Pelikulttuuristrategiapäivä 5.11.2025: Pelikasvattajien verkosto sekä PEGASUS-hanke toteuttavat tilaisuuden kansallisen pelikulttuurin strategiatyön edistämiseksi: pelikasvatus.fi/pelikulttuur...

New issue of the Games and Culture journal is out: journals.sagepub.com/toc/gaca/20/...

If you have stuff in Academia.edu, it might be good to reconsider?

Remember that our Oasis Talks are also usually streamed (via YouTube) and archived as video - today Prof Nick Webber talked about TTRPGs/Remnants of Play: www.youtube.com/@oasis_tuni

Issue 16 for the International Journal of Role-playing is out. This special issue focuses on Consent and Analog Role-playing Games. Susan Haarman joined the editorial team to lead this publication. journals.uu.se/IJRP/issue/v...

Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research invites authors to submit papers for issue 1/2026. Research into any and all aspects of science fiction, fantasy, and other speculative genres is welcome from a range of disciplines. DL 31 Dec 2025: fafnir.journal.fi/about/submis...

DiGRA 2026 will be hosted at Maynooth University in Maynooth, Ireland from 14 to 18 June 2026. The 2026 conference theme is Intersectional Pleasures. digra.org/digra-2026-h...

The game industry in Finland, 2024 figures, the free report is out: neogames.fi/the-finnish-...

I started in Tampere University as a comparative literature student in Fall 1985. Decades later, I opened this week the latest iteration of the Introduction to Game Studies course, with c. 50 students enrolled. Show goes on, students just keep getting younger.

Much has happened in July; here is also newest issue of Game Studies: The International Journal of Computer Game Research, which you can find now at gamestudies.org

Furthermore, here is the latest issue of Press Start!: press-start.gla.ac.uk/press-start/...

Please check out also the latest issue of Games and Culture journal, Volume: 20, Number: 6 (September 2025): journals.sagepub.com/toc/gaca/20/...

Another new special issue, "Peripheral Religions" (edited by Carolin Puckhaber, Aska Mayer and Knut V. M. Wormstädt), in Gamevironments journal, at journals.suub.uni-bremen.de/index.php/ga...:

New issue came out during the summer: Vol. 16 No. 1 (2025): "Fictional Games", in Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture: septentrio.uit.no/index.php/el...

Interactive Fantasy, the journal of interactive storytelling that I published in the mid-1990s, is no longer available from DriveThruRPG. However it is now available from itch.io instead: jameswallis.itch.io/interactive-... for the same low price of pay-what-you-want.

I spent this week in Valletta, Malta, at Digra 2025 conference. Digra is an annual game studies conference, that I have managed to attend approximately every other year since 2007. I’ll list some of my highlights from this year. (Looong thread.)

Special issue on Queer Analog Game Studies: analoggamestudies.org

Instax EVO Mini vs. Selphy CP1500 Käsittelen tässä jutussa Fujifilm Instax EVO Mini kameraa ja Canon Selphy CP1500 tulostinta. Tavallaan teen niistä hieman vertailuakin, vaikka kameran ja tulostimen vertaaminen toisiinsa voikin vaikuttaa ensi kuulemalta hieman oudolta. Valokuvatulosteet Fujista…

Blogissani on nyt juttua vanhoista digikameroista ja siitä, että niilläkin voi edelleen olla vahvuutensa:

Kuvankäsittelyä: esimerkkinä närhikuva Kohtaaminen: närhi metsäpolun varresta. Juhannuspäivä on tänä vuonna sadepäivä, eli voi hyvin editoida kuvan tai pari. Kuuluisa luontokuvaaja Ansel Adams aikoinaan kehitti mustavalkokuvaukseen lisävalotuksiin ja varjostuksiin nojaavaa pimiötekniikkaa (ns.…

Tampereen yliopiston hallitukseen haetaan neljää hyvää ja osaavaa ihmistä. Konsistori päätti tällä kertaa lisätä hallituksen valintakriteereihin kohdan, missä painotetaan erityisesti "yliopiston arvojen, yliopistodemokratian ja yliopiston strategian merkityksen ymmärtämistä".

Mies! Oletko vähintään 15 ja suomalainen tai Suomessa asuva? Osallistutko pelikulttuuriin esim. pelaamalla video-, rooli-, lauta- tai miniatyyripelejä, katsomalla pelivideoita tai vaikkapa cossaamalla? Tervetuloa vastaamaan kyselyyn pelikulttuurista ja mieheydestä osoitteessa bit.ly/pelikulttuuri

New issue is out in Games & Culture, Volume 20 Issue 5, July 2025: journals.sagepub.com/toc/gaca/20/...

Note the new issue: Games & Culture, Volume 20 Issue 4, June 2025: journals.sagepub.com/toc/gaca/20/...

A free guide into doctoral supervision - looks useful. go-gn.net/gogn_outputs...

We have a new research article out, with Aska Mayer (the main author) and Roope Raisamo, titled "Playing with augmented bodies: Dystopian and protopian experiences of human augmentation in digital games", in Convergence, see the open access link: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Note: new journal issue is out, Games and Culture, Volume: 20, Number: 3 (May 2025): journals.sagepub.com/toc/gaca/20/...

Note that the Tampere University welcomes again applicants to jointly prepare successful applications for the EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship program. 1/2 www.tuni.fi/en/research/...

A few nature photos of this morning: the Goldeneyes were having their courtship rituals, the Little Grebe was waiting for a partner to come; the ice was melting in the sunshine. #naturephotography #birds #Spring #Finland #Tampere

Bird photos of today: the long-tailed tits, visiting our garden feeder briefly this afternoon. Heard the metallic voices and got some photos, in snowfall. #naturephotography #birds

Talvehtivat ja muuttavat lajit esiintyvät nyt rinnan. Kostea kevät on pitkä, varsinaisen kesään saapumista saa kuitenkin odottaa vielä pitkään.

Note this call for the Eludamos special issue on "Party Studies in Game Studies" (inspired by the 2023 Spring Seminar of Game Studies): eludamos.org/index.php/el...

Photos updates Commercial social media sites have gone through significant changes lately. Due to policy changes, I have closed my accounts both in X and Instagram. I am still using Facebook, Mastodon and BlueSky (search with 'fransmayra' in each of them, if you are interested to connect). In…

The adult female bearded reedling is generally paler, with a more brownish head and no black moustaches or undertail coverts (of the male), but sometimes with black streaks/spots to the crown or back. (Panurus biarmicus biarmicus, female, a banded bird. Helsinki, 25.2.2025.)

"Bearded reedlings are strongly sexually dimorphic and form life-long pairs. They are highly productive and can breed several times in a season. They mainly feed on small invertebrates in summer and plant seeds in winter." (Panurus biarmicus biarmicus, nominate race, male. Helsinki, 25.2.2025.)

Join us online next week (Wed 26, 15:00-15.30 EET/UTC+2) for a casual game research coffee to hear @jaakkostenros.bsky.social present about the new project Larpocracy: Developing Spaces for Deliberation and Democratic Skills through Role-playing! #larp #gamestudies jyufi.zoom.us/j/67912305080

Full thesis, available for free and as open access, Ville Kankainen, "Hybrid Play Experience and Design in Tabletop Gaming", with the public examination today. #gamestudies #gameculture trepo.tuni.fi/handle/10024...

Faces of my winter birds. #naturephotography #Finland

I have again updated my photography account in Flickr, with some new pictures of a Northern Goshawk, Grey-headed Woodpecker, Long-tailed tits, and others. www.flickr.com/photos/frans...

New, coming out of an ECREA symposium, Digital Games at the Forefront of Change: On the Meaningfulness of Games and Game Studies (Media and Communication, Volume 13). Eda. Felix Reer, Teresa de la Hera and Salvador Gómez. Complete issue: www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/issue/view/460

The doctoral dissertation of M.Sc. Ville Kankainen, titled "Hybrid Play Experience and Design in Tabletop Gaming", will be publicly examined at the Tampere University on Friday 21 February 2025 at 12:00. The full thesis is also available online, as open access: www.tuni.fi/en/news/vill...

New tenure track professor positions (at Assistant/Associate/Full Professor levels) are open in Tampere, including "AI in Media", which could be interesting for someone working with games and AI. #gamestudies #gamesresearch www.tuni.fi/en/news/tamp...

Free download of Elina Koskinen's PhD dissertation on memorable Pokémon Go player experiences (public defence tomorrow): trepo.tuni.fi/handle/10024...

New in the CoE-GameCult blog, Rami Mähkä: "Change on the Fly – Shifting Player Identification in NHL Video Gaming". coe-gamecult.org/2025/01/30/r...

Taking part in cultivating digital humaniora, in Umeå University's Humlab today.

Photo of a small, protected old forest in Finland - a safe pocket for multiple species, surrounded by clear cut areas from all sides.

Note: The Transformative Role-playing Game Design textbook is now available for download and print on demand. Link: books.uu.se/uup/catalog/...

Deadline for GamesLit is extended: February 14th!

Nature photography is also a large part of what I do on my free time. Pictured: Dendrocopos leucotos - the White-backed Woodpecker, photographed today.

Got finally enough of Spotify's unethical business models and from the pseudo-music / filler-muzaki that they use in their algorithm-generated playlists. My new Tidal profile: tidal.com/browse/user/...