Hello!
Welcome to my little corner of the web. Here you can find information on my publications and research. If you have any questions or are interested in exploring potential collaborations, please feel free to e-mail me.
Recent Blog Posts
The International Games Summit on Mental Health Awareness
10/16/2019 • ☕️ 1 minute read
The International Games Summit on Mental Health Awareness (TIGS) was held last week over world mental health day in Toronto, Canada. This was the first annual meeting of the group and was hosted by Mark Chandler and Take This. Attendees included representatives from the games industry, such as game producers and managers, content creators…
Pax East 2019
2/18/2019 • ☕️ 4 minute read
In March, I will be traveling to Boston for PAX East 2019. I am lucky enough to be on six panels this year ranging from moral panic to the nostaliga of video games. If you are going to be traveling East for PAX this year, here is where you will be able to find me:
Thursday, March 28th at 5:00 PM, The Psychology of the Final Fantasy Series…Video game loot boxes are psychologically akin to gambling: A rebuttal
8/2/2018 • ☕️ 9 minute read
In June 2018, a commentary article entitled “Video game loot boxes are psychologically akin to gambling” by Aaron Drummond and James D. Sauer (2018) was published in Nature. The authors assess if loot boxes (i.e., purchasable randomized rewards in video games) are analogous to gambling and, if so, whether or not they should be regulated under the…
About Me
I am currently the Research Director for Take This, a non-profit organization that provides mental health information and resources to the gaming community and industry. I am also the Chief Scientific Officer of Kitsune Analytics.
Current Projects
- Examining the links between unintentional learning, knowledge transfer, and psychological well-being within digital games
- Assessing Internet Gaming Disorder as a primary or secondary diagnosis
- Identifying initiates to better understand and mitigate dark participation within gaming cultures
- Reconceptualizing “video game involvement”
- Evaluating the potential for video game play to mitigate symptoms of PTSD among veterans
Books
Published January 2020
Video games and well-being
Press Start
This book examines how video game mechanics and narratives can teach players skills associated with increased psychological well-being. It integrates research from psychology, education, ludology, media studies, and communication science to…
Published February 2017
New Perspectives on the Social Aspects of Digital Gaming
Multiplayer 2
Expanding on the work in the volume Multiplayer, this new book explores several other areas related to social gaming in detail. The aim is to go beyond a typical “edited book” concept, and offer a very concise volume with several focal points that…
Published November 2016
A Parent’s Guide to Video Games
The essential guide to understanding how video games impact your child's physical, social, and psychological well-being
Over the last twenty years, psychologists, sociologists, and media scholars have been working hard to answer these questions. Until now, their findings have largely remained insulated within scientific circles and inaccessible to the general public…
Published September 2015
The Video Game Debate
Unravelling the Physical, Social, and Psychological Effects of Video Games
Do video games cause violent, aggressive behavior? Can online games help us learn? When it comes to video games, these are often the types of questions raised by popular media, policy makers, scholars, and the general public. In this collection…