Toy Theory
My book, Toy Theory, will be published by MIT Press in 2023. Here’s a section of the proposal: Headline Rethinking culture, media, technology and the human through play with objects and materials. Placing toys at the centre of the postdigital era through a philosophy and genealogy of play with objects, of toying and being toyed with. […] more…
the game economy
Video of my keynote talk ‘The game economy: designing for, and playing with, the digital era’, for ICOFEP 4: Economics, Finance and Management in the Digital Era, Poznań University of Economics and Business, November 19th 2020 Slides and text here if you prefer. more…
economic imaginary
Economic imaginaries are no mere abstractions or illusions, they shape the design and reception of games as technologies and as commodities, facilitating and scaffolding certain kinds and parameters of play whilst never fully determining them. They mesh the material characteristics and operations of the game (as both interactive media software and operationalised business model) with […] more…
moments of voluptuous release
[In early critical texts (mid to late 1980s) on the cultural economy of computer games] Fiske & Watts and Bernstein make reference to Roland Barthes’ 1950s account of Japanese players of pachinko. For Barthes, pachinko – a mechanical arcade game, somewhere between pinball, bagatelle and the fruit machine – and its players are at once […] more…
accursed play
A new article in Games and Culture: Accursed play: the economic imaginary of early game studies. It’s part of the Ludic Economies special issue edited by myself and Alison Harvey – which should be published later this year. Here’s an extract: Play, work, and waste So videogame play in the arcades and the home in […] more…
why so Serious(tm)? playing with LEGO Serious Play
edited excerpt from Ashton and Giddings 2018, At work in the toy box: bedrooms, playgrounds and theories of play in creative cultural work International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation: The appeal of the consultancy programme LEGO Serious Play is in part generated by the tension between work and play. The name itself jams together the Serious and […] more…
the semio-economics of Hyrule
The expansive world of The Legend of Zelda: the breath of the wild features a diegetic economic system. From time to time Link meets travelling merchants or visits shops in villages and can buy or sell food, plants, weaponry, minerals and so on, resources that are distributed across the world and foraged for or won […] more…
Ludic Economies I
With the special issue nearing publication, here’s a reminder of the original Ludic Economies: value & exchange in contemporary game cultures event. The site hosts all the presenters’ slide shows. Participants included: Dan Ashton; Patrick Crogan; Seth Giddings; Alison Harvey; Josh Jarret; Helen W Kennedy; Ashok Ranchhod; Vanissa Wanick. more…
ludic economies
Watch this space for details of an upcoming special issue of Games and Culture edited by myself and Alison Harvey. Play and games are at the heart of the new business models of mediatized global capitalism, attracting and sustaining attention, pioneering new techniques of payment and brand loyalty, lubricating the monetary and affective microtransactions […] more…
transforming creativity
With Dan Ashton I have recently set up the Transforming Creativity Research Group at WSA. We are waiting for the official website to be launched, but have a news and events blog up and running: https://transformingcreativity.wordpress.com/ We have already run the After VR: the archaeology and potential of immersive media symposium, and Dan and I […] more…