intersections of the arcade’s past and present.
- Suggested topics include but are not limited to:
- Comparative studies of international arcades, both contemporary and historic
- Video arcades’ ongoing relationship to home console and/or mobile play
- Family entertainment centers/restaurants (Chuck E Cheese’s), arcade-bars (Barcade) and other relative and/or successor spaces.
- “Ports” and adaptations into and out of arcades
- Historical cartographies and geographies of arcades
- Arcade economies (financial, affective, ludic, etc.)
- Competitive and/or collaborative play in the Arcade, and associated cultures
- Arcade and arcade cabinet recreation, preservation and collecting (private and/or institutional)
- Arcade representation in film and television
- Video Arcades and the Arcades Project
- Identification around and through the arcade, including considerations of age, race, gender, and socioeconomic class
Completed essays of up to 7,000 words or reviews of books, events, films, exhibits, places or other forms that may be of interest to the readership should be submitted by November 1, 2013 to ckocurek@iit.edu. Inquiries in advance of submission are also welcome.
Posted in Research | Tagged CFP, collaboration, game studies, gaming, golden era of arcade gaming, history, reconstruction, research, video game arcade |
By admin on April 29, 2013
Alicia Crawford, who won Sony Online Entertainment and Scholarship America’s Gamers In Real Life (G.I.R.L.) Scholarship
Over the past few months, I’ve had the pleasure of co-authoring a series of columns for Flow with Jennifer deWinter of Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Our columns, which focus on sexism in the gaming industry, have now all been published, which means you can go read them all, in order, at your leisure.
I worked on Flow for several years as a graduate student, first as a student editor and later as a senior editor, and I also helped organize the first two Flow conferences and spoke at the third. It’s been a pleasure to be able to work with the publication now from the other side as an author.
Flow is a great forum for what I’ve heard referred to as “fast scholarship” — scholarly work that engages with contemporary culture in a way that is timely and topical and less hindered by traditional academic publishing models. In the case of Flow, that model has been highly productive and has generated some deeply compelling work that might not quite fit the typical journal article format.
Posted in Gaming, Gender, Research | Tagged collaboration, feminism, game studies, gaming, gender, industry, research, sexism, women, women and gaming, women gamers
By admin on April 9, 2013
Since the conference site is now online, I can start talking about how excited I am about the 1st History of Games International Conference: Working With, Building, and Telling History which is taking place this June in Montreal. Video game history is exactly my research, and so I’m incredibly excited to be able to participate in a conference so clearly aligned with my interests. As described on the conference web site:
The International Conference on the History of Game is the first event dedicated in its entirety to the ongoing research on the history of games in all its shapes. It brings together many researchers working in such disciplines as media archeology, preservation, museology and the formatting of history, as well as industry professionals. The development of games in the digital era represents the main object of inquiry, but historical research on all ludic manifestations will also be presented.
My presentation at the conference, “8-Bit Exhortations: Shocking Graphics, Promotional Ballyhoo, and the Marketing of the Arcade Game” (tip of the hat to my friend John Cline for the title), draws on my ongoing work on cabinet graphics, flyers, and other marketing strategies that helped shape interpretations of early arcade games.
I’ll be teaching a course on the History of Video Gaming come fall, so the conference comes at a particularly helpful time for me, but regardless, I’m thrilled to be in such good company on the program, and I’m definitely looking forward to visiting Montreal for the first time.
Posted in Research | Tagged conference, flyer, game studies, golden era of arcade gaming, history, research
By admin on March 28, 2013
Here I am speaking at IIT for Women’s History Month. The image projected behind me is of one of the Sony G.I.R.L. Scholarship winners. Photo is courtesy of Marie Hicks.
On Tuesday, I gave a talk for women’s history month on my campus here in Chicago. The talk was part of a lunch hosted by the Department of Humanities for Women’s History Month. My colleague Marie Hicks spoke about the history of women in computing, and the tendency of modern viewers to dismiss the women in historic photos of the tech industry as models rather than recognizing them as workers; I spoke about both the chronic marginalization of women in the games industry and highlighted some of the significant contributions women have made to the industry.
A list of female game characters generated by students in my Critical Analysis of Video Games class.
That night, in my Critical Analysis of Video Games class, my students and I talked about issues of gender representation in video games. For context, this is an upper-level class of roughly 25 students that is overwhelmingly male; there are 3 women in the class, total. IIT as a campus has a pronounced gender disparity, with women making up only 1/3 of the student body.
We began by brainstorming a list of female game characters, some of which you can see above. After, we started thinking about some of the ways we might describe these characters. The descriptions ranged from physical characteristics — thin, attractive, tight clothes, long hair, white — to personality traits — smart, witty, tough. Many of the traits my students pointed to are broadly appealing. Who, after all, doesn’t want to be smart or witty? But as they continued looking for commonalities among the characters, they started identifying some less positive aspects. A lot of the characters are women who have been significantly damaged. They are survivors, but we know that only because they have been victimized; several characters are mentally ill or unstable; a number are orphans.
As we wrapped up our discussion, I asked students to think what they would like to see in a female game character — to generate a wishlist of traits. While, sadly, I didn’t photograph that whiteboard list, I’d like to share some of it:
- Does not need to be rescued
- Has authority which is not questioned (is military leader, boss or similar)
- Is a competent professional
- Body diversity (even just short hair)
- Rescues other people
- Is average or normal but gets to do something amazing or is sucked into a fantasy world
In most of these cases, my students could think of male characters who fit these descriptors, but couldn’t think of female counterparts.
The discussion was preparation for next week’s discussion about Tomb Raider (original version), which my students will be playing this week. I look forward to hearing what they have to say, and the discussion seems particularly timely, given the recent release of the Tomb Raider reboot.
Posted in Gender | Tagged gender, sexism, teaching, tomb raider, women, women and gaming
By admin on March 21, 2013
Depression Quest is an interactive fiction title that is more or less exactly what its title implies, which is to say, it’s a game about depression.
Specifically, it is an interactive fiction-style game in a “choose-your-own-adventure” style. Depression Quest doesn’t allow for open-ended commands. Instead, the player chooses from a prescribed list of options. In many scenes, some of these options are struck, indicating the choices the character is unable to make because of his depression. Throughout the game, each scene is illustrated by a Polaroid-style image at the top of the screen. These images relate to the game’s narrative and are shown through static, which increases if the character grows more depressed or decreases if the character becomes less depressed. The character’s depression is presented as a kind of emotional and visual haze.
The opening screen for Depression Quest, featuring a quote from David Foster Wallace.
Playing Depression Quest is a lot of things, but it probably isn’t fun. That isn’t a shortcoming — it just isn’t the intention of the game. And, the beginning of the game warns players that it might be upsetting for someone who is actively struggling or has previously struggled with depression. True to the warning, the game is, at times, harrowing and frustrating. It is also deeply moving, and potentially illuminating. For players who haven’t grappled with depression up close and personal, the game offers a glimpse of an extremely difficult, and often misunderstood condition.
The designers, Zoe Quinn, Patrick Lindsey, and Isaac Schankler have clearly put a great deal of thought into the game as a kind of educational experience. It isn’t perfect, but it is an interesting example of the potential for games to suck players into experiences they haven’t had. Many games do this, of course — I haven’t really ever fought an army of zombie skeletons, swam in the deep ocean, or leaped off a building, but I’ve spent a lot of time invested in this activities on screen. However, Depression Quest differs from many games in its efforts to engage players in what is a fundamentally mundane experience. The Center for Disease Control estimates that 1 in 10 Americans is depressed, which means that for better or worse, depression is a very normal part of daily life.
Currently, Depression Quest is being considered for Steam Greenlight. Support them here. You can also play for free or pay-what-you-want on the game’s web site.
Posted in Gaming | Tagged depression quest, gaming, interactive fiction, what I've been playing
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