Matthew Thomas Payne
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ludology.bsky.social
Matthew Thomas Payne
@ludology.bsky.social
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.
Reposted by Matthew Thomas Payne
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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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
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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
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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"
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
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A Chicago Pope implies the existence of an MLA Pope and APA Pope
May 8, 2025 at 5:36 PM
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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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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
April 19, 2025 at 3:12 PM
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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
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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...
April 18, 2025 at 12:11 AM
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🕯 🕯
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literally any
🕯 good news 🕯

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April 15, 2025 at 4:14 PM
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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!
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
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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
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When education is not liberating, the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor
February 10, 2025 at 4:50 PM
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Read it slowly and understand it. 😳🥺

Repost 👇🏾 👇🏾
February 10, 2025 at 1:39 AM
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lol
February 5, 2025 at 1:42 PM
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Monarchy speedrun is already at “meddlesome priest,” pretty good time
January 22, 2025 at 3:30 PM
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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
December 28, 2024 at 4:00 PM
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📖 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
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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!
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
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Reposted by Matthew Thomas Payne
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.
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
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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
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Word of the day. Or week. Or next four years.
November 20, 2024 at 1:57 PM
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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 👾💜
November 20, 2024 at 12:54 PM
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
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