Presented at Nordic DiGRA 2025: Hope – Envisioning the Future of Game Cultures, Turku, Finland, 26–28 May 2025. Extended abstract Cambridge-based developer Jagex released Old School RuneScape (OSRS) in 2013, following years of backlash to the direction of the long-running MMORPG RuneScape (2001). OSRS opened its servers alongside the main game based on a 2007 backup, effectively removing six years of updates. OSRS overtook the average player count of RuneScape in 2016 and has the gap has only increased in the years since. But the game has not remained stagnant. Indeed, OSRS has now had more years of development (2013–2025) than RuneScape had had up until the 2007 backup (2001–2007).
28 May 2025
Presented at the International Conference on Victorian and American Myths in Video Games, Lisbon, Portugal, 9–11 April 2025.
9 Apr 2025
Presented at the Conference on Language, Norms and Digital Lives, Copenhagen, Denmark, 28–29 November. Abstract Cities: Skylines (Colossal Order, 2015) took the city-builder throne from Maxis’ SimCity series (1989–2014) after the disastrous launch of the fifth SimCity (Maxis Emeryville, 2013). But history may be repeating itself, as developers Colossal Order and publishers Paradox Interactive are facing a backlash to the launch of the hotly anticipated Cities: Skylines II (2023).
29 Nov 2024
Presented at the Central and Eastern European Game Studies (CEEGS) Conference 2024: Reimagining Games, Art, and Performativity, Nafplio, Greece, 10–12 October. Extended abstract Cities: Skylines (Colossal Order, 2015) took the city-builder throne from Maxis’ SimCity series (1989–2014) after the disastrous launch of the fifth SimCity (Maxis Emeryville, 2013). But history may be repeating itself, as developers Colossal Order and publishers Paradox Interactive are facing a backlash to the launch of the hotly anticipated Cities: Skylines II (2023). Apologetic forum posts from CEO Mariina Hallikainen, promised features significantly delayed, a slew of poor reviews and a rapidly dwindling playerbase all plague a game which was meant to consolidate Colossal Order’s rule over the genre.
11 Oct 2024
Presented at Beyond Play: The Transformative Power of Digital Gaming in a Deeply Mediatized Society, Bremen, Germany, 30 September–2 October.
2 Oct 2024
Presented at Digitale Spiele im Wandel: Technologien – Kulturen – Geschichte(n), Bremen, Germany, 24–26 January. Extended abstract Digital games are often understood in terms of escapism, the avoidance of everyday, ‘real’ life. But are gameworlds necessarily escapist? I argue that this escapist paradigm reveals an underlying assumption that gameworlds are separate from the ‘real world’. Instead, I propose that we can better understand gameworlds and their role in our lives and in society through the concept of otherworlding (Frog, 2020).
26 Jan 2024
Presented at CEEGS 2023: Meaning and Making of Games, Lepizig, Germany, 19–21 October. Extended abstract City-builder games allow the player to “build your dream city” (SimCity BuildIt, 2023) where “you’re only limited by your imagination” (Paradox Interactive, n.d.). Of course, those are marketing statements, but most titles emphasise a large degree of creative freedom. Players generally understand that their virtual city is, in fact, limited. Computational power, assets included in the game, gameplay mechanics. But less acknowledged is the degree to which city builders limit the imagination too. The hidden choices—conscious or not—regarding what is and is not possible in gameplay also limit the imagination. Outside of the game too, I argue, these game design decisions play a role in limiting the imagination for what cities can be in general.
20 Oct 2023
Presented at the 2020 History of Games Conference: Transnational Game Histories, online, 21–24 October. Extended abstract World of Warcraft Classic (Blizzard Entertainment, 2019) drew a great deal of attention when it was released. After years of hostility towards unsanctioned private servers hosting ‘vanilla’ WoW (Blizzard Entertainment, 2004)—the base game without any of its eight expansions—Blizzard decided to release their own, official pre-Burning Crusade (2007) version to much press attention and fanfare.
22 Oct 2020
Presented at the 2018 Nordic DiGRA Conference in Bergen, Norway, 28–30 November. This presentation has since been developed into a journal article. Extended abstract The long-lost, ancient civilisation that somehow had technology that far surpasses the current level is a common trope in videogames that feature large, open worlds. The Mass Effect trilogy (2007; 2010; 2012) features the Protheans, whose unparalleled feats of technology and engineering such as the mass relays laid the foundations for the galaxy Shepard steps into. Horizon Zero Dawn (2017) explores a primitive world littered with technological marvels left by the Old Ones. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017) is centred around the Ancient Sheikah society, who 10,000 years prior to the game’s setting had developed teleportation between towers and shrines, powerful runes, and even a motorbike. Their technology was later used to build the giant mechanical Divine Beasts and Guardians. All this while the warriors of the day are still using steel swords.
30 Nov 2018
Presented at the 2018 Nordic DiGRA Conference in Bergen, Norway, 28–30 November. Extended abstract In How To Do Things With Videogames, Ian Bogost argues that videogames offer “an experience of the ‘space between points’ that had been reduced or eliminated by the transportation technologies that began with the train” (2011, 49). But when we watch a speedrun of a game such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo EAD 1998), what we instead see is a player determined to destroy as much of that ‘space between points’ as possible. It is a game that takes most players tens of hours to complete, but is finished in just over 17 minutes by the best speedrunners, utilizing glitches that manipulate the game’s code to skip enormous chunks of both the narrative and the gameworld. Once an underground hobby conducted between users swapping footage on obscure internet forums, speedrunning has shot into the mainstream in recent years following the rise of livestreaming platforms and livestreamed events such as Games Done Quick and the European Speedsters Assembly. So what does speedrunning mean as a mode of play, and what can it reveal about the relationship between player and gameworld?
1 Nov 2018