📑 New publication! 📑 I was asked to write a 'viewpoint' article in a special issue on 'Ludomythologies'. I happily obliged with just a few thousand words on how we should think of myths less like stories and more like models, and how that makes them remarkably similar to games.

Come work with us! We are hiring 3 postdoctoral researchers working in cultural game studies from the beginning of 2026 until the end of 2027. Read more and apply by 31.10.2025 (at 23.59.00 EET / UTC+2):

Creating AI avatars of dead people needs to become an absolute societal taboo.

📯PUBLICATION NEWS📯 @amayer.bsky.social, Knut Wormstädt and I are happy to announce that our @gamevironments.bsky.social special issue Peripheral Religions and Games is officially out now! Here's the link, but we want to talk about every article and report for a minute: tinyurl.com/2txajt3m

Smart and delightful book, equally enjoyable @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social interview. @domford.bsky.social Mytholudics: Games and Myth @degruyterbrill.bsky.social #GameTheory#Folklore #Myth #PopularCulture newbooksnetwork.com/mytholudics

My first paper, "Fictional Videogames as Framing Devices: Suicide Communication in MMOs," is out now on Eludamos. In the paper, I argue that the use of fictional MMOs as framing devices serves as a reflexive narrative tool that suggests MMOs as spaces with their own internal rules of communication.

Recently, I was interviewed about my book for @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social by @janalena.bsky.social! If you want to hear me talk about games and myth for about an hour, please check it out. newbooksnetwork.com/mytholudics

The future dystopian Rome of Lucio Fulci's Warriors of the Year 2072 (1984). My paper on the film's use of the gladiatorial combat trope has just been published in @gua-le-ni.com @domford.bsky.social and Riccardo Fassone's special issue of Eludamos on fictional games. eludamos.org/index.php/el...

Very happy to announce that next week, I'll be joining the University of Zürich as part of the URPP Digital Religion(s), working on the project "Synthetic Realities. Generative AI and Digital Visual Literacy" alongside @bildoperationen.bsky.social. Exciting!!

Are you a man, at least 15 years old and either Finnish or living in Finland? Do you participate in game culture by e.g. playing video games, RPGs or miniature games, watching videos or through activities like cosplay? Take the questionnaire in Finnish or English at bit.ly/pelikulttuuri

Hey, thanks for using this legal e-reader to access an academic book through your uni library instead of just grabbing the pdf on libgen. Here's a sloppy AI summary of the book. We've defaulted your view to an epub without page numbers but feel free to reload the whole page if you want to change it.

👩‍🍳 𝐂𝐅𝐏: 𝐂𝐇Æ𝐅 - 𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐞 & 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐅𝐨𝐨𝐝 Want to talk about your favourite dish or latest culinary faux pas? 🍕🍍 Or reflect on how food is represented in art? 🍰 Submit an idea by 6 June and join us in Tilburg in August! 👉More info: nelevandemosselaer.wordpress.com/chaef-cultur...

Neuer Lesestoff für derzeit zu kalt Abende. @johannesfranzen.bsky.social @domford.bsky.social

Submit now: CfP for our next Special Issue "BEYOND PLAY: THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF DIGITAL GAMING IN A DEEPLY MEDIATIZED SOCIETY" is out now! Abstract submission deadline: 31.05.2025 journals.suub.uni-bremen.de/index.php/ga... #gamevironments #gaming #academics #cfp

Having taken a quick look at the demo document, this seems much more like a Notion alternative than a Google Docs alternative. No font selection, set formatting, etc. etc. That's cool - I'm looking for a Notion alternative - but I'm desperate for Google Docs to die too.

If you want me to give a talk, do an interview, be on a podcast or anything like that to do with the book, please get in touch (:

I recently finished reading this and it's a straight banger. Plus, the book is beautiful and small - it fits in a large pocket, so it's perfect for taking on the bus. It even comes with its own bookmark!!!!!! But seriously, this is an excellent novel.

'What We Owe the Dead' is the title of my new #scifi novel. In the aftermath of a climate catastrophe, the book follows strange detective case and deals with themes such as the notion of personhood and the social use of #games. > www.setmargins.press/books/what-w... < (photos by Annette Behrens)

📖My book is out! My book Mytholudics: Games and Myth is now available. In it, I propose a way of understanding and analysing games as and through myth. @degruyterbrill.bsky.social doi.org/10.1515/9783...

I thought we were past pretending that articles just popped into existence out of nowhere, written by no one. That reads far more "oddly" to me.

There is still time to submit a proposal to the CFP for Otherworldly Entertainment (details found via link below). The deadline is 31 March 2025. It is sure to be an incredible event with two amazing keynotes: @enwright.bsky.social & @kirstinmills.bsky.social Best of all, you get to visit Copenhagen

ZeMKI member Dr. Kathrin Trattner was interviewed by the Austrian public radio station FM4 on the topic of “Right-wing extremism and games culture”. The interview can be accessed here. zemki.uni-bremen.de/en/kathrin-t...

Ich hatte sehr viel Spaß mit @jensnotroff.com, Cedric und Marian bei @artede.bsky.social #Couchwissen zu #CivVII. Geschichtsbilder in Tech Trees, Segeln ohne Navigation und vieles, vieles mehr. Danke an alle, die mitgewirkt haben und dabei waren!

Stefano has already shown his fiction chops with The Clouds, so this is extremely exciting.

My co-author Dom and I made the authors' version of our chapter in the Monstrosity in Games and Play book finally freely available! Dom has already uploaded the chapter to his website (see below), I'll follow soon on my website. Give it (and Dom's other works) a read if you're interested. :)

Another new publication?! That's right, they're coming thick and fast now. This time, co-authored with @jjol33n.bsky.social. "Honor Died on the Beach": Constructing Japaneseness Through Monstrosity in Ghost of Tsushima 🔓https://domford.net/publication/ford-blom-honor-2025/ford-blom-honor-2025.pdf

The way they have integrated Copilot into Word makes me profoundly sad

The book rooted in the 2021 Spring Seminar of Game Studies, "Monstrosity" is now out - expertly edited by Sarah Stang, Mikko Meriläinen, Joleen Blom, and Lobna Sameer Hassan. - "Monstrosity in Games and Play" (Amsterdam University Press). www.aup.nl/en/book/9789...

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🚨New publication alert🚨 'Community, Alienation and the Experience of Networks: Gamevironments and Theories of Community' in @gamevironments.bsky.social decennial issue. 🔓 Open access, of course. 🔗 doi.org/10.48783/gam...

The journal gamevironments celebrates its 10th anniversary with the publication of the 21st issue “Revisiting Gamevironments”. zemki.uni-bremen.de/en/publicati...

(1/5) New Issue of Eludamos is out and looking very interesting for scholars of play and game - HT @domford.bsky.social eludamos.org/index.php/el... #gamestudies

A starter pack for Game Studies on Bluesky. Let me know if you want to be added or want to recommend any account or feed. Share it around! go.bsky.app/56c1mPm

In the second video of the URegensburg DAS|LAB's "Videogames as Folk Worlds" Symposium series, @domford.bsky.social talks about "A world to escape to: Gameworlds as otherworlds in datafied society". Here's the link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hks...

ZeMKI member @domford.bsky.social has published a new journal #article in Transactions of the #Digital #Games Research Association vol. 6, no. 3. 
Read more: zemki.uni-bremen.de/en/new-artic...

gamevironments managing director @domford.bsky.social _ presented his interesting project on "Digital Games and Community" today at the 8th @zemki.bsky.social research day!

ZeMKI member @domford.bsky.social has been invited to give a talk at @uniregensburg.bsky.social on "A World to Escape to: #Gameworlds as #Otherworlds in Datafied Society" at a symposium from 11 to 12 april. Read more: zemki.uni-bremen.de/en/zemki-mem...

Very excited to be working with @gualeni.bsky.social and Riccardo Fassone on this fascinating topic. Please consider sending us your short and focused articles!

New issue of Eludamos is now out - with a lot of interesting research, including articles authored by several CoE-GameCult researchers, eg, Elisa Wiik, Kati Alha, Mikko Meriläinen & Maria Ruotsalainen: eludamos.org/index.php/el...

Maria Ruotsalainen and I published some fresh new research in the newest issue of Eludamos! "Young video game players’ self-identified toxic gaming behaviour An interview study" is available open access at the link attached. A few comments below. #gamestudies #gameresearch

It's publication day for Eludamos! Please enjoy 10 wonderful new works on the future of games and game studies, from wonderful authors like @merilainen.bsky.social. eludamos.org/index.php/el...

From swimming in the Mediterranean in 20+ degrees to being pummeled by rain at 10 degrees, welcome back to Germany had a fantastic time in Malta visiting the Institute of Digital games, thanks @danielvella.bsky.social, @gualeni.bsky.social, and all other friends old and new!

My week's research stay in Malta begins!

I anticipated many potential technical issues. Not this. 🥲

More from CEEGS 2023: Tomasz Majkowski and Małgorzata Majkowska on Homeric parallels in Assassin's Creed; and @domford.bsky.social powering through an amazing presentation of eldritch gibberish to talk about city building games.

Later today at CEEGS 2023 I'll be talking about city-builders! 500+ hours in Cities: Skylines wasn't for nothing.

Thanks again for inviting me! It was such an enjoyable event. See you next time!

So Spotify is going to begin automatically deep-faking podcasters' voices. What could possibly go wrong?

ICYMI: #DiGRA2024 will take place in Guadalajara, Mexico, between the 1st and the 5th of July 2024. The call for papers and submission guidelines can be found here: digraconference2024.org?page_id=145