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I work in three areas in Game Studies. Firstly, I specialise in the analysis of First-Person Games, with particular focus on the relationships between ludic structures, content and story, and player behaviour. Secondly, I work in game preservation, most notably as part of the EU-funded KEEP emulation project. Thirdly, I develop experimental FPS mods, the most well known of which is the HL2 mod Dear Esther.

I joined academia in 2003 and this year achieved my doctorate, which makes me relatively new to the field. For this reason, I think I can offer DiGRA a perspective of a new scholar, who understands well the challenges and needs of postgraduate students, incomers from industry and emerging researchers. In the short time I been working in this field, I've been at the centre of a number of projects that cross the 'perceived' divides of technology, humanities and commercial development, and have experience in fundraising, project management and evaluation. I have just submitted a bid, together with Dr Esther MacCallum-Stewart and partners across the UK to inaugurate a UK chapter of DiGRA, anchored to a rolling programme of bi-monthly research seminars. Part of this process is also directly aimed at supporting young or early-career researchers, offering them a platform and access to more experienced and established figures. I hope this demonstrates my commitment to furthering and supporting research in this field.
The field of game studies has expanded dramatically over the last few years, and whilst this is clearly a good thing, it also creates challenges. Without expecting or insisting upon a top-down, centrist position, DiGRA should aim to be the focal point and portal to the field. It should offer direct links to the many diverse areas of growth, reaching out to technologists and placing great emphasis on increased links with industry. It should set the gold standard for research quality and commit to the development of all scholars, at whatever stage in their career, assisting in fundraising for quality, high-impact research projects and supporting the relationship between research and teaching in both postgraduate and undergraduate programmes. Potential areas DiGRA could explore include mentoring schemes (expanding on the PhD mentoring sessions at the forthcoming conference), mutually beneficial collaborations with industry, lobbying and exploring how games are represented in formal research grading such as the UK's REF scheme, and the placing of games experts on the panels and boards of research-funding bodies.

In terms of personal qualities, I will bring passion, enthusiasm and commitment to the Board. I'm not one for standing still: I like to generate ideas and I like to make them happen. I'm very pragmatic and equally driven and would approach the role with the same energy I throw at every other professional project I'm involved in. I truly believe that we are at a hugely exciting phase of the development of our medium and the body of research that is developing around it. We've been through the initial, heady phase of games studies: the search for an identity; the arguments over the extent to which this is, or should be, an independent discipline; the struggle to be accepted as a genuine and important field alongside other more established media. Likewise, game are beginning to mature and deepen in terms of range and content, at the same time as the notion of a more ludic society begins to become fashionable and games themselves diversify rapidly into new areas and types of delivery. It's a great time to be here, and I'd love the opportunity to be part of the team doing whatever it can to drive our field forwards.


Dr Dan Pinchbeck

Advanced Games Research Group
School of Creative Technologies
University of Portsmouth, UK

www.thechineseroom.co.uk
www.keep.port.ac.uk