Job: Assistant Professor in Music and Media, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

The Department of the Arts in the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute invites applicants for a full-time, tenure-track Assistant Professor position in music and media. We seek a musician whose work demonstrates creative, critical, and technological engagement with music composition and sound design in one or more of the following areas: games; film and video; and augmented, mixed and virtual reality environments.  We are particularly interested in candidates with expertise in game design and development, and who are capable of contributing to emerging research directions in computational media and social music networks.

CfP: VS Games 2015 (Skövde, Sweden)

VS-Games 2015 aims to meet the challenges of the cross-disciplinary community that work around non-leisure applications of games and game technologies by bringing the community together to share knowledge and experiences. In 2015 we will also aim to bridge the gap between so called serious games and entertainment games. The reason we chose to do this in Skövde in 2015 is the strong interest of University of Skövde and Sweden Game Arena in both areas and we sincerely believe that we can learn from each other.

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CfP: Costumes and Wearables as Game Controllers Studio at TEI 2015

The “Costumes and Wearables as Game Controllers” studio aims to explore how researchers within the game design, and tangible and embodied interaction community can expand the expressive possibilities inherent in wearables and embodied interfaces by applying inspiration from costuming and fashion design to digital game interfaces.  This will be a hands-on studio where participants will be provided the basic tools needed to convert any article of clothing into a prototype wearable game controller.

Book: “Learning, Education and Games. Volume One: Curricular and Design Considerations,” by Karen Schrier, et al.

This book is perfect for any educator or designer seeking an introduction to research-driven best practices for using and designing games for learning. This book provides the latest research and techniques for designing games for a variety of curricular needs–including STEM, literacy learning, history education, music, and computational, ethical, and critical thinking. The book also delves into specific design issues, such as aligning goals, designing for an audience, playtesting, and assessment. Each chapter provides an overview of the relevant frameworks and research findings, as well as practical case studies and useful resources.

Book: “Translation and Localisation in Video Games” by Dr Miguel Á. Bernal-Merino

Selling games in more than one country does not mean being global or having a global strategy! In fact, many international companies lack a plan that addresses the complexities of the global marketplace. Good old approaches tend to be simplistic: It is clear that good distribution channels are necessary but they only take the product where it ‘could’ be wanted; Expensive marketing campaigns (here are the list of Websites using Apache that can be used in online marketing ) may entice players but they do not make fans; Social media may generate attention but also destructive campaigns by players that feel betrayed; Free-to-play may attract users but it does not retain players, Partial localisation helps players enter a game but it does not immerse them… The reason: the global market is not one big shop, but many small ones, and each of them has unique players, all of which need to feel that they are being catered for.

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