Matthew Thomas Payne
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ludology.bsky.social
Matthew Thomas Payne
@ludology.bsky.social
210 followers 310 following 14 posts
Associate Professor of Film, Television, & Theatre at the University of Notre Dame. Author of Eugene Jarvis: King of the Arcade & Playing War: Military Video Games after 9/11. Co-editor of How to Play Video Games.
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Reposted by Matthew Thomas Payne
gamestudies.bsky.social
We now have confirmation that this gem will go live by early November!

#gamestudies
October 21, 2025 at 1:31 PM
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elizabethalsop.bsky.social
New issue of @intransition.bsky.social! Featuring OM SHANTI OMNIBUS—the first published work of the IVERN collective, of which I am very happy to be a part along w/ @ludology.bsky.social @llamasjr.bsky.social @kathleenloock.bsky.social & many others: intransition.openlibhums.org/article/id/1...
September 19, 2025 at 9:03 PM
Reposted by Matthew Thomas Payne
emmavphd.bsky.social
The book is out now! Free to download! punctumbooks.com/titles/histo...
Historiographies of Game Studies: What It Has Been, What It Could Be – punctum books
punctumbooks.com
August 11, 2025 at 8:53 PM
Reposted by Matthew Thomas Payne
ryanlcooper.com
Matt Walsh's imaginary professor: "good morning student-comrades. today we learn how to bayonet a white Christian capitalist while taking trans hormones"

actual average professor: "folks, I am begging you, please do the reading for tomorrow this time. it is five pages"
jamellebouie.net jamelle @jamellebouie.net · Jul 16
one of the things that gets me about so many of the pundits who pontificate about "higher education" when they really mean a handful of elite private institutions is that most of them live within driving distance of either a community college or a non-selective public institution
July 16, 2025 at 1:30 PM
Reposted by Matthew Thomas Payne
iamhectordiaz.com
A Chicago Pope implies the existence of an MLA Pope and APA Pope
May 8, 2025 at 5:36 PM
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borman.bsky.social
Congratulations to this year's World Video Game Hall of Fame inductees at The Strong!
May 8, 2025 at 3:12 PM
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thevideogamelibrary.org
Since its debut in 2015 by Bloomsbury, this lineup has become a leading academic collection celebrating industry icons. 💡

I write about it in this week’s newsletter 👇

thevideogamelibrary.substack.com/p/the-video-...

@ludology.bsky.social @sparklebliss.bsky.social @anasalter.bsky.social
A series of 7 books in the Influential Game Designer Series
April 19, 2025 at 3:12 PM
Reposted by Matthew Thomas Payne
rickylongthread.bsky.social
Tonight is the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere’s midnight ride. May his memory remind us all to resist the tyranny forming in our government.
April 19, 2025 at 12:00 AM
Reposted by Matthew Thomas Payne
brkeogh.bsky.social
Today is two years since my book THE VIDEOGAME INDUSTRY DOES NOT EXIST was released! I'm still really proud of it as, I think, one of my best academic works. And I'm really thrilled with how much game researchers and especially developers have engaged with it. direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...
Just the cover of the book
April 18, 2025 at 12:11 AM
Reposted by Matthew Thomas Payne
emmaberquist.bsky.social
🕯 🕯
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literally any
🕯 good news 🕯

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April 15, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Reposted by Matthew Thomas Payne
jmittell.bsky.social
This hits hard, as 10 years ago we got a @neh-odh.bsky.social grant to launch our Scholarship in Sound & Image workshop. That grant was truly transformative, as we just saw at #scms25 - it's no exaggeration to say that videographic criticism as we know it would not exist without #NEH support!
katinalynn.bsky.social Katina Rogers @katinalynn.bsky.social · Apr 10
My Slate piece on the widespread NEH grant cancellations is live. So much gratitude to everyone who took the time to talk with me these past few days while fighting fires on every side.

#humanities #highered #neh

slate.com/news-and-pol...
Say Goodbye to Small-Town Libraries and Museums, Thanks to Trump’s Latest Cuts
The NEH budget is tiny. The loss is huge.
slate.com
April 10, 2025 at 10:29 PM
Reposted by Matthew Thomas Payne
romchip.bsky.social
Shout out to our friends at @mitpress.bsky.social who donated all these incredible game history books for our fundraiser! We'll be raffling them off every hour during our Feb 22 charity stream!

(love seeing @jzagal.bsky.social @jesperjuul.bsky.social @chaimg.bsky.social and other friends in here!)
February 11, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Reposted by Matthew Thomas Payne
emotion-engine.bsky.social
When education is not liberating, the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor
A Lego statue of Mario riding Yoshi A Lego set of Yoshi riding a Yoshi dirt bike
February 10, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Reposted by Matthew Thomas Payne
marymorrow.bsky.social
Read it slowly and understand it. 😳🥺

Repost 👇🏾 👇🏾
February 10, 2025 at 1:39 AM
Reposted by Matthew Thomas Payne
maris.bsky.social
lol
February 5, 2025 at 1:42 PM
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gonebabygone.bsky.social
Monarchy speedrun is already at “meddlesome priest,” pretty good time
January 22, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Reposted by Matthew Thomas Payne
archive.org
This year, we worked swiftly to save legacy media sites Vice.com and MTVNews before decades worth of valuable journalism could be erased. These sites are now searchable on the Wayback Machine!

Help us in saving these resources:: https://archive.org/donate/?origin=blsky-eoy2024
Wayback Machine capture of MTV News.
December 28, 2024 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by Matthew Thomas Payne
gamedeveloper.bsky.social
📖 One of Game Developer's most popular dev-authored pieces this year was actually a book!

Check out Ultima and Worldbuilding in Computer Role-Playing Games by Professors Carly Kocurek and Matthew Payne.

It's available in full for free. #GDBestof2024
Book Excerpt: Ultima and Worldbuilding in the Computer Role-Playing Game
'Ultima and Worldbuilding in the Computer Role-Playing Game is the first scholarly book to focus exclusively on the long-running Ultima series of computer role-playing games (RPG) and to assess its lasting impact on the RPG genre and video game industry.'
www.gamedeveloper.com
December 27, 2024 at 9:01 PM
Reposted by Matthew Thomas Payne
lainenooney.bsky.social
We've been working hard at @romchip.bsky.social to create an incredible game history speaker series early in the new year, building hype toward our Feb 22 fundraiser. Check out the details on these incredible late Jan/early Feb talks by @rachelplotnick.bsky.social @jesperjuul.bsky.social and others!
romchip.bsky.social ROMchip: A Journal of Game Histories @romchip.bsky.social · Dec 9
February is fundraising season at ROMchip, and we're rolling out an incredible 3 weeks of book talks and research chats on our Twitch channel early next year...all the build anticipation for our Saturday, Feb 22 12-hour ROMchip Twitch Charity Stream.

Check the schedule below and grab tix now! 👇🧵
December 9, 2024 at 10:45 PM
Reposted by Matthew Thomas Payne
thevideogamelibrary.org
456. BRENDA LAUREL: PIONEERING GAMES FOR GIRLS

👉 www.thevideogamelibrary.org/book/brenda-...

@sparklebliss.bsky.social @brendalaurel.bsky.social #Gaming #Booksky #VideoGames #PurpleMoon #GameDesign #GameHistory
The purple book cover to Influential Video Game Designers: Brenda Laurel. It is purple with several sections in it and a picture of Brenda Laurel’s face. Brenda Laurel is best known for her work with Purple Moon, the pioneering game company she cofounded in the 1990s. Purple Moon's games were based on years of research Laurel completed in an effort to understand why computer games seemed to be of so little interest to girls. Using diverse archival sources such as trade journals, newspapers, and recorded interviews, alongside Laurel's completed games and own writings and an original interview with Laurel herself, this volume offers insight into both the early development of the games for girls movement of the 1990s and the lasting impact of Laurel's game design breakthroughs. In her work with Purple Moon, Laurel drew on her background in theatre as well as her expertise in human computer interaction and qualitative research. By relying on this interdisciplinary background, Laurel made significant contributions to our understanding of the design and development of games as a medium for emotional rehearsal and storytelling. Additionally, her dedication to research-informed design has had a longstanding impact as companies and designers increasingly rely on audience research and metrics to shape their practices. The newest in Bloomsbury's Influential Video Game Designers series, Carly Kocurek highlights the contributions of a designer whose work has had a profound impact on the development of both games for girls and empathy games.
December 9, 2024 at 12:03 PM
Reposted by Matthew Thomas Payne
aguaspoints.bsky.social
Alright, I'm going to get into good trouble for this! For each like and repost I get on this I'll donate $1 dollar to the @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social. I'll keep counting until Monday. @frankcifaldi.bsky.social & @philsalv.bsky.social wish me luck! Hopefully the org gets some decent money from this.
gamehistoryorg.bsky.social Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · Dec 4
Video game history in action! 2024 was a big year for moving the conversation forward, preserving important artifacts, and building tools that make access easier for everyone. As our annual Winter Fundraiser heats up, let's look back at the year that was: gamehistory.org/our-2024-in-...
December 4, 2024 at 7:50 PM
Reposted by Matthew Thomas Payne
thisone0verhere.bsky.social
Public library energy is the best energy. Like here is all the knowledge we could find, it's been meticulously organized and vetted and it will cost you nothing today, welcome to the absolute pinnacle of human civic evolution, feel free to pull up any bean bag chair you like
November 26, 2024 at 1:32 PM
Reposted by Matthew Thomas Payne
georgetakei.bsky.social
Word of the day. Or week. Or next four years.
Definition of “kakistocracy” as a government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state.
November 20, 2024 at 1:57 PM
Reposted by Matthew Thomas Payne
caitlinveal.bsky.social
Hello to my new followers on here! I am looking for a few more participants to take part in my PhD study. In this instance I am particularly interested in speaking to participants who identify as female.

See the poster below & sign up here:
forms.office.com/e/4enXsLFjpk

Any reposts appreciated 👾💜
I am Caitlin, a PhD researcher in the Social Sciences at York St John University, conducting research into the ways that online social video games are experienced and understood by those that play them. Participant criteria: • Do you play online open world video games, online sandbox games or MMORPGs? • Are you aged 18 or over? • Are you interested in sharing and discussing your video game experiences? If so, sign up with the link in the post or email me directly at c.veal@yorksj.ac.uk.
November 20, 2024 at 12:54 PM
ludology.bsky.social
6+ years later, this remains a top 3 professional experience. Life-changing in the best of ways. Also, Jason and Chris are the best. #VideoCamp4ever
jmittell.bsky.social Jason Mittell @jmittell.bsky.social · Nov 18
Are you a film & media scholar who wants to learn how to make video essays? Applications for the two-week June 2025 workshop Scholarship in Sound & Image at Middlebury College in Vermont are now open. Come be a videocamper and spread the word!
Scholarship in Sound & Image
Workshop on Videographic Criticism
sites.middlebury.edu
November 18, 2024 at 7:24 PM