Research topics - James Dearnley

Virtual immersive worlds

Ranging from those designed purely for play (World of Warcraft) to those designed for social networking and in-world building (Second Life), the success of these two applications raise a number of areas which would be suitable for research - notably: the educational benefits of using virtual worlds in teaching and research; linkages between offline and online identities and behaviour; the legal ramifications of ownership in virtual worlds such as Second Life.

Computer Games

Computer game studies are being taken increasingly seriously as a discrete academic discipline, this following decades of development which were largely left unrecorded, and also seen with the substantial number of commercial games now classed as 'abandonware'. Research in this area could explore the early development of the computer game industry in the 1970s (a focus on the UK sector in the 1980s would be particularly welcome), developing ludic theories of how games are played, the social impacts of immersive games on players, and perhaps the development of frameworks in which to place historical developments in computer gaming. Additionally, the preservation of computer games as serious cultural artefacts is in need of further research.