March 1, 2005
Aarseth and Jenkins on Games
I guess I should call it “Aarseth vs. Jenkins.” Henry Jenkins and Espen Aarseth recently debated game studies (streaming Real video), although I’d say it was somewhere in between a debate and a love fest – a good discussion, certainly. This was hosted at the HUMlab (Umeå University, Sweden) back on January 18. I’m a bit late in noting this, but it’s well worth watching this soon, in case link rot and the cost of streaming video hosting cause the video to drop offline. The topics range from the relationship between story and game to the relationship between developers and academics, with discussion of the institutional situation of game studies programs as well. Henry has some great comments about spatial story and the relationship of games to other narrative-evoking environments; Espen’s discussion of the need for a diversity of approaches – not just “narratology” and “ludology” – is also quite good to hear. Espen even explains how game studies should take literary studies as a model! You’ll have to watch the video yourself to find out what the context is for this suggestion – it’s about 49 minutes in.
March 2nd, 2005 at 11:12 am
I promise we will keep the stream alive! Henry Jenkins also did a seminar in the lab on the same day (just before the debate – available from here: http://blog.humlab.umu.se/archives/2005_01.html#000816 ). He had a cold and I am amazed that he manged to be so energetic and concentrated for so long.
Patrik
March 2nd, 2005 at 11:19 am
Patrik, thanks for the link, the comment, and the writeup of Henry’s seminar – I was only scaring people and saying it might go offline because I was trying to get them rush to see the video. (It worked for The Gates, didn’t it?) I may show some of this debate to a class when I’m guest-lecturing on story and games, in another two weeks.
June 21st, 2005 at 5:36 pm
[…] ogy “computer game formalism”. There’s some fun images referring to the debate last January between Espen Aarseth and Henry Jenkins in JanetR […]