Tuesday, August 5th, 2008
I’m glad to say that I have accepted the position of Assistant Professor in Computer Game Design at the IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark. I will be joining many long-time colleagues in the Computer Games Research Group from the start of September. This means that I will have a chance to pursue post-doc research, develop my design and analysis methods through teaching, and continue to pursue practical game design projects through my company.
I’ll be at Copenhagen for the Player conference at the end of August already - hope to see you there!
Saturday, May 10th, 2008
I am in the process of directing my energy into other sites and projects. First of all, I started an ad hoc project about Grand Theft Auto IV. My aim is to blog through the experience of playing the game, which would then produce one type of detailed reading of the game from the perspectives of game design and play experience. You can follow the progress here:
GTA IV: A Journey of Design Research through Liberty City
I’ll quote the intro here:
The Grand Theft Auto video game series, by Rockstar Games, has become the landmark of the video game industry. Since the third installment of the series in 2001, ‘GTA’ has become the most anticipated and talked about video game franchise in the entertainment industry. The series has explored both conceptual and technological boundaries of video games. It has redefined how crime, characters, and popular culture can be incorporated into the design of a video game in a particularly savvy manner.
At the same time, academic study of video games has emerged as its own discipline. After debates about the development of broad theoretical strokes, it has become time to produce, and popularize, detailed analyses of individual game masterpieces. Such readings can make findings of video game studies available to both game developers and gamers, but also – and more importantly – to educators, parents, and journalists interested in developments in popular culture.
In these pages, game scholar and designer Aki Järvinen, Ph.D., will produce such a reading from the perspectives of design, psychology, and culture.
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008
As promised earlier, here is the opening speech from my defense:
’All Rules Lead to Players’
by Aki Järvinen
Lectio Praecursoriae, University of Tampere, Finland
March 8th, 2008
Dear custodian, dear opponent, ladies and gentlemen.
It is my task to open this event by speaking to you about my work, to be defended here today. I will start with some thoughts on the title of the thesis: Games without Frontiers. Read the rest of this entry »
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008
It’s me, my Professor Mikko Lehtonen, and my esteemed opponent Jesper Juul, giving his closing remarks of my ‘hugely ambitious work, which puts a stake in the ground for game studies’ :)
I have levelled up!! I will post my opening speech, ‘lectio’, from the defense in the coming days. Then this site is just about done.
Friday, February 22nd, 2008
After close to 10 years of post-graduate studies, on and off, my thesis has been published in the electronic series of the University of Tampere. A link and an abstract can be found here:
Games without Frontiers: Theories and Methods for Game Studies and Design
This means that I will remove the old table of contents.
Thursday, February 21st, 2008
I’m happy to say that my work on emotions and games reached seventh at the list of ‘top ten research findings from academic game studies from the previous calendar year’, presented by fellow scholars at GDC. Meanwhile, my final thesis version will appear as an electronic publication at the University series in the coming days - before my defense on March 8th. A more compact version as an actual book, or two, is in the works. I hope to release a new site dedicated to my teaching and consulting work, including a set of online analysis tools, during the coming months.
Monday, December 3rd, 2007
During the coming weekend, I hope to correct the errata and maybe do a couple of structural changes before I’ll send the package to my opponent. After that, I will try to find time for writing two book proposals based on the manuscript. Meanwhile, I try to gather forces and resources for launching the online analysis tools. There’s board game design also in progress. If all goes well, 2008 might prove quite an eventful year!
Monday, November 19th, 2007
I’ll be heading to the north of Sweden, to Skellefteå, this week to give a mix of lectures, analysis exercises, and Gamegame during a spell of two days. It’s part of a game design course in Luleå University of Technology. From there, I’ll head for the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm to give a visiting lecture about Applied Ludology.
Tuesday, October 30th, 2007
I’m happy to announce that my Ph.D. evaluations have both come in and they are positive, yippee! After some scheduling negotiations, it now seems pretty certain that my defense will be on March 8th next year.
Monday, October 22nd, 2007
I’ll be lecturing next week in Malmö and Copenhagen: First, on Monday the 29th, I’ll be giving a couple of talks in Malmö University, and on the following a day I’ll have a visiting spot in the Advanced Game Theory course at ITU. Looking forward to this! I’ll be posting my materials later.
[edit]
The presentation slides from ITU can be found from my slidespace.