This summer update courtesy of Chris the Masseur:

- Many months ago, spent a very interesting day with Ken Wark (and the Media@McGill ace team). Wark feels gamer culture picks up on larger (digital) cultural themes, and while I don’t tend to disagree, isn’t it early days to say what is and what isn’t ‘gamer culture’?

- Also in the distant past, transcribed an amazing interview I did with the women’s game collective Ludica. I had hoped to have the audio, but no dice…still, the transcript is brilliant, and ties in strongly with the first point: game culture is changing… I’d love to see it included in course links everywhere: it’s seriously an essential read (particularly if you are interested in the GDC ‘Needle and Thread’ controversy).

- Ian Bogost’s Persuasive Games buys him a ticket to the Colbert nation, where he makes an impassioned plea for boring games. I like the book better than Unit Operations (which I didn’t dislike, I just haven’t found useful), not because it has all the answers, but because it asks some of the essential questions. There are at least three debates found herein that should mark the next decade of game research (and if you write a book on them maybe you can be on TV).

- I’m working on a very top secret (although heavily leaked…perhaps too exciting) project involving Montreal as the gaming center of the universe.

- I’ve joined the game art collective Kokoromi! Hot damn…gonna get my game on… (more on that…)