Ian Bogost


Ian Bogost is an American academic and video game designer. He holds a joint professorship in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication and in Interactive Computing in the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he is the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts Distinguished Chair in Media Studies.
He is the author of Alien Phenomenology or What It's Like to be a Thing, of Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism and Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames as well as the co-author of and Newsgames: Journalism at Play. His Atari 2600 game, A Slow Year, won two awards, Vanguard and Virtuoso, at IndieCade 2010. Bogost also released Cow Clicker, a satire and critique of the influx of social network games.

Education

Bogost received his bachelor's in Philosophy and Comparative Literature from the University of Southern California in 1998. He then went on to get his masters in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2001, and received his doctorate in Comparative Literature from UCLA in 2004.

Professional career

In 2008, Bogost became an Associate Professor in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In 2010, he was appointed Director of the Graduate Program in Digital Media, a position he held until 2012. In 2011, Bogost became a Professor of Digital Media and an Adjunct Professor of Interactive Computing. In 2012, he was named the Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies and a Professor of Interactive Computing, both positions he still holds. With Christopher Schaberg, he is co-editor of the series Object Lessons from Bloomsbury Publishing.
His book Alien Phenomenology or What It's Like to be a Thing critiques aspects of Bruno Latour's Actor-network theory.
Bogost was also a Founding Partner of Persuasive Games LLC Atlanta, GA, and Persuasive Games Latin America SA. He is currently the Chief Designer for Persuasive Games LLC Atlanta, GA.

Honors and awards

Bogost has designed and developed a variety of video games since 2003, among which are:
GameReleaseNotes
Simony2012Released as both an iOS game and an installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville
A Slow Year: Game Poems2010
Cow Clicker2010
Guru Meditation2009Also released for Atari VCS as a limited edition
Fatworld2007
Cruel 2 B Kind2006Concept and Design w/ Jane McGonigal
Jetset: A Game for Airports2006
The Howard Dean for Iowa Game2003Concept and Design w/ Gonzalo Frasca