Dom Ford

Dom Ford
University of Bremen | Uni Bremen · ZeMKI, Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research

Doctor of Philosophy

About

12
Publications
13,076
Reads
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87
Citations
Introduction
I’m a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bremen, part of the Literatures and Media and Religion lab headed by Kerstin Radde-Antweiler. At Bremen, I’m also a member of the Institute for the Study of Religion and Related Didactics and the ZeMKI Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research. My postdoc project centres on community formation in digital games using a framework of mythmaking expanded from my PhD dissertation, written at the IT University of Copenhagen.
Additional affiliations
September 2023 - December 2023
IT University of Copenhagen
Position
  • Assistant Lecturer
August 2018 - May 2019
IT University of Copenhagen
Position
  • Teaching Assistant
August 2019 - December 2022
IT University of Copenhagen
Position
  • PhD Student
Education
August 2019 - December 2022
IT University of Copenhagen
Field of study
  • Game Studies
August 2017 - August 2019
IT University of Copenhagen
Field of study
  • Games Design and Theory
September 2015 - August 2016
University of Exeter
Field of study
  • English Literary Studies

Publications

Publications (12)
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The cities of the ever prevalent neomedieval fantasy roleplaying game are integral to their gameworlds. They act as quest hubs, goals, centres for action and places of safety. Much of the loop of the game revolves around leaving the city to complete quests, then returning to the city again, and repeat. In this paper, I take a closer look at the bou...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The relationship between humankind and technology is fundamental, but also a longstanding source of unease, particularly as that relationship has become ever more intimate and irreversible. In this paper, I connect this age-old anxiety with the age-old figure of the giant, a monster similarly intertwined with ancient questions on the boundaries of...
Article
Full-text available
I examine the prevalent construction of the long-lost yet technologically more highly-advanced society in the Mass Effect trilogy and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. First, I situate this construction within its long history, which finds a common touchstone in the myth of Atlantis. Through the lens of Jacques Derrida's hauntology, I consid...
Thesis
Full-text available
This dissertation outlines a mythological framework for understanding how games produce meaning. The central question is: how does a mythological approach help to understand the way games make meaning? I first theorise mythology as it applies to games and play. This is expressed through a cycle showing how mythology is embedded into the production...
Article
Full-text available
FromSoftware’s Souls series comprises five separate fictional worlds, and yet is considered a series with a ‘spiritual’ connection. Although the games share the same developer, special attention has been paid, both in popular discourse and in research, to the distinctive character of FromSoftware’s worldbuilding and storytelling. I argue that a myt...
Presentation
Full-text available
Extended abstract presented at DiGRA 2023 in Seville, Spain.
Presentation
Full-text available
What is ‘old school’ about Old School RuneScape? In this presentation, I discuss the history of the MMORPG RuneScape and the steps that led to Jagex in 2013 releasing a version of the game from 2007, titled Old School RuneScape, alongside their flagship iteration of the MMO, RuneScape 3. Through a lens of myth, I argue that a communal process of my...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Using the Dark Souls series as an example, I examine how a frame of 'monster of excess' can be used to read giantness in digital games. The monster of excess finds a paradigmatic example in the giant, an age-old mythic figure still prevalent within digital games. Many elements are directly borrowed or translated from other artistic forms such as fi...
Thesis
Full-text available
Too monstrous to be truly accepted, too human to be entirely and comfortably cast out. The giant has traditionally held a unique position amongst monsters, an "Intimate Stranger" (Cohen, 1999, p. xi) who threatens the boundaries of the categories we impose upon the self, society and culture. In this thesis, I consider what the position of the giant...
Presentation
Full-text available
In How To Do Things With Videogames, Ian Bogost argues that videogames offer “an experience of the ‘space between points’ that had been reduced or eliminated by the transportation technologies that began with the train” (2011, 49). But when we watch a speedrun of a game such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo EAD 1998), what we inste...
Article
Full-text available
Civilization V as one of the most successful and definitive works of the 4X videogame genre presents a clear narrative of empire-building that, I will argue, is problematic when set against postcolonial theory. With many studies lauding the series for its educational capacities I argue that with an affective turn to the role of the player, the game...
Thesis
Full-text available
This dissertation aims to situate moral play under a structure of godhood. This comprise two distinct but intertwining elements: the player-as-god and diegetic gods. The player-as-god is a concept I will outline that describes the player-avatar relationship as a dualistic notion that encompasses the avatar as a distinct, diegetic character, and the...

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