Castronova

Holy Roman Empire. Plays 2-6. Playtime 90 minutes.

A video from a few years ago on a topic

Overview of the origin of modern video games.

Discussion of the classic German board game, its economy and systems.

Can we create our own realities, using games? Yes and no. This video explains how games open up a realm of limited social construction, hemmed in by physical and metaphysical truth.

How to get a job in games or other creative industries; overview of game design majors at Indiana University.

A lecture on this fantastic game about the Cold War, including personal stories - because I saw the Cold War with my own two eyes.

A lecture about the game design textbook of Professor Mike Sellers

Video from 2013 on a topic

An older lecture on a t opic ,.

An older lecture on a topic

A lecture about Professor Castronova's 2001 Paper "On Virtual Worlds." The paper presents economic data from a video game world, showing that the world of a video game is not that much less real than the outside world. This talk summarizes the results of the paper and tells stories about where it came from and how it has been received. The paper also made some predictions: some that were really wrong but others that still look pretty good .

Discussion of Root, a game designed by my former student Cole Wehrle. Good job Cole! Root is an excellent intro to asymmetric gameplay. The video talks about asymmetry in real-world conflicts (Vietnam, Afghanistan) and examines balancing issues: Politics in games, ganging up on the leader, and kingmaking.

A lecture about JRR Tolkien's 1939 essay "On Fairy Stories." Tolkien is known as the author of The Lord of the Rings, but he was also a highly respected scholar of languages, especially Old English. He rarely talked about why he created the fantasies of Middle Earth, but in this essay Tolkien unpacks the idea of faery and relates it to both the Infinite and our daily lives. An aside: Most portraits of Tolkien that we see online show him in advanced age, as a kindly old man. The portrait thumbnail here is one that I found only recently and shows a younger man with a darker affect. This haunted man, and not the pleasant Oxford don, is the one who launched Middle Earth.

Discussion of World of Warcraft by Blizzard Entertainment, the signature artistic and technological achievement of the early 21st century.

Discussion of Paradox Studios' game of the Middle Ages. Look for the plague loading screen.

Discussion of major ideas in Johan Huizinga's Homo Ludens (1938)

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A lecture about the board game Evolution, and how it illustrates some key lessons from mathematical game theory. Please note: The cycles I talk about halfway through can also be called the META. The term "meta" is used in some games to refer to the mix of strategies people are using at the moment. When they say this, they are talking about the current equilibrium cycle of the game. "Meta" is the same thing as "equilibrium" in game theory. Interesting to think about!