EXHIBITION: "Game on -- The culture and history of video games". The Barbican Gallery, London. 16 May – 15 September 2002. "Game On is the first major UK exhibition to explore the vibrant history and culture of video games from 1962-2002. This highly interactive exhibition examines the game design process from conceptual drawing through to the finished game and identifies the key creative people who make them. It will explain the developments in hardware technology from the colossal computers of the early 1960s to the recent consoles like X-box, GameCube and PlayStation 2, illustrating how content and technologies need each other to move forward successfully. The influence games have had on culture in Europe, North America and Japan will be explored, and a series of eight new commissions by contemporary artists, architects and designers responding to games, complements the show." You can download the exhibition's very informative press release as a .doc-file.

CLASS: In 2002 there was a class at Stanford University called History of Computer Game Design: Technology, Culture, Business: "This course provides a historical and critical approach to the evolution of computer and video game design from its beginnings to the present. It brings together cultural, business, and technical perspectives. Students should come away from the course with an understanding of the history of this medium, as well as insights into design, production, marketing, and socio- cultural impacts of interactive entertainment and communication". The course was part of the larger project How They Got Game: The History and Culture of Interactive Simulations and Videogames.

DEGREE: At Liverpool's John Moore University (UK) you can even do a MA Degree in Digital Games: "The course not only provides excellent employment routes for prospective students but is also an opportunity to engage in research into this subject. We strongly believe that digital games are one of the most significant and potent cultural forms of our time and therefore deserve serious academic study. This underpins our approach throughout".

JOURNAL: "Game Studies: The international journal of computer game research" is "a crossdisciplinary journal dedicated to games research, web-published several times a year at www.gamestudies.org. Our primary focus is aesthetic, cultural and communicative aspects of computer games. Our mission -- To explore the rich cultural genre of games; to give scholars a peer-reviewed forum for their ideas and theories; to provide an academic channel for the ongoing discussions on games and gaming".

I'm more and more inclined to think that Andrew Phelps expressed the truth when he said/wrote: "[...] tracking the rise of games as a medium of popular culture, and perhaps THE medium of the times". --zeph

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