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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Ian BogostIan Bogost, professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, was quoted in “Death of the Gamer: Why the Term ‘Gamer’ Matters” by Forbes.
Excerpt:
Ian Bogost, in the conclusion to his book How to do Things with Videogames, remarks that “we must face a humbling and perhaps even disturbing conclusion about the media forms we love: they’re just not that special” (pg. 148). It seems a strange conclusion for someone whose career is largely built on videogame studies. Why bother with all that research for a medium you don’t think is all that special? And yet, Bogost makes a crucial point.
It is part of a process he calls demystification. All mediums begin in the form of some innovative, strange, captivating technology. You can use a machine to print endless copies of exactly the same text?! You can use a device to instantly paint a highly-realistic image of whatever it’s pointed at?! You can takes thousands of these images and play them in quick succession?! You can use a joystick to control and change what happens on-screen?! As a bewildering progression of technology, the newest step carries a degree of intrinsic wonder. The act of playing a videogame is in itself just a really cool, interesting thing to be able to do.
For the full article, read here
