Podcasts and Thesises

Yes, I know the plural of thesis is theses. But it doesn’t look as cool.

The GameCulture Journal Blog is a place for me to not only muse on games but to include links to my other game related work, blog entries, and Master’s Thesis brainstorming. My goal, then, is to do a better job of keeping this thing up to date.  First order of business? The Low Score podcast, which I do with my friend J. We’ve recorded nine episodes thus far and the train keeps a’rollin’. So please check out the Low Score blog and subscribe to the ‘cast. We welcome comments and questions too!

Secondly, I have posted a few more blog entires for my Game Design as Cultural Practice course. Both are related to Grand Theft Auto games, but each uses a different framing question. My Vice City entry attempts to answers questions of gameplay styles and cultural context using values from the Values@Play Grow-A-Game kit. The San Andreas post discusses racial issues, playing as the dominant ideology, and the male-whiteness of the game industry.

For my other course, Ian Bogost’s Journalism and Games project studio, I’m currently looking into using Foucault’s thoughts of discourse as a model for discourse within single-player games. Look forward to that entry in the next week.

Finally, I’ve been researching my thesis topic. I’m going to be writing about the city in video games. From which angle, I am not yet sure.  To start my research I’m looking at books on city architecture and urban design, doing a survey of games that take place in the city for their gameplay and narrative elements, and thinking about play affordances within the city structure. Expect a lot of that brainstorming to go on here, as I’m using this as my Master’s blog as well.