The Importance of Critical Language in Video Games
As human beings, we're meaning making machines. And it sounds like this gets baked into games. People kind of get to discover meaning as they go. I wonder if we are mindlessly engaging without really develop any deeper consciousness about what we're doing and why we're doing it. So I actually think games literacy is something that needs to be taught or at least engaged in.
University of Chicago Professor and online game designer Patrick Jagoda, PhD talks with Patricia Martin about ways that online games and new media apply Jungian theory to create emotional bonds with users.
Patrick Jagoda, PhD is a digital media theorist and game designer. He is Professor of English and Cinema & Media Studies at the University of Chicago. Patrick is also the co-founder (with Melissa Gilliam) of the Game Changer Chicago Design Lab and the Transmedia Story Lab, as well as Executive Editor of the interdisciplinary journal Critical Inquiry and the faculty director of the Weston Game Lab. Patrick’s books include Network Aesthetics (2016), The Game Worlds of Jason Rohrer (2016, with Michael Maizels), and Experimental Games: Critique, Play, and Design in the Age of Gamification (2020), and Transmedia Stories (2022). Patrick has co-directed several alternate reality games, including Speculation (2012), the parasite (2017), and Terrarium (2019). Information about his books, essays, and collaborative game projects appears on his website.
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
