Reading Video Games like Literature
Whole books have been written about Hamlet’s famous six words, “To be or not to be,” yet not one page has been published on the implications of Mario’s even more economic proclamation, “It’s-a me, Mario!” That literature is an art form worthy of analysis is a fact we take for granted; we teach novels in school, we memorize poetry, we sit in book clubs and try to figure out what it all means. But what would happen if we turned that lens of “close reading” onto video games?
A different kind of art form, games may not always be as serious as Hamlet’s brooding over life and death — but they have just as much offer the scholar (or even the average player) who takes them seriously. Katamari’s roll becomes a metaphor, a character’s CGI rendering becomes a symbol, and enormous unexplored worlds of interpretation open up to us in games we may have played again and again but we have never really read.
Note: the Mario as Hamlet picture was created by Benjamin Burger.
Royal visitors
Her Royal Highness Victoria – Crown Princess of Sweden – and her husband Prince Daniel spent a day on Gotland today. Naturally they couldn’t ignore the presence of a certain unique and rather successfull game development education. 🙂
Victoria and Daniel recieved a live demonstration of our motion capture studio and met with several of our student entrepreneurs. Max Tiilikainen from Meow Entertainment, Marcus Petersson from Lucid Dreams and sisters Albertina and Pernilla Sparrhult from Digital Nature all showcased their work.
David vs. GoliathVille: A Call to Arms for Indie Social Game Developers
As the social gaming space is increasingly dominated by major players, we as an industry already run the risk of stagnation in our newest field. Intended as a call to arms for indies, this talk seeks to dispel the myths surrounding what “success” means in social game development. Market share is not the only winning path — no matter what the VC’s tell us — and we’ll break down how indies are in a unique position to innovate, take risks, move fast, and push the medium forward in a way that the lumbering goliaths are unable (or unwilling) to do.