Marcus Carter
@marcuscarter.com
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Professor in HCI @ USYD, Australian Research Council Future Fellow. Game Studies & Virtual Reality.
Whatās enough of a milestone for me: We have finally agreed out how to represent a Wordle grid in black and white, which means this book is now completely done!
add a skeleton here at some point
10 days ago
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Brendan Keogh
12 days ago
The webpage for our upcoming book has the cover on it now which is enough of a milestone for me to write another post about the book we have coming out soon.
www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?b...
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SSRN
3 months ago
Check out the latest from the SSRN #blog which features a selection of #research on age verification & #online safety. Read more:
spkl.io/63322AKCwm
#blog
#research
#online
#Academicsky
#AcademicChatter
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The Latest Research on Age Verification & Online Safety
This list includes a selection of the latest research on age verification & online safety posted to SSRN in 2025. Tinder Backgrounds by Irina D. Manta (Hofstra University) The āSegregate-ā¦
http://spkl.io/63322AKCwm
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Aram Sinnreich
8 months ago
This is basically
@adriennemassanari.bsky.social
's new book in meme form.
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Yaron Meron
8 months ago
My DRS paper on graphic design and AI has just passed 15,000 downloads |
dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conferen...
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J. Walton
8 months ago
Teaching game design is way harder than anything else I've ever taught, because we make collaborative social rituals out of all of human experience... and then also sometimes have to balance spreadsheets about polearm damage.
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Last year, we ran a study where we gave children a $20 pre-paid debit card to spend in any game. This method elicited incredible data showing how carefully children weigh their purchasing decisions, but also revealed the many minefields and deceptive practices they have to navigate.
8 months ago
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Taylor Hardwick
8 months ago
New article in
@theconversation.com
today by myself and
@marcuscarter.com
on how kids talk about when spending money in Roblox is harmful to them. TLDR; virtual currencies and random reward features should be better regulated!
theconversation.com/literally-ju...
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āLiterally just child gamblingā: what kids say about Roblox, lootboxes and money in online games
Kids who play Roblox games describe āscaryā virtual currencies and ācash grabā random rewards.
https://theconversation.com/literally-just-child-gambling-what-kids-say-about-roblox-lootboxes-and-money-in-online-games-250387
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Felipe Pepe
11 months ago
Agree, it's why I always recommend reading
@brkeogh.bsky.social
's book The Videogame Industry does not exist. Games are a media, an art field. While it's understandable to want to help people pay bills, we undermine them by focusing so much on their monetization - especially when it's unrealistic.
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Ben Abraham
11 months ago
God this is really annoying - but Adam Tooze posted the best thing heās written in months *today*. Itās a wide ranging interview from a Chinese publication, but hereās the best (and most terrifying) description of the current AI bubble Iāve yet read
adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-...
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Patrick Klepek
11 months ago
I agree with
@localthunk.bsky.social
. Rating Balatro as an 18+ game is as unserious as it is hypocritical, and how we use ratings and regulations to safeguard children often makes no sense. My latest at
@crossplayblog.bsky.social
:
patrickklepek.substack.com/p/is-balatro...
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Balatroās 18+ Rating Underscores Gamingās Hypocritical āProtectingā Children Rhetoric
Loot boxes pass through regulatory and rating scrutiny without batting an eye, but a card game? My word!
https://patrickklepek.substack.com/p/is-balatro-dangerous-for-kids
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Ryan K. Rigney
11 months ago
Reviewed a crazy book about the Commodore 64 for
Polygon.com
!
www.polygon.com/books/496693...
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Too Much Fun finally tells the C64ās legacy
Ryan Rigney on Jesper Juulās new book about the forgotten history of early home computer games
https://www.polygon.com/books/496693/too-much-fun-five-lives-commodore-64-computer-book-review-push-talk
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āthe catchphrase might be that the Bullshit Jobs are now being done by the Bullshit Machine.ā Great read!
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12 months ago
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Tianyi ZhangShao
12 months ago
Wondering why Australia shouldnāt (consider) ban social media (games) for minors? China sets us an example. Thanks for the great team work
@benegliston.bsky.social
,
@marcuscarter.com
š»
theconversation.com/china-restri...
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China restricted young people from video games. But kids are evading the bans and getting into trouble
In China, many people see video games as āspiritual opiumā. However, laws restricting young peopleās play have proven difficult to enforce in practice.
https://theconversation.com/china-restricted-young-people-from-video-games-but-kids-are-evading-the-bans-and-getting-into-trouble-245264
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Ben Abraham
12 months ago
"The global venture capital sector has invested over USD 225 billion in AI startups over the past five years, compared to USD 143 billion over the same period in startups operating across all aspects of the clean energy sector" From the IEA's 2024 World Energy Outlook (p186). Now that's a problem.
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I donāt listen to much music, but when I do ā¦
12 months ago
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āAs we have seen in the past bad policy designs leads to bad outcomes,ā Rowland said last week. āIt is important we take the time to get these reforms right.ā
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12 months ago
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Maybe we can call gambling ads āsocial mediaā and weāll ban it then?
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12 months ago
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David Pocock
12 months ago
Gambling ads between Frozen and Bluey songs. This shouldnāt be happening. Govt needs to have the guts to ban gambling advertising.
www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
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Australian father calls out Spotify for allegedly playing Sportsbet ads during Frozen and Bluey songs
Man says gambling ads āpotentially damagingā for his children who regularly listen to Disney and the Wiggles on his account on music streaming app
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/dec/03/spotify-betting-ads-disney-songs-opt-out-feature
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All you need to know about how much the government actually understands youth online safety: Apparently YouTube is "primarily for the purposes of education and health support"
www.pm.gov.au/media/social...
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https://www.pm.gov.au/media/social-media-reforms-protect-our-kids-online-pass-parliament
12 months ago
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I reckon Ms Rachel would crush a season on Survivor
12 months ago
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Delighted to share that our ARC Discovery Project on 'Proactive harm prevention for emerging virtual and augmented reality technologies' has been funded. Stoked to get to do more VR & AR work with Jo Gray and
@benegliston.bsky.social
, and keep growing
@cavrn.org
!
12 months ago
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Dan Golding
12 months ago
A very early version of this was shown at the first Parallels. It was amazing then, even more amazing now.
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Josh Taylor
12 months ago
News Corp basically going all in.
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Taylor Hardwick
12 months ago
āWe want to get kids back on the soccer fieldā but national subsidy of childrenās sport & investment in public & playful spaces when?????
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Penny Allman-Payne
12 months ago
The PM says, "When it comes to the wellbeing of young people ... I want Australia to be one of the leading nations in the world." Spare me. One in six kids live in poverty but instead of raising the rate or building public housing Labor's ramming through a social media ban. We see you.
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With
@benegliston.bsky.social
and
@kateeuph.bsky.social
, our new article on Meta's $50m XR Programs and Research Fund in IC&S is out today
www.tandfonline.com/eprint/JQ3DU...
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Value and virtue in the extended reality (XR) industry
It is increasingly common to see policymakers, industry, and regulators calling for governance of the āmetaverse' ā often envisioned as a technological stack supported by extended reality (XR) tech...
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/JQ3DURKCA6WEVCMTGSSD/full?target=10.1080/1369118X.2024.2423339
12 months ago
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Melissa Florer-Bixler
about 1 year ago
A poem for my last day working at the writing center for the semester (by Joseph Fasano)
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Suzie Sheehy (she/her)
about 1 year ago
I am dreading having to drop things to hurriedly prep a new EOI if my outcome is unsuccessful this year, but I simply refuse to waste my own time in this way by prepping another EOI ā donāt forget weāve all written two rounds of applications for our projects to get to this point.
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An intolerable risk to children's online safety. That's what we've said in our submission on the social media minimum age amendment, where we were given only 24 hours to make our submission!
www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...
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Marcus Carter on LinkedIn: Social Media Minimum Age - Our Submission
An intolerable risk to children's online safety. That's what we've said in our submission to the Environment and Communications committee, who have been givenā¦
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7265548120925569024/
about 1 year ago
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Andrew Przybylski
about 1 year ago
Maybe, and just hear me out for a moment... National health / human rights / technology legislation shouldn't be based on a poorly researched pop psych book?
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Taylor Hardwick
about 1 year ago
Turns out the only change made to the existing broad definition of āsocial mediaā under the Online Safety Act is that the minister will have the power to exempt specific services from being age restricted. Which clarifies um literally nothing about what is/isnāt included in the actual legislation
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So, the Governmentās social media ban has been referred to the Environment and Communications committee for an inquiry. They have of course been given a reasonable time to lead the inquiry ⦠three days!
about 1 year ago
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Kath Albury
about 1 year ago
The proposed 'social media ban' legislation is being pushed through Australian parliament tomorrow with zero consultation with the young people it impacts most, and zero input from digital, youth and mental health researchers, practitioners and advocates. See this thread for more info:
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Taylor Hardwick
about 1 year ago
It is unconscionable that the government is introducing its social media ban legislation to parliament tomorrow without any expert or practitioner consultation or review - or even a clear definition of āsocial mediaā.
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Live: Laws to ban social media for kids to be introduced tomorrow
The federal government's legislation aims to get kids off social media by the end of the year. Follow live.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-20/federal-politics-live-blog-november-20/104620452?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=link
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Brendan Keogh
about 1 year ago
It's really hard to overstate how many world-leading experts on digital media and social media are at Australian universities (I work with many of them!), and the overwhelming majority of them will tell you the social media ban is a bad and counterproductive idea.
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Daniel Angus
about 1 year ago
We made the case that any bill presented to Parliament in this term should be referred to committee, there are so many unresolved issues, potentially even legal/constitutional that come from wholesale bans of children from being part of our now normalised communication ecosystem.
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Daniel Angus
about 1 year ago
I was in Canberra yesterday alongside other digital media experts to brief members of the cross bench and government on some of the key policies being debated at present, social media bans, age verification, and misinformation.
@qutdmrc.bsky.social
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This
@cavrn.bsky.social
post (and corresponding journal article) are excellent; the best on Apple Vision Pro!
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about 1 year ago
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This year, Premeet Sidhu,
@jzagal.bsky.social
and I published an edited book on Fifty Years of Dungeons and Dragons (& thanks to
@springer.bsky.social
)
direct.mit.edu/books/edited...
We leaned into what is possible with edited books and explored some alternative formats, with terrific results!
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Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons
On the fiftieth anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, a collection of essays that explores and celebrates the game's legacy and its tremendous impact on g
https://direct.mit.edu/books/edited-volume/5778/Fifty-Years-of-Dungeons-amp-Dragons
about 1 year ago
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Dale from Wyrmworks Publishing
over 1 year ago
Is D&D a Secret Architect of Global Culture? | Explore the cultural legacy of Dungeons & Dragons w/ scholars Premeet Sidhu & JosƩ Zagal. Unravel its huge impact on entertainment, education, & global society. #DnD #TTRPG
wyrmworkspublishing....
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Is D&D a Secret Architect of Global Culture? | Gaining Advantage 038 - Wyrmworks Publishing
"Is D&D a Secret Architect of Global Culture? | Gaining Advantage 038".
https://wyrmworkspublishing.com/podcast/is-dd-a-secret-architect-of-global-culture-gaining-advantage-038/?utm_source=bluesky&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fedica-Daily
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Lots of followers from starterpacks, but none from posting! So, i'm going to try to post once a day about some of the things i've been working on this year. first up, the
#fiftyyearsofD&D
!
about 1 year ago
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Paul Roquet
about 1 year ago
Putting slides together for today's classāguess this is one of those how it started/how it's going moments x_x
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If you're an Australian academic, make sure you're following
@arc-tracker.bsky.social
here. I've learnt more about how the ARC works from them than any development workshop!
about 1 year ago
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Evan Torner
about 1 year ago
In case you missed it in May: I wrote an essay on the rhythms and incentives of D&D combat, one of the most important subsystems in gaming, for the 50 Years of D&D collection from MIT Press. You can read it on Rascal News:
www.rascal.news/combat-dnd-f...
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Combat in Dungeons & Dragons
A short history of design trajectories.
https://www.rascal.news/combat-dnd-fifty-years-dungeons-dragons-evan-torner-excerpt-mit-press/
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Chris āMuttonā Button
about 1 year ago
With concerns that Australiaās proposed social media ban hasnāt explicitly ruled out online gaming, I spoke with
@darthtayrah.bsky.social
about how important safe digital spaces are for children and why video games should be protected š®
www.gadgetguy.com.au/australia-so...
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Social media ban ignores importance of online gaming to children
With Australia's proposed underage social media ban yet to be defined, experts fear that the importance of online gaming could be overlooked.
https://www.gadgetguy.com.au/australia-social-media-ban-online-gaming/
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CAVRN
about 1 year ago
Hello Bluesky, we are the Critical Augmented and Virtual Reality Research Network (CAVRN)āa scholarly group & publication for academics critically studying emerging VR & AR technologies š
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