Thom's talk is on "why we shouldn't take serious games seriously." He starts with some great stories about his experiences with how giving people the ability to create media changes everything. The stories don't translate well from his conversational style to the blog, so I'm not going to try to include them here, other than to say that they're pretty compelling anecdotes about the power of participatory media. I'm reminded of how critically important stories are.
Talks about moving from the library school to the telecom dept at Indiana because the library school simply didn't get fun and entertainment.
Studying games is not reading some critical analysis of a game--it's playing the game. Play first, talk/analyze afterwards. You can't critically analyze a film without watching the film. He brings students to his house to eat and play games--he provides food, they provide the games. Board games, card games, things that allow real socializing during play.
Shows a picture of people playing DS games, where they don't even talk--compared to the board games where they're interacting constantly. ("Like a room full of Trappist monks bent over their texts...")
Nothing inhibits the design of any game more thana room full of computers. The most important thing is a big table, with paper and scissors and markers and tape.
Lots of great examples of how he teaches game design--mostly at his house. :)
Must go prepare for my talk. (And yes, I'll post the slides when I'm done.)
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