Meeting the Challenge: Inclusion in Tabletop Game Spaces
In this video Paul Booth shares his thoughts on the research process of Board Games as Media, considering how the situation of the researcher constructs the communities being investigated. Aaron Trammell takes a historical view of hobby gaming, tracing its roots in white supremacy. Tanya Pobuda shares her ethnographic and participatory research on player experiences of exclusion, and makes the provocation that the games industry is only willing to consider these issues through the lens of profit, rather than engaging in empathy.
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PhD Funding Opportunity: LEVERHULME UNIT FOR THE DESIGN OF CITIES OF THE FUTURE (LUDEC)
We’re excited to announce that the second round of the Leverhulme Unit for the Design of Cities of the Future (LUDEC) funding scheme has now opened. As the acronym might suggest, there’s space here for playful interventions and thinking about future cities and we’d welcome applications that take this approach. The application has two stages, the first to secure a PhD place at Manchester Met and the second to submit your LUDEC application (25th March 2022).
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New MMGC Publication: Ecohorror Tabletop Roleplaying with Series 3 of The Between
With TTRPG designer and academic James Louis Smith, MMGC member Chloe Germaine has written material for the latest season of indie tabletop roleplaying game, The Between. Designed by Jason Cordova, The Between is a game in which you play one of a mysterious group of monster hunters investigating threats in Victorian London, threats too weird for Scotland Yard…
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Gamification: Introduction and Application to Action Research
The research group FLAME (Film, Languages and Media in Education) at Manchester Metropolitan University and FILTA (Film in Language Teaching Association) presents a special seminar: ‘Gamification: Introduction and application to action research’.
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Plateaus, Towers and Shrines Man Met Rise's Open World Design Principles: Watch Online
This is a recording of a talk presented by Dr Mark Peace and Dr John Lean about Manchester Metropolitan University's extra-curricular RISE programme.
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Call for Papers: Diversity and Sustainability in Electronic Gaming and Esports
MMGC member Dr Tom Brock is part of team of guest editors working on a special issue of the Journal of Electronic Gaming and Esports on the topic of ‘Diversity and Sustainability in Electronic Gaming and Esports.
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New Publication: The Popular and the Weird - Game Adaptations of H. P. Lovecraft's Fiction
Manchester Metropolitan Game Centre co-director, Chloé Germaine has recently co-edited a special issue of Studies in Gothic Fiction on popular adaptations of Lovecraftian fiction, with Dr Kerry Dodd.
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New Publication: Selling Elysium: The Political Economy of Radical Game Distribution
In this new article from the Baltic Screen Media Review Alex Gekker and Manchester Metropolitan Game Centre member Daniel Joseph analyse the inherent contradictions of critical cultural production in global capitalist markets.
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New Publication: ‘Mapping Imaginary Spaces: From Database to Folk Cartography’
Manchester Metropolitan Game Centre co-director Paul Wake’s chapter on mapping in adventure gamebooks, ‘Mapping imaginary spaces: From Database to Folk Cartography’ has just been published as part of the new volume, Digital Narrative Spaces: An Interdisciplinary Examination edited by Dan Punday.
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New Publication: ‘Poker Fictions: Possible Worlds and the Twenty-First Century Poker Novel’
Manchester Metropolitan Game Centre co-director Paul Wake has a new book chapter recently published on poker fictions, in The Casino, Card and Betting Game Reader.
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Games Imagining the Future: Get Involved!
Chloé Germaine, Paul Wake and Ben Bowman are looking for participants aged 16 years and older to help them research games and the climate crisis. The project is funded and gives you an opportunity to explore your ideas about climate change, the environment, and system change, by playing — and making — games.
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Playing with the Environment: Games about Climate, Infrastructure and Society
This week, as part of the ESRC’s Festival of Social Science, Members of the MMGC and the Manchester School of Architecture (MSA) ran two events to test two new board games that challenge players to think about building and developing nation-wide infrastructures and their wide-ranging impacts.
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Grafting Games as Research Approach: Event Round-up
MMGC PhD student Gemma Potter showcased her PhD research on crossovers between craft and digital gaming. Gemma is part of the Transformation North West PhD training programme and her research intersects with industry, games, and craft.
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Study With Us: PhD Scholarships at Manchester Metropolitan University
Manchester Metropolitan University is a member of the AHRC’s North West Doctoral Training Partnership and we’re pleased to announce that details of the funding scheme have just been announced. We’re keen to see applications in any area of game studies.
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Hacking at the Orchard: A Methodology for Games Imagining the Future
MMGC co-directors, Paul Wake and Chloe Germaine have been busy setting up a research project for Asmodee/ Game in Lab. Play and the Environment: Games Imagining the Future is a project that works with young people to ‘hack’ contemporary board games in order to explore climate change futures.
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How Pac-Man Eats (book review)
In this blog post, Man Met Game Centre member Rob Gallagher reviews How Pac-Man Eats by Noah Wardrip-Fruin.
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Watch Online! Subterranean Gothic in Indie Videogames
On October 6th the Manchester Game Studies Network hosted a research seminar on the ethics and aesthetics of indie videogames presented by Dr Seán Travers and Charlotte Gislam. The papers considered Undertale and The Binding of Isaac, exploring the (re)presentation of violence, space and story in these underground gothic games.
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Tabletop Gaming Live comes to Manchester in 2022
Manchester Game Studies Network is pleased to share some exciting news for tabletop gaming in the North West. After two years at Alexandra Palace in London, and third year running online, the Tabletop Gaming Live convention will be coming to Manchester in 2022.
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MGSN explores RPGs and the Environment in a time of Climate Crisis
The Man Met Game Centre are researching different modes of analogue play to better understand the ways in which game design and play might support action on the climate crisis.
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Ancient Greece and Rome in Videogames: Representation, Play, Transmedia. Review
In this blog post, Man Met Game Centre member Jennifer Cromwell reviews Ancient Greece and Rome in Videogames: Representation, Play, Transmedia by Ross Clare.
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