Category Archives: games

Community PlanIt in Boston Public Schools

How do you convince people to take time out of their busy schedules, leave their home around dinner time, perhaps get a babysitter, all in order to participate in a slow-moving conversation about something very abstract? It’s not easy. While … Continue reading

Posted in boston, civic_engagement, games, placeofmedia | Leave a comment

Immersive Planning

Methods of engaging communities in urban planning decisions have remained relatively stagnant. Groups of people are assembled into community centers, school cafeterias, and libraries and are asked to provide input on the professional discourse of architects and planners. They are … Continue reading

Posted in cities, civic_engagement, games, geography, hub2, mediated urbanism, placeofmedia | Leave a comment

Creating Empathy Through Role Play

We’ve made some good progress on the Participatory Chinatown (PC) project.   Building off of the first iteration of Hub2, PC will continue with the focus on creating platforms for “augmented deliberation,” but it will do so by more thoroughly exploring … Continue reading

Posted in boston, cities, civic_engagement, games, hub2, mediated urbanism, net-locality | 1 Comment

The Geography of Virtual Worlds

I’m editing a special issue of the journal Space and Culture on the “Geography of Virtual Worlds.” Here’s a draft of the introduction. It’s still in process, but it might give some sense of what I think will be a … Continue reading

Posted in article ideas, games, geography, hub2, placeofmedia, second life, SecondLife | 4 Comments

Beyond Play

I just finished reading Thomas Malaby’s essay, “Beyond Play: a New Approach to Games” from Games and Culture  (vol. 2, no. 2, April 2007).  It’s a very insightful essay about the relationship between game, play and everyday life. He makes … Continue reading

Posted in games, placeofmedia, play | Leave a comment

jay is: The Asylum

Leave it to the Germans… Link: jay is: The Asylum.

Posted in games | Leave a comment

sex: bad, violence: good

The democrats have managed to force the makers of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas to change the rating from mature to adults only.  This is not because of its extreme violence.  That’s fine for kids.  It’s because some modders found … Continue reading

Posted in games | Leave a comment