Education Feature: 'Motivations for Video Game Use'

Author: by Beth A.

Today's Gamasutra educational feature, part of the expanded Gamasutra Education section of the site, pulls from the player-oriented game research of University of Southern California graduate Ethan Levy. Levy, who has experience in both game industry and academia, explains his reasons for running his study in the following extract: "I undertook this study as an attempt to help bridge the sizable divide between game academics and game professionals. While working on my undergraduate degree and as a research assistant for the ASC Games Group, I began my career in the games industry by interning and then working at Pandemic Studios, contracting as a game designer for Binary Labs, and developing my own independent games. I was frustrated with the work that the researchers at USC and other universities were doing in video games because I felt that the approach of academics suffered from ignorance; from ivory towers, they looked down their noses at the medium which I loved. I believed that they did not know, understand or care enough to learn about games in order to study them effectively, and were too focused on trying to prove common (and often incorrect) perceptions about games and violence. At the same time, as a scholar I knew that the research methodologies I was learning could be applied to help further the understanding of interactive entertainment and improve the quality of the art form." You can read the full Gamasutra educational feature on the topic to learn more about Levy's research process and outcomes (no registration required, please feel free to link to this feature from external websites).