Game Innovation Lab
Collaboration is our game.
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Playthink

Game salon

Playthink is a USC-based salon about games, interactivity, art and culture. Since 2013, we have held a regular series of discussions at the USC Game Innovation Lab that are dedicated to drawing out provocative ideas around play, games, art and interactivity. Since 2018, we have added a podcast component to our salon. Now you can listen to Playthink episodes on this page, below, or by subscribing to our feed on iTunes, Amazon, or YouTube podcasts.

Note: We’ve been a bit swamped the past year, and then, well COVID, but we’ll be back for the Fall of 2021 with more Playthink, so subscribe and keep your eye out for announcements!

Upcoming and past salons

December 2014 Playthink - Pervasive Games, LARPs, and Street Games

Please join us at 6:30pm this Tuesday, December 2nd at the USC School of Cinematic Arts for a discussion about the intersections of play, narrative, and space. This installment of the Playthink discussion salon will explore the exciting possibility space of multi-context and multi-platform game design, drawing on a range of voices from ARG, LARP, and street game design practice.

Featured guests include:

  • Elan Lee (ARG and transmedia designer – Microsoft/Xbox Entertainment Studios, Fourth Wall Studios, 42 Entertainment)
  • Aaron Vanek (LARP designer – Seekers Unlimited, HP Lovecraft Film Festival)
  • Trey Alsup (LARP and board game designer)
  • The Wise Guys (Street game/Big Game designers – Wise Guys Events)

When: Tuesday, December 2nd from 6:30pm to 9:30pm
Where: SCI 201 on the second floor of the School of Cinematic Arts SCI building (3470 McClintock Ave, Los Angeles CA 90089)

Presented by the School of Cinematic Arts’ Game Innovation Lab, Playthink has become a lively nexus of community for USC Games. With the banner line of “games and play as art and culture”, we meet a few times a semester to host wide-ranging, audience-participatory discussions of the history, present and futures of games and interactive media.

Special thanks to Lucas Peterson for the awesome poster design!

Tracy Fullerton