EPIC Podcasts available

From the American Anthropological Association's blog:

The Brand Show recently posted three podcasts featuring anthropologists involved in the Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference. Give them a listen:

• The Past, Present and Future of Ethnography in Business (feat. Martha Cotton)
• The Rise of Ethnographic Insight in Enterprise (feat. Ken Anderson)
• A New Perspective on Consumer Research May Give a Leg Up to Brands (feat. Gillian Tett)

The 2008 KOGIA Plays of the Year

KOGIA, which is the Korean Games Industry Association (founded by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 1999 for the purpose of developing the game industry as the key future strategic industry of the country) has announced the winners of its first Global Online Game Awards for 2008.

It probably comes as no surprise that Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft was voted as the world's best role-playing game, and that Nexon's Kartrider handily got the nod for best racing/casual game.

"Other award winning online games include Valve's Counterstrike Source for best first-person shooting game, NCsoft's City of Heroes/Villains for best adventure/action game, EA Sports' FIFA 09 for best top sports game, and CCP Games' Eve Online for best strategic simulation game."

Read the story from Gamasutra here>>

While I'm on the topic of movers and shakers in the games industry, a reminder that the LOGIN 2009 conference (Seattle, May 11-14) call for speaker submissions goes on for another two weeks.

The Call for Speakers is open to all online game industry experts worldwide, whether for console, PC or mobile platforms. Candidates are asked to review the topics of interest and session submission tips on the LOGIN 2009 website and then submit a completed session proposal form and speaker application.

Details here>>

By the way, I'm still in the midst of conducting interviews with those involved in the Korean Games Industry, so if you're based here in Korea, or making a trip here within the next two months send me a note. It's the home stretch now!

Start off the New Year right...

...with some reading from Games and Culture: A Journal of Interactive Media, published by SAGE.

Dal Yong Jin and I have an article published in the latest issue of Games and Culture (2008, Vol.3 Issue 1, pp. 38-58) titled, "Age of New Media Empires: A Critical Interpretation of the Korean Online Game Industry."

The table of contents along with access to the text can be found here at the Sage Journals Online website: http://gac.sagepub.com/content/vol3/issue1/

Alongside articles that take up games in the Asia-Pacific, our paper is a combination of political economy and ethnography from our research on Korean online games.

Abstract: In this article, the authors attempt to ascertain the factors involved in the swift growth of online games in the context of broader sociocultural elements. Through political economy and ethnographic analysis, they show that online games, like other forms of technology, are sociocultural products that have been historically constituted by certain forms of knowledge and social practice. First, they map out the forces driving their development by examining government policies and competition among online games companies in Korea. They then explore capital flow to investigate the major players in the market. Finally, they explore the sociocultural elements contributing to the diffusion of online games in the cultural milieu specific to Korea.

Key Words: ethnography • Korea • online games • policy • political economy

Happy New Year all, and happy reading! All accusations of geeking out apply.