Business & Tech
Internationally Known Game Blogger Joins UCSC Center for Games and Playable Media
Jane Pinckard also serves as vice chairwoman of the International Game Developers Association.
Jane Picnkard is known to spend 10 hours at one sitting checking out the latest video games and then writing about them in great detail on her popular blog, GameGirlAdvance.
Now she has packed up and moved from Boston to Santa Cruz after being recruited by UC Santa Cruz to become associate director of the university’s Center for Games and Playable Media.
Pinckard told UCSC University News, “UC Santa Cruz has one of the top game-design research programs in the world, and I'm thrilled to join the team at its home base, the Center for Games and Playable Media.”
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The center is at the forefront of new gaming technology in an industry with yearly revenues of approximately $18 billion.
"It's an incredibly exciting time for video games as we stand on the threshold of so many innovations,” Pinckard said in the same interview. “The potential future of this unique 21st-century medium is rich for artistic expression and technological progress, with enormous implications for our social, cultural and economic evolution."
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The Center for Games and Playable Media was established in 2010, growing out of a group of researchers and students who had been working on game technology since 2006. At that time, the first undergraduate game major in the University of California system was started in the Jack Baskin School of Engineering. UCSC also has two graduate programs with a concentration on games.
The school’s five gaming research labs include the Expressive Intelligence Studio, which is one of the largest game research groups in the world.
A major part of the research done in the Expressive Intelligence Studio is advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) for videogames. According to the Expressive Intelligence Studio’s website, the AI includes “autonomous characters, interactive storytelling, automated game asset generation, game data analysis and intelligent support for game design.”
The center will hold a symposium on April 15 called, "Inventing the Future of Games.” Pinckard will be participating as well as keynote speakers Will Wright, creator of Sim City, and Rod Humble, CEO of Linden Lab, makers of Second Life.
