What Academics Can Do for Video Game Developers

What Academics Can Do for Game Developers

Bonnie RubergUniversity of California at Berkeley

[email protected] // ourglasslake.com

+ =Thursday, October 16, 14

From slap fights to symbiosis:

+ =What Academics Can Do for Game Developers // Bonnie Ruberg

- Tensions run high between devs and academics.

- However, academics aren’t all what they seem.

- And developers have lots to gain from academics, both the people and the way of thinking.

Thursday, October 16, 14

What do I mean by “academics”?


- People who work as professors, scholars, or researchers at a university level.

- A system of higher education, or simply a pseudonym for structured learning.

- A mode of critical thinking that encourages original analysis and ongoing re-theorizing.



Hi, I’m Bonnie: PhD candidate, teacher, former games journalist, weirdo



I come from a magical land where academics frolic with devs



I’ve seen my share of trouble



But I didn’t expect any problems when it came to friendly collaboration



I underestimated the internet



“I f*cking hate academics!”


Privilege Anti-gamesIvory tower UnrealisticJudgmental Self-importantGatekeepers All talkPretentious IntimidatingExclusionary ThreateningTheory heads Buzz killsJargon junkies Rude to journalists


“What if they think we’re stupid?”



Us vs. them!


So much for my magical land.

Why was this happening when scholarship and

game design had so much to offer each other?

I set out to investigate.


Tension on both sides


“There's a very stereotyped situation in the public imaginary of both fields about this. That the industry thinks academics have never made a game and know nothing about the process and keep recommending these unreasonable things that aren't practical and that's why nobody listens to them. Meanwhile the academics think the industry is full of money-chasing jerkwads who don't care about things like ~*social justice*~ and are willfully ignoring our Good Advice™ to keep lining their pockets. I know enough people on both sides of that to know that neither of these situations is 100% true, though there's a grain of truth in each.”

Todd HarperMIT Game Lab


Games scholars: fact & fiction



Okay, so it’s true


- Sometimes we talk like pretentious jerks.

- Sometimes we get lost in the clouds.

- Sometimes we’re more familiar with the inside of a university office than a studio.


However, it’s also true that...


- We’re more scared of you than you are of us.

- We don’t want to exclude. We want to include (even if we’re not very good at it).

- We’re driven by curiosity and passion, not self-importance.

- Our “privilege” isn’t what you think.


What does an academic look like these days?


vs.XThursday, October 16, 14

We may not always be cheerleaders, but we are your fans. We just have a weird

way of showing it.


X XThursday, October 16, 14

Our craft have more in common with yours than you think


- We break things down into their component parts to understand their systems.

- We take those parts and we use them to build something creative: an argument.

- As we analyze, we engage in a playful dance of ideas, sometimes just for the fun of it.


Oh, enough friendship and understanding.

What can academics do for you?



What academics (the people) can do for you


1. Offer guidance for potentially controversial content.

2. Bring longterm attention to your game.

3. Provide detailed feedback from a fresh perspective.


1) Offer guidance on potentially controversial content


“I view my ‘job’ as an academic to be calling out the potentially harmful and damaging things I see in our mediated communication... To be honest, to me the whole point of being an academic is that we go through all this training to amass a body of knowledge, and to learn these interpretive and explorative skills, so that we can help people who don't have that benefit... If you're making a game and going ‘I'm not sure we're getting this right,’ a cultural studies academic probably has the resources to help you out. We can probably stop you from doing things like offering a bikini-wearing torso as a pre-order bonus or putting a massively homophobic joke in your game.”

Todd HarperMIT Game Lab


2) Bring long-term attention to your game



3) Provide detailed feedback from a fresh perspective


“On the one hand, it's interesting for me to have to deal with the mass market charge here. On the other hand, it's interesting for them to have to deal with the weird design perspective of me. So even if nothing ever gets developed, I think both parties benefit. I'm introducing design ideas and avenues that nobody here would have thought of, and I'm certainly learning about their process and the current state of games from their perspective... Could anyone really be worse off pausing and trying to find something of value in an unfamiliar perspective, even if one doesn't intend to adopt that perspective?”

Ian BogostGeorgia Tech


What academics (the institution) can do for you


1. Give you a platform for shaping future industry members.

2. Produce highly informed thinkers who can bring critical skills to your team.

3. Offer structured environments for experimentation with low monetary risk.


1) Give you a platform for shaping future industry members



2) Produce thinkers who can bring critical skills to your team



3) Offer structured, low risk environments for experimentation



What academics (the mode of thinking) can do for you


- Encourage interdisciplinary mash-ups that bring fresh blood to game design.

- Foster reflection on development; force developers to reconsider the status quo.

- Keep minds nimble, challenged, and open to new possibilities.


1) Encourage mash-ups that bring fresh blood to design



2) Force developers to reconsider the status quo


“[Game studies] can be a way for students to see beyond convention, and to realize the origins of their own particular tastes. Any group of academics, players, or developers probably has its own implicit set of assumptions, and game studies can help us identify what they are.”

Jesper JuulNYU Game Center


3) Keep minds nimble and open


“One problem with being out of college in any industry is that your brain ossifies and you aren't willing to think any differently than you learned to think. The attitude is that something unfamiliar is scary and gross because it's stretching your mind. [In reality] if something is too facile, you learn nothing.”

Ian BogostGeorgia Tech


What you can do to tap into academic resources


1. Add an academic to your team, and/or hire a team with diverse educational backgrounds.

2. Collaborate with an academic. Consider contracting one as a consultant.

3. Buy an academic a drink. Our time is valuable, but we also like to talk.


What you can do for your team


1. Incorporate critical thinking exercises into the design and development processes.

2. Provide your team with opportunities to “play” with details.

3. Encourage them to read and participate widely.


What you can do to keep the academic juices flowing


1. Read widely. Get inspired by nerdery.

2. Speak to students. Attend conferences. Join the conversation.

3. Give back to games programs so they can give back to you.


Let’s work together



Or let’s meet halfway


“[At the center of this is] the idea that the industry would listen to us academics if we gave them practical, simple advice instead of philosophical nonsense... And I can get behind that... On the other hand, I dislike the idea that the onus to get the industry to care is all on us... I'll meet you halfway, game devs. I'll try to write stuff in a compelling and understandable way. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't have to make an effort to understand what I'm saying… I really want devs to understand that even if we're not talking in bulleted list of instructions, the stuff we're doing is real world stuff and worth their time.”

Todd HarperMIT Game Labs



Or, hell, let’s keep fighting (productively)

X vs.


Whatever we do, let’s do it with respect, understanding, curiosity,

and mutual benefits.



Thanks to the following people:


Ian Bogost, Mattie Brice, Chris Grant, Todd Harper, Chelsea Howe, Jesper Juul,

Frank Lantz, Colleen Macklin, & Scott Jon Siegel*

*The views expressed here are individual opinions. They do not represent the interviewees’ employers or associated organizations.


What Academics Can Do for Game Developers

Bonnie RubergUniversity of California at Berkeley

[email protected] // ourglasslake.com

+ =Thursday, October 16, 14

Technology

What Academics Can Do for Video Game Developers