I recently came across a blog called The Ludologist, which is about “game research and other important things.” The author is Jesper Juul, a researcher at the Danish Design School, an affiliate of the New York University Game Center, and a game designer. He’s published books and articles on gaming, and he’s taught courses on digital aesthetics, game design, and programming. Ludology, BTW, is apparently the academic study of games, with the name based on the Latin ludus for game.
The blog caught my eye because of a couple of recent entries. One links to a video of “classic game deaths,” and the other was “Games are Getting Shorter (and that is Good),” because a game I sampled recently seemed like a huge waste of my time (i.e., I was incredibly bored by it), and this post talked about the unappreciated “filler” in many games, the poor completion rates for some games, and the author’s joke that “games should have twice-as-expensive but quarter-as-long Executive Editions for players with busy lives and more disposable income.”
Enjoy.
