EVA 2009

Keynotes

Ian Bogost

How to do things with videogames

The relevance of any medium must be understood not only in relation to how many people use it, but also by the breadth of applications to which it is put. The cultural relevance of videogames is increasing precisely because games are being used in a wide variety of contexts, not just entertainment but also exercise, politics, spectatorship, journalism, relaxation, and many more.

In this talk I describe many such unexplored uses, and offer strategies for finding and exploiting them

Read the pre-EVA interview with Ian!

Nick Fortugno

Innovation during the clone wars

My title is “Innovation during the Clone Wars.” What I would like to talk about is the role that innovation plays at this time in the game industry. Between the narrowing focus of casual games and the cutthroat plagiarism in social games, it seems like creativity is being starved out of some of the most creatively rich media we have.

My topic is the role that innovation plays in this world of clones: why innovation is needed, why it’s something that developers should pursue, and most importantly, how one can approach innovation in a way that doesn’t become so experimental that you lose the audience.

The main focus of the talk is a set of techniques for analyzing and imagining games that allows one to innovate without losing core features that make games appealing to a particular audience.

Read the pre-EVA interview with Nick!

Chris Hecker

Games are not a mass market medium

TBD.