The Pyrrhic Victory of Game Studies: Assessing the Past, Present, and Future of Interdisciplinary Games Research
Dr Sebastian Deterding
Researcher
Department of Theatre, Film, TV and Interactive Media
University of York
Sebastian Deterding is a designer-researcher working on playful, gameful, motivational, and eudaimonic design. His work asks how we might re-design the socio-technical rule systems we live in to enable a good life for all.
As founder of the design agency 'coding conduct' and associate of the playful design studio Hubbub, he has created engaging experiences touching millions of users for clients including the BBC, BMW, Deutsche Telekom, and KLM.
He is founder of the Gamification Research Network, and co-editor of The Gameful World (MIT Press, 2015). An internationally recognised leader of gamification research, he is frequently invited to keynote and speak at venues like Lift, Interaction, GDC, Games Learning Society, Google, IDEO, and MIT, and his work has been covered by The Guardian, The New Scientist, the Los Angeles Times, arte, and EDGE Magazine among others.
As a senior research fellow at the Digital Creativity Labs, Sebastian is particularly interested in the intersection of AI, machine learning, and design for augmented creativity: how can we create systems that learn to automatically adapt and serve optimally engaging content to users, and serve optimally supportive design suggestions and tutorials to creators?