Celia Pearce with the initiative Games @ Georgia Tech has organized a series of talks. The aim of Games @ Georgia Tech has been to bring together a variety of research and teaching across the campus as a whole in the area of digital games.
“Georgia Tech is known worldwide as one of the top universities for games, but it’s sometimes difficult to find out what’s going on here, even if you are a student or faculty member,” Pearce says. “We received some funding this year from the GVU which has enabled us to launch a website, kind of a central hub for games activities at Georgia Tech, host a series of lunches and this lecture series, and offer travel grant for people who want to make visits to corporate partners.”
Pearce has organized a wide variety of speakers to come to Georgia Tech to speak. All of the speakers are well-known persons in the industry and have contributed to it significantly in unique ways.
“Martin Ericsson was our first speaker. He’s a Swedish participation designer who creates transmedia games and has also been deeply involved in the Nordic LARPing scene,” Pearce says. “Our second speaker, Deborah Thomas, is a local game designer specializing in serious games. She will talk about effective game design in that arena. We are also inviting Susan Bonds from, 42 Entertainment, a major alternate reality and transmedia game studio out in LA, Bernie DeKoven, author of The Well-Played Game, and Nick Taylor, who has been doing research on professional gaming leagues.”
“I think what is emerging from the speakers we have so far is alternative games and gaming culture,” Pearce explains. “There will also be a heavy emphasis on multiplayer games, both in terms of online games, as well as pervasive games that take place in the real world.”
These speakers that have been invited as part of the Games @ Georgia Tech initiative will greatly benefit the Digital Media community because of the different research and perspectives that they can share.
“The Games @ Georgia Tech initiative overall is really aimed at improving communication and collaboration between different schools and research centers across the campus and also helping the outside world better navigate our offerings here,” Pearce says. “For the Digital Media community in particular, the lecture series brings in world-class speakers that benefit our students and faculty and the larger agenda provides us with many collaboration opportunities.”
