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Keynote: Foundation of Digital Games 2015

Posted by: Casey O'Donnell on June 12, 2015 in Presentations 1 Comment 9,858 views 28

FDG 2015

Well, I’m going to be keynoting at the Foundation of Digital Games (FDG) Conference in just two weeks. That’s actually just one of the many things I’ll be doing. I’ll be serving on the doctoral colloquium as well as presenting as part of a panel with delightful people on a panel titled: “What Unity Wants/Making Things: Critical Approaches to Game Design Tools.” More on that soon.

Tagged with: FDG Keynote Presentation

About Casey O'Donnell

Casey O'Donnell is an Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Information at Michigan State University. He is part of the games faculty and Games for Entertainment and Learning (GEL) lab at MSU. He is also part of the game development collective Affinity Games. His research examines the creative collaborative work of videogame design and development. This research examines the cultural and collaborative dynamics that occur in both professional "AAA" organizations and formal and informal "independent" game development communities. His research has spanned game development companies from the United States to India. His research examines issues of work, production, copyright, as well as third world and postcolonial aspects of the videogame development workplace.

One comment

April Grow
June 23, 2015 at 11:00 pm

Hi Casey!

I was at your panel on Unity and Game Design/Development today, and I meant to ask a follow-up question: How would you approach evaluating new or existing tools?

I come at this from a tool-making perspective for complex authoring systems. I understand that the target audience of the tool (skill level, design vs. development), purpose, and the domain can change evaluation approaches. There are user studies if a tool is ready (for novice users, usually, which takes a lot of polish to get decent responses) or tests for expessivity as Gillian Smith has done. I suppose you could also find some way to quantify the problem and prove the tool makes it quicker/easier/better to solve that problem than without it. What methods do you find most compelling?

Thanks,
~April

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