Is this the new Borderlands game everyone is excited about?

Today, I had students make paper snowflakes to get them to ponder ritual, liminality, play, and making. Reflections: -liminal space constitutes the stable space/structure -rituals can be small and seemingly mundane -playful making as exploration of uncertain but exciting anticipated outcome

Update to this chart that I share a lot. Not breaking news: Game design teams are still OVERWHELMINGLY all men. About 7% of the top 500 games have a woman or non-binary person credited as a designer. A 🧵of related charts: (1/6) 🎲✂️

BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT! @mahliann.bsky.social, @marcuscarter.com, and myself have combined our collective brains and written a wide-reaching introduction to the complex and interdisciplinary field of Game Studies in this forthcoming book for Polity. www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?b...

Reminder that the best conference for understanding generative systems, and how people play them, is full of kind people, online and you can go to it.

OH WHOOPS. ONE MORE. (A few weeks ago I was very busy)

One of our goals is to write as if game studies was actually "game studies" and not "digital game studies with some nods towards non-digital games". This is why our examples span from Chess to Formula 1 and from Nomic to Call of Duty.

Much appreciated! And that's why it's free to download in the link below, we want people to read it and talk about it!

Not every board game treats its setting as a condiment. Some are designed to engage on historical, social, or polemical grounds. To evaluate such a game principally as a jumble of mechanisms would fail to engage with it as created, presented, intended, and, yes, as it plays.

In the article, I address very bluntly why the digital has been privileged over the analog in Game Studies, a move that has had detrimental effects on many designers, scholars, businesses, and communities. The AI Grift could happen because we first fell for the Glowing Screen Grift.

My article "The Separation of Analog and Digital Game Studies" has now been published as part of this mammoth 781-page edited volume Historiographies of Game Studies. Congrats to the editors and fellow authors for getting this into the world! punctumbooks.com/titles/histo...

Consume Me just got delisted in a wave of delistings on itchio. It's a semi-autographical game about disordered eating. It won the grand prize at the most recent IGF awards. When storefronts start mass bannings, everything is threatened.

This is your (and my) chance to catch up with the excellent panels at Generation Analog 2025, the free online conference organized by @analoggamestudies.bsky.social on July 17. Click on the link below! www.youtube.com/playlist?lis... #analoggamestudies #generationanalog2025

The HGN’s next panel discussion on gender, history and games is coming up in 2 weeks! Sign up via the post below, and read more about the theme (and our brilliant speakers) here: www.historicalgames.net/gender/

Find your way to our excellent Generation Analog 2025 online conference with the topic of PUNK, next Thursday July 17th *all day*. FREE to all! Program and registration here: analoggamestudies.org/generation-a...

Last year's hit GDC Spreadsheet panel is looking for a whole new row of spreadsheet enthusiasts!

What is Zohran’s plan for the humidity

So, here it is. Thanks to a new state law that was NEVER DEBATED, Indiana University has committed itself to abolishing majors in African-American/African Diaspora Studies: American Studies; Art History; French; Italian; Religious Studies etc. DOZENS of majors. www.ipm.org/news-section...

MASSIVE good news for trans people in the United States. A federal judge has just granted class action status to transgender people looking to update their passports. This means that very shorty, the window will open to update your passports with the correct gender marker.

Gov. Walz: “I’m just going to say it, shame on any of us who throws a trans child under the bus for thinking they’re going to get elected.” www.startribune.com/gov-tim-walz...

reading dorian gray the way oscar wilde intended

We’ve had such a successful launch day! Thank you for sharing the project. I’m hoping to keep up this momentum overnight. Please consider backing! www.kickstarter.com/projects/ali...

Here's our whole fundraiser schedule at a glance! It all goes down FEBRUARY 22, 11AM-11PM ET -- don't miss it! (and don't forget to donate!) donate.romchip.org

There’s such a need to not just try and archive play, but not fall into the trap of just preserving positive play experiences. Which is hard because if you put a call out for memories of a particular game, it would be odd (but helpful) if a bunch of people responded by going “it mildly annoys me”

It's February! Quick reminder that the CFP for #GenerationAnalog2025 is still open! Proposals are due in two months by **March 31, 2025**! For the full call, suggested topics, sample abstracts, and submission directions, see: analoggamestudies.org/generation-a... #CFP #StayAnalog

This week on the podcast, Drs. Jennifer deWinter and Carly Kocurek @sparklebliss.bsky.social tell us about the history and evolution of #videogames through the stories of its women pioneers. creators.spotify.com/pod/show/inf... Transcript: www.infinite-women.com/wp-content/u...

Trans people and our rights are not a “distraction.” We are real people who live and die and deserve care and dignity and access to public spaces.

The Video Game History Foundation Library is now in early access. For free. For everyone. Wherever you are. Read more: gamehistory.org/vghf-library...

Guys, I know I’ve posted this article a lot in the last two weeks. But I’m so serious. They’re not fucking around, and major executive action aimed at trans literature could happen as soon as tomorrow. The time to take action to protect trans books and authors is *now.*

This $10 game bundle is a great deal to support the trans community

while SOME PEOPLE are busy being weirdo fascists, I finished up the COMPLETE SCHEDULE for the ROMchip: a Journal of Game Histories @romchip.bsky.social Fundraiser Season Look at these fun people who are gonna stream cute things for you and give smart talks for you! donate.romchip.org/schedule.html

Very much here for the staff of IKEA inventing fake board games for their room display

Submissions are open for the 2025 Conference on BIPOC Game Studies, taking place at The Strong in Rochester, NY! conference.blackgamestudies.com

There's a new GAME STUDIES STUDY BUDDIES to close out your year, talking through the "Eurogame" movement and what it has inherited with Mary Flanagan and Mikael Jakobsson's PLAYING OPPRESSION: THE LEGACY OF CONQUEST AND EMPIRE IN COLONIALIST BOARD GAMES. rangedtouch.com/2024/12/31/7...

Got some lovely comments on this one so far. With these things I vacillate at high speeds between feeling like I bit off too much & gone too wide & wander-y, and like I am absolutely bringing it all together as a cohesive piece, so the feedback helps tremendously.

It's the December issue of ROMchip! (apologies for posting this twice, but the summarizes in this thread are a way better trailer for the issue than I provided earlier, we're excited about this one!)

Available Open Access (FREEE) from @mitpress.bsky.social which is having a great week in TTRPG Nerd Media.

ROMchip has entered the chat! The internet's #1 journal of video game history is now on Bluesky!! Please follow us, read us, submit to us, support us, whatever! Next issue drop in December and it's another banger.

I'm excited to announce that I have just started a new job as the curator of board games and puzzles at The Strong National Museum of Play! I would love to continue working with other game scholars and historians, so please feel free to reach out.

👋For the past couple months, you’ve likely seen me posting extra hard abt ROMchip. We got a Twitch fundraiser this Saturday 5/11, 11AM-11PM EDT. But most of y’all probably don't even know what ROMchip is. Today I want to clear that up. I want you to see it the way I do. 👇

@mirekstolee.bsky.social from @ucftandt.bsky.social positioned the complex history of the "escape room" as a label and genre crossing digital and analog games at #scms24