The Center for Computer Games Research
Hypermedia Laboratory at the University of Tampere
Game and Media Arts Laboratory
The project ”The Third Place: Computer Games and Our Conception of the Real”
InDiMedia - Centre for Interactive Digital Media
Participants
Ole Ertløv Hansen, Associate professor, acting leader of the NGRN-application
Jens F. Jensen, Professor,
Jørgen Riber Christensen, Associate professor
Thessa Jensen, Associate professor
Claus Rosenstand, Associate professor
Betty Meldgaard, Ph.d.-candidate
Nikolaj HyldigPh.d.-candidate
Description of the group and its activities
InDiMedia is a research centre, conducting research to enhance the development within digital communication and new interactive media. The research centre consists of approx. 20 employees, including PhD students and support staff and is established under the Department of Communication and Psychology. The centre is located at Aalborg University.
Though the research focus of InDiMedia is on interactive digital media, it is important to stress that the interest of this research is humanistic in its core. This means that the user is the centre of the research carried out at InDiMedia. So, whether the device or phenomena in question is a computer game, a mobile phone, new broadcast technologies, or advanced computer graphics, the primary focus for the InDiMedia research is on how this affects, helps, change, etc. the user in question. The user can be individuals as well as groups. On the one hand the mission is on to understand what these new media and technologies do to users and on the other to try to develop methodologies to test and enhance them.
InDiMedia is organized in eight research areas focusing on:
• interactive television
• computer games
• digital art and culture
• networked media, network culture and virtual communities
• user-centred digital design and interaction design
• MOM (media on the move) – new types of mobile media
• experience economy & experience design
• new experimental methods for testing and creation of digital experience products
Future media, devices, content, and services need to adapt according to user demands. Therefore, the vision of InDiMedia is to conduct research and development of interactive digital media from a user-centred perspective with a point of departure in the Arts & Humanities, the Social Sciences, and in Architecture and Design. A number of theoretical and methodological traditions are brought into play, including culture and media analysis, micro sociology, design theory, interaction design, experience design, cognitive science, ludology, supplemented and broadened by quantitative and qualitative empirical studies.
One of the main aims of InDiMedia is to bridge creativity and technology through the cross-combination of themes and areas within the field of the humanities, art and design, and technology which normally are being kept apart by conventional standards. Another significant feature of InDiMedia is a highly experimental environment based on development of our own dedicated measurement equipment and methods. InDiMedia offers professional laboratory-based test facilities
for user-centred studies in cooperation with VR Media Lab and KMD, being a major information technology provider for the public sector in Denmark. These facilities – called HELP+, Human Experience Lab PLUS – offer the opportunity for observation, testing, and research of interactive, digital media for researchers, students, and the industrial partners of InDiMedia.
The Center for Computer Games Research
Participants
Espen Aarseth, Associate Professor
TL Taylor, Assoc. Professor
Jesper Juul, Assistant Professor
Miguel Sicart, Amanuensis
Gonzalo Frasca, PhD candidate
Sara Iversen, PhD candidate
Olli Leino, PhD candidate
Description of the group and its activities
The Center for Computer Games Research is a leading nexus in the new field of Game Studies, and home to the first peer reviewed journal in the field, Game Studies (.org). We organize PhD courses, seminars, conferences, Nordic Game Jam, and each semester, a Lecture Series with internationally renowned speakers from academia and the games industry. We also teach a master program in game theory and design.
Hypermedia Laboratory at the University of Tampere (Finland)
http://www.uta.fi/hyper/index_en.php
Participants
Frans Mäyrä , Professor
Kirsi Pauliina Kallio, Researcher
Jani Kinnunen, Researcher
Jussi Kuittinen, Researcher
Annakaisa Kultima, Researcher
Markus Montola, Project Manager, Researcher
Johannes Niemelä, Researcher
Janne Paavilainen, Researcher
Eetu Paloheimo, Researcher
Hannamari Saarenpää, Researcher
Olli Sotamaa, Researcher
Jaakko Stenros, Researcher
Description of the group and its activities
Hypermedia Laboratory at the University of Tampere (Finland) is focused in researching the human aspects of digital, interactive media. Laboratory is a recognized expert in questions related to the use and significance of new media as part of human thought, action and creativity. As a multidisciplinary department in the Faculty of Information Sciences, Hypermedia Laboratory provides higher education regarding new media while coordinating national and international research initiatives into many contemporary fields such as digital games, online social media and open content in the information society. Game studies has formed into a central part of department’s educational and research activities. Game Research Lab is a research environment and research group (10-15 person strong) headed by professor Frans Mäyrä which has established itself as one of the key international centres for socio-cultural research of games and game players. Building on theory formation and methodological development, the research group has successfully completed a dozen different games research projects, producing over a hundred academic publications. Some of the current research areas include cultural study of game players, methodologies for evaluating and understanding digital gameplay experience, studies of player creativity, as well as game design research into new and emerging game forms. The group has applied its approach into research and development of mobile games, location aware games, mixed reality games, games for interactive television, as well as large scale pervasive games. The research group and professor Mäyrä have taken active role in international, Nordic and national collaboration, leading major collaborative initiatives such as establishment of the international Digital Games Research Association DiGRA.
Game and Media Arts Laboratory
Participants
Craig Lindley, Professor and Research Leader
Kari Rönkkö, Lecturer
Stefan Johansson, Lecturer
Fredrik Wernstedt, Lecturer
Charlotte Sennersten, PhD candidate
Lennart Nacke, PhD candidate
Johan Hagelbäck, PhD candidate
Jussi Holopainen, PhD candidate
Description of the group and its activities
The Game and Media Arts Laboratory” (GAMALab in short) is a recently founded research group at Blekinge Institute of Technology. GAMALab conducts research on game and simulation systems design, interaction, technical architecture and development processes. The primary theoretical foundations for the work of the group are in cognitive science. Particular research interests include:
- cognitive and psychophysiological studies of game play and its effects upon players
- game and interactive simulation systems for analysis, cognitive augmentation, learning,
entertainment and therapy - scientific, aesthetic and cultural foundations for the design of games and interactive
simulation systems - the use of complex game environments for conducting research in cognitive science
- simulation and artificial intelligence
- new interaction technologies
Our research is applied in a number of different industrial sectors, including:
- the Entertainment Computer Game Industry. Here we are interested in the effects of game
play upon players, developing new interaction technologies for games, and methods
for supporting efficient game design processes and tools. Of particular interest is
understanding the cognitive skills that players gain during game play, and how to
design games aimed at achieving specific cognitive and emotional affects. - Military and Aerospace training and operations. Our interests include game systems for training
and game technologies for operational support. Research in this area includes the use of
game systems to understand situation awarenes, workload and cognitive performance
in complex decision-making processes. More specific applications range from training
personnell involved in peacekeeping operations to investigating systems in which
human operators act together and/or control groups of airborne or ground based
autonomous vehicles. - Space Science and Engineering. We are interested in the use of game technologies for
simulating and automating space operations, optimising the balance between human
decision processes and autonomous system components, and conducting simulation studies
in astrophysics.
The GAMALab is a participant in the FUGA (FUn of GAming) NEST Pathfinder project.
Active collaborations exist between GAMALab and:
FOI (Swedish Defence Research Agency)
Caroline Institute, Sweden
Swedish Space Corporation,
M.I.N.D Lab, CKIR, Helsinki School of Economics (coordinator)
Helsinki Institute for Information Technology
Gotland University College in Sweden
Dept. Journalism and Communication Research, Hannover University of Music and Drama
Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, RWTH Aachen University
Technical University of Eindhoven
The project ”The Third Place: Computer Games and Our Conception of the Real”
Participants
Olav Asheim, Professor
John Richard Sageng, Ph.d. student
Hallvard Fossheim, Assistant professor
Anita Leirfall, Assistant professor
TarjeiMandt Larsen, Ph.d. student
Description of the group and its activities
The project ”The Third Place: Computer Games and Our Conception of the Real” was started in 2005 and is a collaboration between the Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas at the University of Oslo and Filosofisk Prosjektsenter AS in Oslo.
The aim of the research effort in the core group is to identify factors in perceptual experience and communal practice that affect the conceptions of what counts as real, and provide accounts of how these factors are challenged by the occurrence of objects, properties and events in computer games. The individual approaches in the core group utilize discussions in areas ranging from phenomenology to philosophical semantics.
So far, the group has organized 5 interdiciplinary workshops, of which the most important are the workshop ”The Third Place” in 2005 in collaboration with Center for Computer Games Research at the IT-University in Copenhagen, and a three-day conference ”The Philosophy of Computer Games” in 2007, in collaboration with Department of Social, Cognitive and Quantitative Science at the University of Modena/Reggio, Italy. Several papers are prepared for publication, and we aim to publish a book named ”The Philosophy of Computer Games” based on the conference in 2007.
The spilforskning.dk network
Participants
Jonas Heide Smith, head of Spilforskning.dk, Associate professor, RUC
Anders Tychsen, researcher
Peter Bøgh Andersen, professor
Anne Scott Sørensen, Associate professor
Birgitte Holm Sørensen, Associate professor
Bo Kampmann Walther, Associate professor
Carsten Jessen, Associate professor
Lisbeth Klastrup, Associate professor
Susana Tosca, Associate professor
Troels Degn Johansson, Associate professor
Andersen Christian, Assistant professor
Gitte Stald, Assistant professor
Kjetil Sandvik, Assistant professor
Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Assistant professor
Anne Mette Thorhauge, Ph.d. candidate
Charlie Breindahl, Ph.d. candidate
Rasmus Helles, Ph.d. candidate
Tine Jensen, Ph.d. candidate
Erik Kristiansen, Ph.d. candidate
Description of the group and its activities
The spilforskning.dk network connects researchers and research students working in Denmark.
Its aim is to provide research groups, and single scholars, working at Danish universities with a platform for communication and the dissemination of news. In the past, the network has served as hub for the organization of several conferences, the publication of a game studies anthology (Spillets Verden, 2005) and the development of a video game "canon" in cooperation with the Danish association of video game producers and distributors (Multimedieforeningen).
The network also seeks, and will continue to seek in the future, to support initiatives furthering the interests of the Danish game researcher community. In particular the network will seek to speak out when issues related to video games (or video game research) become the focus of public debate. Spilforskning.dk will also actively seek out collaboration with international - particularly Nordic - sister organizations to further the dissemination of research results as well as the exchange of visiting researchers across borders. Finally, the network will maintain and expand its website at http://www.spilforskning.dk/ which will function as the main platform for communicating statements and news (primarily in Danish, but if the resources become available, also in English). It is an ambition to have the website function as a gateway to Danish game research, to be used by researchers from other fields, by journalists and others. As an example of one of the technical initiatives underway, the website will also aggregate news from weblogs (and other RSS-outputting systems) of its members.
Members of spilforskning.dk who are also members of other of the participating groups are not listed above.