February 27, 2004

Two new game studies faculty at Tech

by Michael Mateas · , 11:54 am

I’m happy to announce that two new games studies faculty, Ian Bogost and Michael Nitsche will be joing us at Georgia Tech this Fall.

Some of you already know Ian from watercoolergames and as a frequent commentor here. Ian is interested in the rhetorical function of games, how they can be used to convey a position and change opinions. Ian also develops games, most recently the Howard Dean campaign game (which we discussed here).

Michael, currently at Cambridge, explores how insights from architecture, narratology and film studies can be applied to the design of games conceived as narrative spaces. As part of his research he also develops games, including developing for the Playstation platform. You can find out more about his research here.

Gonzalo noted (Feb. 26 entry) that the recent New York Times article dubbed Copenhagen IT as the “hub of of game studies”. With Jay, Janet, myself, now Michael and Ian, plus the Experimental Game Lab, plus game-related research taking place in the College of Computing (including my research in game AI), perhaps Georgia Tech will steal Copenhagen IT’s title :).

8 Responses to “Two new game studies faculty at Tech”


  1. ian wilson Says:

    Sounds like you are going to have an amazing team there! I am sure we will all be expecting great things ;)

  2. jeremy hunsinger Says:

    oh, i’m not sure stealing a title is something to aspire toward, are you? :) between ph.d. students and faculty, game.itu.dk is pretty big…. and we should also think about the rest of itu where students are working away on http://www.smmog.dk/ and other things.

  3. Ian Bogost Says:

    I think I can speak for both Mateas and myself in saying that the ITU crew are all our close friends as well as colleagues. I also think that Tech and ITU have different approaches to game studies, which together will grow the field in equally interesting ways.

    But a little friendly competition never hurt anyone… :) and maybe Gonzalo will improve their Super Monkey Ball skills too ;)

  4. michael Says:

    Jeremy, thanks for the link to the research MMOG – looks like interesting work. As Ian says, friendly competition aside, the folks at Copenhagen IT are friends. We hope to establish closer ties between Tech and Copenhagen in the future (I know Jay, Ian and I have been independently talking with people there) so that we can work together to grow this field.

  5. Jesper Juul Says:

    But seriously, we had the title first – it’s ours now and you can’t have it!

  6. jeremy hunsinger Says:

    yes, collaboration is where the future should be, stuff like establishing faculty exchange, ph.d. student exchange, co-sponsoring various projects, conferences, etc. if you head down that road, then titles become moot and it makes both programs better.

  7. Ian Bogost Says:

    Jeremy — Of course, we’re all just having a bit of fun with this title thing. Yours are all great ideas and I’m sure we’ll be talking about them and others.

  8. Water Cooler Games Says:
    Game studies on the other coast
    I’m happy to announce that I’ll be joining the faculty at Georgia Tech this fall, continuing my work on game criticism and game rhetoric in the context of their IDT program. As Michael Mateas mentions today, we’ll look forward to…

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