You are welcome to attend this seminar, presented by James Sweeting, and organised by the Transtechnology research group
23 March 2016 at 1pm in the seminar room on Floor 3 of the Link Building, Plymouth University.
In 1979, Gunpei Yokoi, traveling on a bullet train, saw a bored businessman playing with an LCD calculator by pressing the buttons. Yokoi then thought of an idea for a watch that doubled as a miniature game machine for killing time. Nintendo’s Game & Watch series of portable devices that played electronic games may not have been the first to do, but it helped influence the direction the company took as it transitioned into a defining element of the videogames medium. The handheld videogame system is just one means of interacting within a digital space via a physical device, but it is the handheld that provides a greater element of freedom and one that transcends obstacles that can interfere with other means of play. That is why the Game & Watch and subsequent handheld systems are so important for the process of play and how it affords its unique impact via its specific technological attributes. This seminar will attempt to explore how the way in which players interact with these physical devices and how over just a short period of time the methods of play have changed and how upcoming technological changes might impact upon this.
TransTechnology Seminar “Objects of Affect and Affection” is hosted by: Hannah Drayson and Michael Punt