Katie Salen to Keynote Living Game Worlds III

Author: by Beth A.

Living Game Worlds, presented by Georgia Tech’s GVU Center and the Graduate Program in Digital Media in the School of Literature, Communication and Culture, is an annual symposium held at Georgia Tech exploring emerging questions in design and theory in the production and critique of video games. Headlined with a keynote by Katie Salen, Living Game Worlds III, which takes place Thursday, March 29, intends to bring together international scholars, activists and game developers for discussion on nonfiction and documentary games. Variously referred as “serious games,” “games for change,” “persuasive games,” “newsgaming,” and sometimes educational games, participants will explore special challenges and opportunities presented by games that tackle real world topics. Following Salen's keynote are sessions from scholars such as University of Southern California's Tracy Fullerton and Georgia Tech's Ian Bogost, Janet H. Murray, Michael Nitsche, and Celia Pearce. Fullerton and Bogost will hold a discussion about the controversy surrounding the Slamdance controversy with the game Super Columbine Massacre. Katie Salen is the Executive Director of the Gamelab Institute of Play, as well as an Associate Professor in the Design and Technology, Parsons The New School for Design. Katie is currently working as Lead Designer on a digital game designed to teach game design to middle school and high school youth. It is supported through a MacArthur Foundation grant, produced in conjunction with Gamelab and GAAPS, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For more information on the event, interested parties can visit the Living Game Worlds website.