“The Playful Kraken” – Part 3: Showing the Current Situation of the Research, and Getting Feedback

In my previous articles I discussed the difficulties of starting “The Playful Kraken” and the process of creating the questions. Now I continue with the topic of participation in the “Game Education in Finland” seminar.

As a result of my effort to summarize the Game Industry, and investigate the Finnish Game Industry education, I was invited to participate in a seminar about the game education in Finland. I had the honor of being a speaker at the “Game Education in Finland” seminar (GAMEHIGHED, 2022), and presenting my research topic and all the difficulties related to it. My presentation was, of course, about the Playful Kraken and I had the thrilling opportunity to send my message to Game Industry specialists and education experts, clarifying the Playful Kraken objectives, namely:

• Attempt to lay a foundation / framework for further research (series / book / dissertation)

• Clarify the Game Industry structure

• Map and compare Finland’s current game education possibilities to other global options

• Create a vocabulary to cover the phenomenon called Game Industry (in a broad sense)

In addition, I needed to clarify the Game Industry hypernym, which resulted in my decision to make my mind map (see Game Industry Structure) public, as a preliminary material for everyone in the Game Industry to use. This mind map has been incorporated in my teaching for years, but I saw the need to open it for broader use. Another result of preparing for the presentation was the preliminary categorization of the Global Education Coverage that ended up in another of my mind maps (see Global Game Education).

In my presentation I also pondered on the Finnish education coverage and its pros and cons, which made the need to clarify the Game Industry structure even more obvious:

• Con: Massive amount of information to learn + Fully virtual learning (Covid-19) -> Student depression and mental health? (Dufva et al., 2020)

• Con: No actual standardized Game Industry job titles / roles -> Difficulties in finding a job?

• Con: Industry specialization need -> Adequate skills from the degree?

• Con: Virtuality (post-Covid) -> Where do students go?

• Pro: Finland is a small country -> Networking / Teamwork / Game Industry veterans…?

• Pro: Used time to create materials / specific topics -> Quality education through resources?

• Pro: Institution cooperation between education providers

There were several Game Industry specialists and education experts with interesting topics to listen to. Among them were:

• Raine Koskimaa from University of Jyväskylä (JYU) – introduced GAMEHIGHED (GameHighEd)

• Mika Karhulahti from Jamk (Jamk) – introduced Jamk BIT Game Production

• Miikka Junnila from Aalto University (Aalto) – introduced Aalto University Game Education

• Joonas Laakso from Next Games (Next Games) – talked about diversity, democratization, and inclusion in Game Industry and Education

Seminar like this are wonderful places for networking and cooperation possibilities from the RDI, education, and future projects point of view. There was time for networking with several people, whether you were participating in the in-locale event at the Digi and Game Center, or in the Zoom meeting. The results of the networking were:

• Mikko Voima contacted me and provided a link to his new video (in Finnish) on the topic (Espoon kaupunginkirjasto, 2021)

• I discussion with Paula Puhilas and Joonas Pylvinen about the possibilities of “The Playful Kraken” as a part of education export product for a development project, which would focus on creating an education/learning resources portal

• The idea of the project containing a dissertation was also discussed

Writer

References

Espoon kaupunginkirjasto. (2021, January 9). Pelialan osaajaksi [YouTube Video: Streamed video about an educator playing and analyzing a game]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyBucPxPJtE 

Dufva, M., Hellström, E., Hietaniemi, T., Hämäläinen, T., Ikäheimo, H.-P. Lähdemäki-Pekkinen, J., Poussa, L., Solovjew-Wartiovaara, A., Vataja, K. & Wäyrynen, A. (2020, November). Megatrendit koronan valossa [Sitra Report: The Megatrends in the light of the COVID-19]. Sitra. https://media.sitra.fi/2020/10/02085411/megatrendit-koronan-valossa.pdf 

GAMEHIGHED, University of Jyväskylä. (2022, February 10). Pelialan koulutus Suomessa -seminaari [Seminar: Game Industry Education in Finland]. https://www.jyu.fi/fi/ajankohtaista/arkisto/2022/02/pelialan-koulutus-suomessa-seminaari 

Read the other parts of ”The Playful Kraken” series:

• Part 1: Difficulty of Starting a Wide Topic Research
• Part 2: The Actual Questions
• Part 4: Discussions Close By
• Part 5: …And Discussions Remotely
• Part 6: The Preliminary Results? 
• Part 7: Dissecting “The Playful Kraken”