2014’te Apple iCloud’un çökertilmesiyle birçok ünlünün özel çıplak fotoğraflarının sızdırıldığı ve “The Fappening” olarak anılan olayın ardından, bunu haberleştiren medya kuruluşları şaşkındı. Sızıntı, bazıları tarafından “4Chan olarak bilinen hacker”a atfedilmişti. İnternetin karanlık köşelerine aşina olanlar için 4Chan bir kişi değil, anonimliği, kabalığı ve hacktivist kültürüyle ünlü bir görüntü panosu sitesidir.

The Fappening kesinlikle bir hacktivizm örneği olmasa da, bu olay hacktivizmle, kamuoyunun onu nasıl algıladığıyla ve dinamikleriyle ilgili bazı kritik noktaları açığa çıkarıyor. Hacktivizm çoğu zaman biraz rastlantısal ve fırsatçı olur. Genellikle oldukça anarşiktir. Politik konumu ise çoğu zaman tutarlı değildir.

Dom Ford joins Jana Byars to talk about Mytholudics: Game and Myth (DeGruyter Brill, 2025). Games create worlds made of many different elements, but also of rules, systems and structures for how we act in them. So how can we make sense of them? Mytholudics: Games and Myth lays out an approach to understanding games using theories from myth and folklore. Myth is taken here not as an object but as a process, a way of expressing meaning. It works to naturalise arbitrary constellations of signs, to connect things in meaning. Behind the phrase ‘just the way it is’ is a process of mythologization that has cemented it.

[Website is down.]

Han nævner ‘Wind Waker’ som et eksempel på et spil, der gjorde en indsats for ikke at ligne andre titler fra starten af 2000’erne, som alle bevægede sig mod en stigende grad af “realisme” – hvilket undertiden mest betød, at alting var utroligt brunt.

“Og særligt ‘Breath of the Wild’ tog det noget gennemtrådte open-world-format og perfektionerede det mere eller mindre, samtidig med at det viste dybden af, hvad der kunne lade sig gøre med et robust fysiksystem og interessante kombinationer af mekanik,” siger han.

Et nyt kapitel i den legendariske spilserie ’The Legend of Zelda’ er netop udkommet. Anmeldere, spilentusiaster og kunstnere er vilde med det, for videospil kan åbne vores verden og vores hjerter.

Also in print edition as ’Se ned i skærmen og ud mod verden’ [Look down at the screen and out to the world] (9 June 2023, pp. 6–7).

The monsters we see in video games are usually antagonists that we destroy without remorse. But what is a monster and are there ethical questions that arise in relation to how they’re represented? In what ways can monsters utilize racist and sexist tropes in harmful ways? Can we treat a type of monsters as a race of pure evil? And is there anything that monsters might do that is beyond the pale? We chat with Dom Ford about Monster Ethics!

The Hero’s Journey has been overused and abused in videogame writing for decades. We discuss Stephanie C. Jennings’ tracing of the authoritarian heart of the monomyth from a reading of Horizon Zero Dawn to GamerGate. We also talk about one of the most hyped games of the last few months, the cyberpunk cat game Stray.

Hosted by Dom Ford and Paweł Grabarczyk.

This is the sixth episode of ITU Playcast, a podcast by the Center for Digital Play at the IT University of Copenhagen. Each episode, we have a chat about one academic paper and one game.

Notes:

Jennings, Stephanie C. (2022). 'Only You Can Save the World (of Videogames): Authoritarian Agencies in the Heroism of Videogame Design, Play, and Culture'. Convergence, vol. 28, issue 2.

BlueTwelve Studio. (2022). Stray. Published by Annapurna Interactive.

We see how the early stages of the UK (and international) videogames industry came to be by following Alex Wade’s account of eccentric media mogul and fraudster Robert Maxwell, and talk about the weird and wonderful hit game, Inscryption. (This episode may sound different and be a little quieter than others - this is due to technical problems. Apologies.) Hosted by Dom Ford and Paweł Grabarczyk.

This is the fifth episode of ITU Playcast, a podcast by the Center for Computer Games Research at the IT University of Copenhagen. Each episode, we have a chat about one academic paper and one game.

Notes:

Wade, Alex. (2021). ‘Red Threads: Robert Maxwell and the Early UK and International Videogames Industry’. Game Studies, vol. 21, issue 4. http://gamestudies.org/2104/articles/wade

Daniel Mullins Games. (2021). Inscryption. Published by Devolver Digital.

A Q&A session with me as the author of the paper for the institute’s reading group.

Ever wondered what’s going on with doors? We try to collect all the different doors in Stefano Gualeni’s recent playable essay, and talk about the sedentary VR escape-the-room spy game I Expect You To Die 2. Hosted by Dom Ford and Paweł Grabarczyk.

This is the fourth episode of ITU Playcast, a podcast by the Center for Computer Games Research at the IT University of Copenhagen. Each episode, we have a chat about one academic paper and one game.

Notes:

Gualeni, Stefano. (2021). Doors. https://doors.gua-le-ni.com/

Schell Games. (2021). I Expect You To Die 2: The Spy and the Liar. Published by Schell Games.

Interviewed on News & Co. TV programme about the breakout success of Wordle.

When is a bunch of pixels an object rather than a picture of an object? Can I unpack these digital objects into a series of homes and apartments? Find out now, as we discuss Jesper Juul’s latest playable essay on videogame objects, and Witch Beam’s charming new game Unpacking. Hosted by Dom Ford and Paweł Grabarczyk.

This is the third episode of ITU Playcast, a podcast by the Center for Computer Games Research at the IT University of Copenhagen. Returning after a little while, we’re trying out a simple format: each episode, we have a chat about one academic paper and one game.

Notes:

Juul, Jesper. (2021). ‘The Game of Video Game Objects: A Minimal Theory of When We See Pixels as Objects Rather than Pictures.’ https://www.jesperjuul.net/text/gameofobjects/

Witch Beam. (2021). Unpacking. Published by Humble Games. https://www.unpackinggame.com/

League of Legends var uden tvivl med til at professionalisere esport. Selvom spillet i sig selv ikke er specielt innovativt, så ramte Riot Games noget rigtigt, da de satsede på esporten og selv arrangerede store turneringer.

No Country For Old Tropes: Representation and Political Affect in Red Dead Redemption 2

Rockstar’s iconic western-themed action adventure series, Red Dead (2004- ), is typically discussed in terms of its visual realism, historical authenticity, or how it engages with quintessential American cultural mythologies. It is often debated whether the games ultimately offer critique or valorization of those values expressed within their universes. This essay articulates how the game’s aesthetics, appropriation of the Western genre, as well as its space and time-based experience, all contribute to a concentrated political affect that engages with an American political present—and perhaps even its potential futures. Enhancing a growing game studies discourse on inclusivity, this research further develops Murray’s visual studies of playable representation, grounded in an understanding of form as deeply enmeshed in identity politics, not separate from it.

This speculative essay captures a process of learning how to articulate an expanded understanding of representation and ideology in video games, through a revisionist counter-reading by a player both American, yet not interpellated by the game’s offerings. Written in a critical and reflective mode, this essay bridges an affective narrative of playing the game, with a theoretical meditation on what its fictions can possibly teach us.

I know it when I see it.

We discuss creepypastas in, about and as games, and what empathy means, how it relates to and works within games, and why it’s important to think about. Hosted by Dom Ford, who is joined by Nina Patricia Houe and Miruna Vozaru.

This is the second episode of ITU Playcast, a podcast by the Center for Computer Games Research at the IT University of Copenhagen. Each episode, a few of us get together to discuss both popular topics in the world of games, as well as what we’re working on in our research.

We discuss whether this is (or should be) the last generation of consoles, what the meaning and role of difficulty and adaptive difficulty is in games, and why Soma (Frictional Games, 2015) is such an intriguing game from a philosophy of mind perspective. Hosted by Dom Ford, who is joined by Paweł Grabarczyk and Miguel González Duque.

This is the pilot episode for ITU Playcast, a podcast by the Center for Computer Games Research at the IT University of Copenhagen. Each episode, a few of us get together to discuss both popular topics in the world of games, as well as what we’re working on in our research.

I hvert spil er der en cyklus som går igen i historieopbygningen på tværs af spilserien. Og det får et nyt spil i serien til at føles både fuldstændigt nyt, mens det samtidigt har en tryg og hjemlig følelse over sig.

Torill Mortensen interviews Shira Chess about her latest book, Play Like a Feminist. Their wide-ranging discussion takes us through the core themes of the book and beyond, including women’s leisure, the role of games and play in feminism and vice versa, transgressive play, feminist protest, and the potential of gaming circles.

Why do we study games? What is the field of ’game studies’? How does research into games help us better understand the changing nature of games in times of chaos, such as the global pandemic?

In this roundtable discussion, we try to answer these questions and more from a variety of angles. Enjoy a wide-ranging discussion on what game studies is, what it can offer us, and how it has helped us to better understand the role of games in society.

Hosted by Dom Ford, a PhD student at the IT University of Copenhagen’s Center for Computer Games Research. Joined by Associate Professors Daniel Cermak-Sassenrath, Hanna Wirman and Torill Mortensen from the Center for Computer Games Research, and also by Associate Professor Paweł Grabarczyk from the IT University’s Center for Computing Education Research.

I certainly feel stressed. But I also feel very fortunate that I’m at a stage in my project where it’s not crucial to be super productive, and that there are other useful things I can focus on.

Let’s do away with gamers. Let’s free the medium from our narrow expectations, and open our minds to the vast possibilities games offer us when we domesticate their underlying mechanisms. Barthes ended his essay by proclaiming that “the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author” (pg. 1326). Well, the real birth of the player must be at the cost of the death of the Gamer.

The short story is not as popular as the novel. It might never be. But that does not mean it isn’t a hugely enriching and worthwhile endeavour. The short game, a vignette experience, could have so much more to give, if only players allow it.