Ian Bogost

Ian Bogost
Bogost with an Atari VCS joystick
Occupation	Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, co-founder of Persuasive Games
Website	www.bogost.com

Ian Bogost is an American academic and video game designer. He holds a joint professorship at Washington University as director and professor of the Film and Media Studies program in Arts & Sciences and the McKelvey School of Engineering. He previously held a joint professorship in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication and in Interactive Computing in the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he was the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts Distinguished Chair in Media Studies.^[1]

He is the author of Alien Phenomenology or What It's Like to be a Thing, of Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism and Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames as well as the co-author of Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System and Newsgames: Journalism at Play. His Atari 2600 game, A Slow Year, won two awards, Vanguard and Virtuoso, at IndieCade 2010.^[2] Bogost also released Cow Clicker, a satire and critique of the influx of social network games.

Education[]

Bogost received his bachelor's in Philosophy and Comparative Literature from the University of Southern California in 1998. He then went on to get his masters in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2001, and received his doctorate in Comparative Literature from UCLA in 2004.^[3]

Professional career[]

In 2021, Bogost quit his job at the Georgia Institute of Technology because of his dissatisfaction with the university's Covid-19 policy. He took a joint professorship at Washington University where he serves as director and professor of the Film and Media Studies program in Arts & Sciences and the McKelvey School of Engineering.

In 2008, Bogost became an Associate Professor in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In 2010, he was appointed Director of the Graduate Program in Digital Media, a position he held until 2012. In 2011, Bogost became a Professor of Digital Media and an Adjunct Professor of Interactive Computing. In 2012, he was named the Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies and a Professor of Interactive Computing, both positions he still holds. With Christopher Schaberg, he is co-editor of the series Object Lessons from Bloomsbury Publishing.

His book Alien Phenomenology or What It's Like to be a Thing (University of Minnesota Press, 2012) critiques aspects of Bruno Latour's Actor-network theory.^[4]

Bogost was also a Founding Partner of Persuasive Games LLC Atlanta, GA, and Persuasive Games Latin America SA. He is currently the Chief Designer for Persuasive Games LLC Atlanta, GA.

Honors and awards[]

• Time's "Best 50 Websites 2012", for PersuasiveGames.com^[5]
• Winner, Vanguard & Virtuoso Awards, Indiecade Festival 2010 (for A Slow Year)^[6]
• Finalist, Indiecade Festival 2010 (for A Slow Year)^[6]
• eLearners.com Mindshare Awards, first place, gaming category, for website bogost.com, 2010^[7]

Games[]

This list is incomplete; you can help by . (September 2013)

Bogost has designed and developed a variety of video games since 2003, among which are:

Bibliography[]

• Play Anything: The Pleasure of Limits, the Uses of Boredom, and the Secret of Games. Basic Books. 2016. ISBN 9780465051724.
• The State of Play: Creators and Critics on Video Game Culture. Seven Stories Press. 2015. ISBN 978-1609806392. (anthology, edited by Daniel Goldberg and Linus Larsson) (Bogost contributed the article "The Squalid Grace of Flappy Bird")^[15]
• How to Talk about Videogames. University Of Minnesota Press. 2015. ISBN 978-0816699117.
• Alien Phenomenology, or What It's Like to Be a Thing. University Of Minnesota Press. 2012. ISBN 978-0816678976.
• How to Do Things with Videogames. University Of Minnesota Press. 2011. ISBN 978-0816676460.
• A Slow Year: Game Poems. Open Texture. 2010. ISBN 978-1933900162.
• Newsgames: Journalism at Play. MIT Press. 2010. ISBN 978-0262014878.
• Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System. MIT Press. 2009. ISBN 978-0262012577. 2nd edition (with Nick Montfort)
• Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames. MIT Press. 2007. ISBN 978-0262026147.
• Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism. MIT Press. 2006. ISBN 026202599X.

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ian Bogost.

• Official website
• Ian Bogost talks about Serious Games at XML
• Bio at The Art History of Games Conference