Game Writers SIG/Initiatives/Academic research
International Game Developers Association
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[edit] Details
Although research has been seen (for instance, by Chris Bateman in connection with Strategy games) demonstrating that stories were highly valued by game players, some publicly available research would be useful.
[edit] Plan of Action
- It was suggested that the academic community be approached in order to source evidence (including but not restricted to John Laird at University of Michigan, Michael Mateus of Georgia Tech, and DIGRA in general).
- Collected materials published in the writing SIG page and elsewhere?
[edit] Volunteers
- Raphael van Lierop
- Stephen Jacobs
- Alex Kerfoot
- Kellee
- Graeme Lennon
- WenDeth
- Your name goes here!
[edit] Research Items
- Are we looking to build a value case for financial return on well written games? If so, pulling in a business school prof and/or students to look at the question with writers might be valuable. I can look for a colleague in our business school if that's the case. - Stephen Jacobs:
- John Laird, Professor and Associate Chair of Computer Science and Engineering. Teaches EECS 494 - Computer Game Design and Development. http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/laird/
- Sheila Murphy, Visiting Assistant Professor in Digital Media Studies. Taught FILMVID 460 - Video Games: Form and Culture. http://www.lsa.umich.edu/filmvideo/studies/st_faculty/murphy.htm
- Dmitri Williams, Visiting Assistant Professor in Communications Studies. Focuses on the economic and social impacts of new media technologies, and teaches Comm 479: Video Games: Content, industry, and policy. http://www.umich.edu/~wsoft/members/dcwillia.html
- I'd be happy to act as a liason here at USC, and that might even be the best way to approach the academia situation - if we could just get one person from each program to act as a rep. This would make the gathering of ideas, links, and papers much more thorough. - Kellee:
- I'd like to draw your attention to http://www.gamestudies.org/, on the off-chance that you're not aware of it. - Graeme Lennon
- This article includes some names/schools that might be good contacts. - WenDeth
[edit] Current Status
- Waiting to hear back from profs. Will update when I have news. - Alex
- I can write an article on this subject and work on getting it into magazines etc. - WenDeth
- Professor Stephen Jacobs (me) Professor Jeffery Lasky (MBA teaches Economics of SW development in my department) and Professor Andy Phelps (Game Programming Prof) of the Rochester Institute of Technology are willing to take this on and are in the process of securing a graduate research assistant for the Fall. - Stephen Jacobs
- If there's another university moving forward, stop me before I get the assistant funds :-) Once the study is done (likely in March after taking in the data from the Christmas 2004 season) we'll shop it to the various academic journals. - Stephen Jacobs
- Had also thought about writing a non-academic article off of it for GD if they took the first piece described above. Would be happy to work with Wendy on same, once we get there. - Stephen Jacobs
- Research assistant for Fall denied, but Winter or Spring is likely - Stephen Jacobs
- I work in the British academic sector, so I wondered whether I could be of use? - Colin Harvey
