Want to Get Involved with the Singapore Games Lab?

Philip Tan, the newly appointed executive director of GAMBIT, our new games lab, which is being funded through the Singapore Media Development Authority, has asked me to post the following information, seeking potential post-docs and games researchers for the project. Postdoctoral and Game Development Staff Positions

The Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab is hiring postdocs and game development staff. Postdocs will be required to fulfill a combination of teaching, management, research and publishing roles, working with faculty, graduate and undergraduate students. Postdocs are expected to have a dossier of published articles indicating a clear trajectory, interest, and deep familiarity with some aspect of game research. Examples include cultural and media studies, anthropology, visual and aesthetic history, digital and non-digital game design and genres, risk and team management, government policy, industry history, market observation, computer science, real-time rendering and animation, software and audio engineering, music composition.

Applicants for staff positions should have at least three years of industry experience as a lead programmer, artist, or designer.

Applications for positions beginning in September should be submitted by June 15 to:

Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab

Program in Comparative Media Studies

14N-207 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

77 Massachusetts Avenue

Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

Applications should include the following:

* Statement of objectives and contact information

* 3 recommendation letters

* Curriculum vitae or resume

* Academic dossier or portfolio

Summer Internship Program

Students from MIT and Singapore will collaborate for 9 weeks at MIT in digital game development teams with 6 or 7 student members from different disciplines. Each team will conceive, design, and develop a small game to demonstrate a concept from current and previous GAMBIT research with a short (5-30 minute), polished gameplay experience. The production values and scope of the game should approach commercial alpha builds (tested and feature complete) for casual games intended for online distribution. The student teams are entirely responsible for the design and implementation of the gameplay, assets, and deployment of the game. The top priority for every team is to create an engaging user experience with simplicity and clarity.

Teams are managed using Scrum methodology. Students will be required to become familiar and to adhere to the management principles in Scrum. Each team will work with a faculty or graduate student involved with the core research, who will participate in the Scrum process as a "product owner." Members of each team are expected to use the summer to become quickly familiar with the research concepts involved in each project in order to better demonstrate the ideas through design, gameplay, and implementation.

The intellectual property for the code, design, and assets of each game and the rights to create and distribute the game and any sequels or derivative works will remain the property of the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab initiative. Students will be credited appropriately for their role in the development team and will be licensed to include and demonstrate their game in their portfolios after the summer.

There's more information at the project blog specifically addressing Singapore or MIT students who might want to be involved in the initiative. Check it out here

Soaps CMS-Style.

One relatively unique aspect of the CMS program is our openness to outside participation on thesis committees. Since we are trying to train students not simply for academic careers but also for future roles in a variety of industry contexts, we often will invite expert practitioners to join our committees and share their expertise with our students. Through the years, we have had Bollywood choreographers, game designers, journalists, advertising industry people, educators, journalists, policy-makers, and so forth serving on thesis committees, encouraging our students to produce work which will have a broader real world impact. Recently, longtime soap opera writer Kay Alden was on campus to participate in Sam Ford's thesis defense. Alden worked for more than 30 years on The Young and the Restless, the top-rated daytime drama that she served as head writer for from 1998 to 2006. Recently, she took on a consulting position with ABC Daytime and continues working with the genre during what is seen as a period of substantial change for the daytime television industry. While she was on campus, she spoke at the CMS colloquium series, sharing with our students her perspectives on the evolution and current state of daytime soap opera on American television. We have just launched the podcast of that event for those of you out there who count soaps among your fannish or academic interests.

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