Scholars At Play

Subscribe to Two Player Theory! https://twoplayertheory.podbean.com/

Derek and Kyle sit down to talk about Derek's recently-completed dissertation "The Work of Nonfiction: Simulator Games in Germany." Derek talks about the history of simulator games, the specific simulators he studies, and what we can learn from games all about machines and work. Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 4:11 - Theory, text, and context in research 8:30 - Origins of the project and how it developed, brief history of simulator games 20:12 - Theories and methods of the project 37:33 - Examples of popular simulator games from the mid-2000s 45:05 - How do these "newer" simulator games break from or continue in the tradition of older simulator games? 58:11 - How do simulator games respond to contemporary transformations of work in the 21st century, and why did the simulator game genre become popular in German-speaking contexts? 1:17:50 - The limits of critique/suspicion in research, and a brief discussion about how gender and class under-gird simulator game realism.

The scholars may be physically distant, but that won't stop them from talking about all their quarantine gaming! Join us for an EXTRA long "What's In You System" where we talk about how our gaming has changed during the ongoing pandemic. ----------- Games Discussed: Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Animal Crossing, Link Between Worlds, Euro Truck Simulator 2, Deep Space D6 ----------- Hosts: Derek Price: twitter.com/digital_derek Terrell Taylor: twitter.com/BlackSocrates Kyle Romero: twitter.com/E_Kyle_Romero ----------- Contact: email: scholarsatplaypodcast@gmail.com twitter: twitter.com/ScholarsAtPlay ----------- Music: "We Can Do It" by Visager (twitter.com/visagermusic)

In a special episode, Derek sits down with Pascal Wagner (Language At Play, Polyneux, GAIN Magazin) to talk about their experiences at A MAZE 2019, an independent festival for games that happens every year in Berlin. They talk about the great games and talks they saw, as well as some games they had some more critical reactions to. See below for a more detailed list of what they talked about, and when. ----------- Timestamps 4:50 - A MAZE in general 11:20 - "The Game: The Game" (https://angelawashko.com/home.html) 25:18 - "Fantastic Fetus" (https://cyangmou.itch.io/fantastic-fetus) and other AMAZE talks 42:57 - Death Trash (http://deathtrash.com/) 44:10 - The Fermi Paradox (http://fermi-paradox.com/press/sheet.php?p=fermi%20paradox) 51:52 - Curious Expedition (https://curious-expedition.com/) ----------- Recommended Texts -Dom Ford ““eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate”: Affective Writing of Postcolonial History and Education in Civilization V” (http://gamestudies.org/1602/articles/ford) -Johan Höglund - Electronic Empire: Orientalism Revisited in the Military Shooter (http://gamestudies.org/0801/articles/hoeglund) -Soraya Murray: “The Work of Postcolonial Game Studies in the Play of Culture” (https://olh.openlibhums.org/articles/10.16995/olh.285/) -Souvik Mukherjee - “Playing Subaltern: Video Games and Postcolonialism” (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1555412015627258) -Pascal Wagner - "Civilization, colonialism, and the misunderstanding of history" (https://languageatplay.de/2017/07/31/civilization-colonialism-and-the-misunderstanding-of-history/) ----------- Hosts: Derek Price: https://twitter.com/digital_derek Pascal Wagner: https://twitter.com/indieflock ----------- Contact: email: scholarsatplaypodcast@gmail.com twitter: twitter.com/ScholarsAtPlay ----------- Music: "We Can Do It" by Visager (twitter.com/visagermusic)