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History of Games and Entertainment


Tuesday, 7th December 2004
University of Art and Design Helsinki, Media Centre Lume, Sampo Auditorium
Video venue: University of Tampere, lecture hall 1096, PinniB

Aki Järvinen, Game Researcher and Designer, Veikkaus, the Finnish National Lottery

Download video (wmv)

Lecture slides

The lecture traces the historical roots of games and their relations to various entertainment forms and technologies. Star Wars Chess serves as a starting point for discussion about products where a classic game is 'branded' with a popular entertainment franchise. But where does the game end and the entertainment begin, or vice versa? How does the logic of entertainment differ from the logic of games? Does history provide evidence that there are common rules merging the two? The answers are sought by analysing contemporary and historical examples of various kinds of games, ranging from card and board games to recent computer and console game best-sellers.