In an article about games researcher Jane McGonigal and her new book 'Reality is Broken', Slate's Michael Agger refers to the author as a game theorist.
A game theorist? I have seen many bloggers commit the mistake (especially following the outbreak of Jesse Schell's DICE 2010 talk) but I really think a professional journalist should know better.
Here's setting the record straight.
Game theory is a branch of applied mathematics which attempts to mathematically capture behaviour in strategic situations in which an individual's success in making choices depends on the choice of others. Prisoner's Dilemma, first discussed in 1950, is a classic example of the kind of problems a game theorist studies.
On the other hand, "Game studies is the discipline of studying games, their design, their players and the role they play in society and culture more broadly. Game studies is largely a multi- and inter-disciplinary field with researchers and academics from a multitude of other areas such as computer science, psychology, sociology, anthropology, arts & literature, media studies, communication, and more." (Wikipedia)
Early on in the article, Michael Agger confesses, "My editor asked me to say a more about who McGonigal is, but I couldn't really pin her down." It's obvious he didn't start by looking her Wikipedia entry up, which starts with the unambiguous line "Jane McGonigal, is a game designer and games researcher, specializing in pervasive gaming and alternate reality games."
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