New Books Network Podcast

Game Studies November 9, 2023

Playing Place

Board Games, Popular Culture, Space

Chad Randl and D. Medina Lasansky

Hosted by Rudolf Thomas Inderst

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An essay collection exploring the board game's relationship to the built environment, revealing the unexpected ways that play reflects perceptions of space. Board games harness the creation of entirely new …

Game Studies November 6, 2023

Computer Games As Landscape Art

Peter Nelson

Hosted by Rudolf Thomas Inderst

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Peter Nelson's book Computer Games As Landscape Art (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) proposes that computer games are the paradigmatic form of contemporary landscape and offers a synthesis of art history, geography, game studies …

Asian Review of Books October 26, 2023

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Boss Fight Books #26

Gabe Durham

Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

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For the third anniversary of the Asian Review of Books podcast, I wanted to do something a little different today—and talk about another one of my hobbies, video games. For …

Japanese Studies October 2, 2023

Toward a Gameic World

New Rules of Engagement from Japanese Video Games

Ben Whaley

Hosted by Nathan Hopson

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Ben Whaley’s Toward a Gameic World: New Rules of Engagement from Japanese Video Games (U Michigan Press 2023) examines the pathbreaking engagement strategies of four Japanese video games produced between 200 …

Game Studies September 23, 2023

Time and Space in Video Games

A Cognitive-Formalist Approach

Federico Alvarez Igarzábal

Hosted by Rudolf Thomas Inderst

Video games are temporal artifacts: They change with time as players interact with them in accordance with rules. In Time and Space in Video Games: A Cognitive-Formalist Approach (Transcript …

Game Studies September 7, 2023

Open World Structures

Architecture, Urban and Natural Landscape in the Computer Game

Marc Bonner

Hosted by Rudolf Thomas Inderst

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What role do algorithms play in the construction of images and the representation of the world and weather in computer games? How does the design of rooms, levels and topographies …

Game Studies August 23, 2023

Pixelated Madness

The Construction of Mental Illnesses and Psychiatric Institutions in Video Games

Stefan Heinrich Simond

Hosted by Rudolf Thomas Inderst

The relationship between madness and video games has been notoriously tense. In an abundance of titles, stereotypes and stigmatisations can be found—not only regarding the mentally ill, but also psychiatry …

Game Studies July 31, 2023

Games and Gamification in Market Research

Increasing Consumer Engagement in Research for Business Success

Betty Adamou

Hosted by Rudolf Thomas Inderst

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Games are the most engaging medium of all time: they harness storytelling and heuristics, drive emotion and push the evolution of technology in a way that no other platform has …

MIT Press Podcast July 26, 2023

Codename Revolution

The Nintendo Wii Platform

Steven E. Jones and George K. Thiruvathukal

Hosted by MIT Press

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The Nintendo Wii, introduced in 2006, helped usher in a moment of retro-reinvention in video game play. This hugely popular console system, codenamed Revolution during development, signaled a turn away …

Game Studies July 19, 2023

50 Years of Text Games

From Oregon Trail to AI Dungeon

Aaron A. Reed

Hosted by Rudolf Thomas Inderst

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50 Years of Text Games: From Oregon Trail to A.I. Dungeon is an extensively researched book chronicling the first half-century of interactive fiction: video games made from words. Covering one …

MIT Press Podcast July 11, 2023

The Art of Failure

An Essay on the Pain of Playing Video Games

Jesper Juul

Hosted by MIT Press

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We may think of video games as being "fun," but in The Art of Failure, Jesper Juul claims that this is almost entirely mistaken. When we play video games, our …

MIT Press Podcast July 6, 2023

Moving Innovation

A History of Computer Animation

Tom Sito

Hosted by MIT Press

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Computer graphics (or CG) has changed the way we experience the art of moving images. Computer graphics is the difference between Steamboat Willie and Buzz Lightyear, between ping pong and …

MIT Press Podcast June 29, 2023

Making Democracy Fun

How Game Design Can Empower Citizens and Transform Politics

Josh A. Lerner

Hosted by MIT Press

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Anyone who has ever been to a public hearing or community meeting would agree that participatory democracy can be boring. Hours of repetitive presentations, alternatingly alarmist or complacent, for or …

Taiwan on Air June 24, 2023

"Detention" and Other Horror Videogames

Avatars, Memory and Trauma, with Chee-Hann Wu

Chee-Hann Wu

Hosted by Taiwan on Air

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The host of this episode, Adina Zemanek, interviewed Chee-Hann Wu, who obtained her PhD in Drama and Theatre from the University of California, Irvine and UC San Diego. They talked …

Game Studies June 22, 2023

The Pop Theology of Videogames

Producing and Playing with Religion

Lars de Wildt

Hosted by Rudolf Thomas Inderst

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Young people in the West are more likely to encounter religion in videogames than in places of worship like churches, mosques or temples. Lars de Wildt interviews developers and players …

MIT Press Podcast June 18, 2023

Works of Game

On the Aesthetics of Games and Art

John Sharp

Hosted by MIT Press

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Games and art have intersected at least since the early twentieth century, as can be seen in the Surrealists' use of Exquisite Corpse and other games, Duchamp's obsession with Chess …

Sports June 12, 2023

A History of Competitive Gaming

Zhouxiang Lu

Hosted by Shu Wan

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Competitive gaming, or esports - referring to competitive tournaments of video games among both casual gamers and professional players - began in the early 1970s with small competitions like the …

Science, Technology, and Society June 11, 2023

The Videogame Industry Does Not Exist

Why We Should Think Beyond Commercial Game Production

Brendan Keogh

Hosted by Rudolf Thomas Inderst

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The videogame industry, we're invariably told, is a multibillion-dollar, high-tech business conducted by large corporations in certain North American, European, and East Asian cities. But most videogames today, in fact …

Geography June 11, 2023

Uneven Futures

Strategies for Community Survival from Speculative Fiction

Ida Yoshinaga, Sean Guynes, and Gerry Canavan

Hosted by Stentor Danielson

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Essays on speculative/science fiction explore the futures that feed our most cherished fantasies and terrifying nightmares, while helping diverse communities devise new survival strategies for a tough millennium. The explosion …

MIT Press Podcast May 28, 2023

Appendix N

The Eldritch Roots of Dungeons and Dragons

Peter Bebergal

Hosted by MIT Press

Dungeons and Dragons expert Jon Peterson (The Elusive Shift, Game Wizards) speaks with Peter Bebergal (Season of the Witch, Too Much to Dream) about his new book Appendix N, an anthology …