Ian Bogost
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Ian Bogost is an American academic and
video game designer Video game design is the process of designing the content and rules of video games in the pre-production stage and designing the gameplay, environment, storyline and characters in the production stage. Some common video game design subdiscipline ...
, most known for the game ''
Cow Clicker ''Cow Clicker'' is an incremental social network game on Facebook developed by video game researcher Ian Bogost. The game serves as a deconstructive satire of social games. The goal of the game is to earn "clicks" by clicking on a sprite o ...
''. He holds a joint professorship at
Washington University Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...
as director and professor of the Film and Media Studies program in Arts & Sciences and the
McKelvey School of Engineering The James McKelvey School of Engineering is a part of Washington University in St. Louis. Founded in 1854, the engineering school is a research institution occupying seven buildings on Washington University's Danforth Campus. Research emphasis ...
. He previously held a joint professorship in the
School of Literature, Media, and Communication The School of Literature, Media, and Communication (LMC) is one of six units of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The School focuses primarily on interdisciplinary approaches to the humanities, social sc ...
and in Interactive Computing in the College of Computing at the
Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...
, where he was the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts Distinguished Chair in Media Studies. He is the author of ''Alien Phenomenology or What It's Like to be a Thing'' and ''Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism'' and ''Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames'' and the co-author of '' Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System'' and ''Newsgames: Journalism at Play''. His
Atari 2600 The Atari 2600, initially branded as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS) from its release until November 1982, is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977, it popularized microprocessor- ...
game, ''A Slow Year'', won two awards, Vanguard and Virtuoso, at
IndieCade IndieCade is an international juried festival of independent games. IndieCade is known as "the video game industry's Sundance."Fritz, Ben"IndieCade, the video game industry's Sundance" Los Angeles Times, October 1, 2009, accessed July 21, 2011. ...
2010. Bogost has released many other games, including ''
Cow Clicker ''Cow Clicker'' is an incremental social network game on Facebook developed by video game researcher Ian Bogost. The game serves as a deconstructive satire of social games. The goal of the game is to earn "clicks" by clicking on a sprite o ...
'', 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 The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...
in 1998. He then went on to get his masters in Comparative Literature from the
University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
(UCLA) in 2001, and received his doctorate in Comparative Literature from UCLA in 2004.


Professional career

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 Object Lessons is "an essay and book series about the hidden lives of ordinary things". Each of the essays (2,000 words) and the books (25,000 words) investigate a single object through a variety of approaches that often reveal something unexpected ...
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 Bruno Latour (; 22 June 1947 – 9 October 2022) was a French philosopher, anthropologist and sociologist.Wheeler, Will. ''Bruno Latour: Documenting Human and Nonhuman Associations'' Critical Theory for Library and Information Science. Libraries ...
's actor-network theory. In 2021, Bogost quit his job at the Georgia Institute of Technology partly because of the university's lack of COVID-19 protection requirements. 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. Bogost was a co-founder of the game studio
Persuasive Games Persuasive Games is a video game developer founded by Ian Bogost and Gerard LaFond in 2003. The company focuses on making advergames with strong opinions. Their first game, ''Howard Dean for Iowa'' is about trying to get Howard Dean to win the I ...
, for which he is currently the chief designer.


Honors and awards

*Winner, Vanguard & Virtuoso Awards, Indiecade Festival 2010 (for ''A Slow Year'') *Finalist, Indiecade Festival 2010 (for ''A Slow Year'')


Games


Bibliography

* * (anthology, edited by Daniel Goldberg and Linus Larsson) (Bogost contributed the article "The Squalid Grace of Flappy Bird") * * * * * * 2nd edition (with Nick Montfort) * *


References


External links

*
Ian Bogost talks about Serious Games at XMLBio at The Art History of Games Conference
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bogost, Ian Georgia Tech faculty Place of birth missing (living people) Year of birth missing (living people) American video game designers Living people Video game researchers 21st-century American philosophers American mass media scholars Browser game developers Washington University in St. Louis faculty University of Southern California alumni University of California, Los Angeles alumni American male non-fiction writers