Category: Guest Lectures

As publishers are increasingly reluctant to take risks on new themes or genres, it has become necessary to build “franchises” – product lines that will last for several years. This lecture looks at how two franchises, Madden NFL Football and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, have managed to achieve their extraordinary market longevity, with examples from other products as well. I also talk about mythic themes and moral ambiguity as the hallmarks of great entertainment, and how we as developers should perceive our customers if we want to make products that last.

Prof. Ernest Adams has been in the game industry since 1989 and currently works as a free lance game designer, writer and teacher. He’s written four books in total and he has developed online, computer, and console games for everything from the IBM 360 mainframe to the Nintendo Wii. Ernest is also the founder and first chairman of the International Game Developers’ Association.

This talk is open- and highly recommended to all game students!

Time: Wednesday, December 1st, 13:00 – 17:00
Location: E22

Games such as Senet (3500 BC) and Chess (1000 AD) reflect societal structures and values from human history. What can current games teach us about ourselves, our culture and the society we are part of?

Construction of rule systems for games can be used to illustrate and better understand complex processes. At a societal level it can be about war and peace, on group level about processes such as stigmatisation and bullying, while an individual level it can be about issues of identity. When using games as a form of culture we can temporarily step out of our every day roles and study the processes we are part of by abstracting them to systems. As we step back into our roles we can do so with increased understanding for ourselves and others – we have seen how the structures we live in affect how we act, and how others act towards us.

Join in for a journey that starts in Egypt five thousand years ago, leading to the latest research in games.

This talk is open to the public!

Time: Thursday, November 25th, 19:00
Location: E22

Vice chancellor Jörgen Tholin wishes to invite you to a talk by Adam Hałaciński, Poland’s new Ambassador to Sweden.

On Wednesday 10 November, at 16:00 in Room E 22, Ambassador Adam Hałaciński will give a talk on “Poland and Sweden – Partners across the Baltic”. The Ambassador will speak about Poland’s forthcoming presidency of the EU. He will also talk about university exchange, the economic situation and industrial development – especially as it relates to technology and the entertainment area.

Kjell Albin Abrahamson – a renowed journalist who early this autumn gave a lecture at HGO as part of the course “Human Rights in Serious Games” mentioned that successful game companies have developed as a result of outreach from some polish universities. Their market is predominantly American. The ambassdor will talk about a possible cooperation in this context.

Time: Wednesday, November 10th, 16:00
Location: E22

Together with a few collegues, Michael created the interactive story “Façade“, an interactive drama about the relations between three persons in a small flat. Michael holds the MacArthur Chair at University of California, Santa Cruz and runs their Expressive Intelligence Studio where they explore the intersection of artificial intelligence, art and design.

“Our goal is to create compelling new forms of interactive art and entertainment that provide more deeply autonomous, generative and dynamic responses to interaction”, says Michael.

His talk is titled “How New Playable Models from Recent Work on AI Can Enable New Types of Serious Games, i.a. Games about Human Rights”. The lecture is given as part of the course “Human Rights in Serious Games”.

Time: Thursday, October 28th, 16:00
Location: E22