After MIT5 wrapped on Sunday, I headed over to the CambridgeSide Galleria for a little THESIS work, and wound up spending a huge chunk of my Federal refund check.
First I caved and bought the upgrade to Adobe CS3, which seems pretty dang cool from what limited amount of time I’ve spent with it so far, although the first thing I did when I got it installed was replace the crappy icons. Much better. I’ve got three or so C3 papers to lay out after the THESIS fog dissipates, so I’m looking forward to playing around with them a bit.
Second, I was wandering past the temporarily-relocated Gamestop in the mall (or maybe it was an EBGames; six of one, half-dozen of the other anyway) when lo and behold there was a sign on the window: “WIIS IN STOCK TODAY!” Hey, if I’m going to be doing research into stories in games next, I gotta have the hardware, right? Besides, it looks like Ivan’s taking off for other pastures and he’ll be taking his Wii with him, and I still haven’t gotten to play Super Paper Mario or The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess yet. This is a scenario that will be rectified as soon as the THESIS is out of the way, I assure you.
So, yes. A Wii for me, and better tools with which to do my design work. Life is good!
Storyteller, scholar, consultant. Loving son, husband and father. Kindhearted mischief-maker.
I'm the Director of the Games and Simulation program at Miami University in Ohio, where I am also an Assistant Professor in the College of Creative Arts' Emerging Technology in Business and Design department. I'm also the director of Miami's Worldbuilding and Narrative Design Research Laboratory (WNDRLab). I have a Master's in Comparative Media Studies from MIT and a PhD in Media Arts and Practices from the University of Southern California.
In past lives I've been the lead Narrative Producer for Microsoft Studios and cofounder of its Narrative Design team, working on projects like Hololens, Quantum Break and new IP incubation; in a "future of media" think tank for Microsoft's CXO/CTO and its Chief Software Architect; the Creative Director for the University of Southern California's World Building Media Lab and the Technical Director, Creative Director and a Research Fellow for USC's Annenberg Innovation Lab; a Visiting Assistant Professor at Whittier College and director of its Whittier Other Worlds Laboratory (WOWLab); the Communications Director and a researcher for the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab; a founding member of the Convergence Culture Consortium at MIT (now The Futures of Entertainment); a magazine editor; and a award-winning short film producer. more »
The opinions put forward in this blog are mine alone, and do not reflect the opinions of my employers.
