Month: September 2018

Posted on - 1 Comment on Educating social workers on problem gaming
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Educating social workers on problem gaming

Patrick Prax was invited by Region Gotland to educate our local social workers and medical providers about problematic gaming, youth and “addiction”.


(the lecture was in Swedish – you can help us add subtitles on Youtube!)

The talk was in Swedish but Patrick recommends the book “What’s the Problem in Problem Gaming”. It is an anthology which provides a number of perspectives on the issue, such as players’ life conditions and lifestyle choices, problem gaming from a family perspective, the voices of treatment professionals, and how game design can become problematic. The book is an essential read for researchers in the field as well as for policymakers, social workers, clinical psychologists, teachers and others who encounter problem gaming in their profession, and the digital version is freely available to download here.

Vad är problemet med problematiskt datorspelande?
Många barn och unga spelar datorspel. För de flesta är spelandet ett utvecklande intresse eller avkopplande tidsfördriv. Somliga har svårt att begränsa datorspelandet vilket kan medföra att skola, kamrater och andra viktiga åtaganden försummas. För att kunna stödja barn i deras digitala vardag kan du som vuxen skaffa dig mer kunskap om datorspel. Hur fungerar spelvärlden? Varför väcker spel engagemang? Och när blir spelandet ett problem?

Du som i ditt arbete möter barn, unga och föräldrar är välkommen till en halvdag (för- eller eftermiddag) om datorspelande (på engelska ”gaming”). Ni får lyssna till Patrick Prax, forskare anställd vid institutionen för speldesign Uppsala universitet Campus Gotland, som kommer att ge er kunskap om gaming, presentera forskning på området och berätta vad vi vet om problematiskt spelande och hur det kan förebyggas och hanteras.

Föreläsningen arrangeras av BarnSam inom ramen för partnerskapet mellan Uppsala universitet Campus Gotland (UUCG) och Region Gotland.

Datum: 27 september 2018
Tid: 8.30–12.00 eller 13.00–16.30
Plats: Ljusgården Rådhuset, Visborgsallén 19 i Visby
Anmälan för regionens medarbetare via särskild länk som erhålls via BarnSam

Utbildning om problematiskt datorspelande 20180927 (.pdf)

Posted on - Comments Off on Prof. Bartle back on the island!
 CategoriesBlog, Guest Lectures 

Prof. Bartle back on the island!

We’re continuing the expansion of our research wing at the Department of Game Design, and we are happy to announce that Prof. Richard Bartle is joining our team on Gotland as a guest professor!

We welcome professor Richard Bartle – Honorary Professor at University of Essex and Guest Researcher at the Department of Game Design at Uppsala University!

Professor Bartle co-wrote the first virtual world (MUD, in 1978), making him a pioneer within the massively multiplayer online game industry, wrote the seminal ‘Designing Virtual Worlds’ and authored the ‘Bartle Test’ which has inspired countless attempts to distinguish player types. He is also a respected and appreciated member of the game research community.

The man is no stranger to the department – he’s been an inspiration and a friend to many of us at the department since at least 2010 when he was the examiner for our colleague Mirjam Eladhari as she was finishing her PhD studies at Teesside. He’s regularly taken the time to come and share his expertise with us and our students; guest lectures on human rights in virtual worlds, strategic overviews of our education and research agenda, as well as providing our students with tons of insight at the Gotland Game Conference.

As part of his first tour of duty this autumn, Professor Bartle will share his perspectives in a guest lecture called ‘You – 40 years from now’, where shares his views on what it means to be a games student, game industry or games researcher today – in 40 years. The lecture is open to all students and the general public, but primarily geared toward first years GAME students.

Where: the Almedalen Library (room: E22),
When: Wed 26th of September, 13:15

Update: the lecture is now available on our YouTube-channel!

Posted on - Comments Off on More GAME students on the Switch!
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More GAME students on the Switch!

Defunct was originally developed as a student project back in 2014 and has been available on Steam since 2016.

Today this team of former students are joining Niklas Hallin and his “Yono and the Celestial Elephants” with a release on the Nintendo Switch!

Well played and congrats Robert Graff, Jonatan Keil, David Forssell, Mikael Karlsson, Simon Öqvist, Petter Vernersson, Anders Hedström!

Posted on - Comments Off on Pump the Frog at Tokyo Game Show!
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Pump the Frog at Tokyo Game Show!

The Tokyo Game Show is one of the worlds largest game exhibitions – seeing nearly 300 000 visitors each year. Pump The Frog – a 2017 student project from Gotland – was there last week and was ranked among  the Top 6 Indie Games of Tokyo Game Show 2018!

The team spent their summer participating in (and winning!) a “Sense of Wonder” – a competition hosted by TGS for game developers to win a free both in the indie area.

Now that the team is back on Gotland, here are some of their take-aways:

  • The people we met mostly don’t speak english, though sometimes they can understand it. If given the choice, they prefered our broken Japanese over their limited English. We recommend you learn some basic Japanese and make sure all your materials are available in both English and Japanese!
  • Japanese people seem shy, and even more so because you are a gaijin. You have to invite them to the booth, they won’t approach on their own. To get them to play; wait until they show the slightest bit of interest, then invite them.
  • The venues in Japan all had aggressive air conditioning. It’s cold and your throat dries out quickly. Luckily there are vending machines everywhere with water, tea and soft drinks.