About Me: Game Studies, Blogging, Music
Hi! I'm Mark! Welcome to my Pooh Corner of game studies, blogging, and music. During the global pandemic, I started working out more. I thought I knew how to lift weights. One day, a powerlifter-turned-strongman, who just happened to hold a previous bench press record in Wyoming, spotted me, called my form atrocious, took me under his wing, and converted me to strongman training. I’m sore every day and my daily math involves counting calories. Oh, yeah. I’m also learning Japanese.
Anywho, while working on those goals, I decided to spruce up my website. I am a researcher with a doctorate in video games, media, and digital humanities research. I've been a fan of gaming ever since I could hold a controller (the NES was my first), and I will talk to general and academic audiences about all video games! I study multiple topics, including agency and control in video games, video game mods, and the history and evolution of video game genres. Generally, I apply these topics to discussions about gamer culture, gamer perceptions of control, philosophy, and game design. I am also a video game collector, but I ran into an issue during grad school because my backlog is out of control. As such, I now run a (new and improved!) blog about an out-of-control gaming backlog. You will also find on this website that I like to play with music gadgets and will occasionally publish DJ sets. Also, if my baseball hat is any indication, I "enjoy" following awful baseball teams.
