Press

Syz E.G. takes the grand prize at the first-ever Sammy Awards, held in the Baskin School of Engineering Lecture Hall. Games by in CMPS 80K, CMPS 20 and the 170 sequence competed to be named the best of the best. [read more]

Damon Brown argues that games can be used to show how technology has changed our modern sexuality. Brown brings his insider stories and hidden histories to UC Santa Cruz at 11 a.m. on Friday, May 20, with a free public lecture. Brown's talk on "Human Sexuality and Video Games" will take place in Room 180 (Simularium) of the Engineering 2 building on the UCSC campus. [read more]

"Inventing the Future of Games," a day-long symposium April 15 in Silicon Valley, aims to explore the possibilities of the next decade of gaming innovation and technology. The symposium -- which features keynote speeches by Sims creator Will Wright, Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble, and UCSC's Michael Mateas -- will gather some of the brightest minds of academia and industry to discuss the advancement of game design and technology. [read more]

UC Santa Cruz's graduate programs in game design were named among the top 10 in the nation by the Princeton Review and GamePro Media. The campus's computer science Ph.D. and M.S., along with its M.F.A. in Digital Arts and New Media (DANM), earned the school a seventh place ranking on the survey. [read more]

The UC Santa Cruz Center for Games and Playable Media has appointed Jane Pinckard as its new associate director. Pinckard, internationally known for her blog GameGirlAdvance, comes to Santa Cruz from Boston, where she worked in business development at Foundation 9 Entertainment, an independent game studio. [read more]

Can one create a game in 48 hours? That's the question to be faced at UC Santa Cruz during the 2011 Global Game Jam from January 28 to 30. This is the third time the UCSC campus is taking part in the worldwide affair. A kick-off event will start at 4:30 p.m. Jan. 28 in the Simularium (Room 180) of the Engineering 2 Building. [read more]

Twelve media innovation projects have been selected as winners of the 2010 Knight News Challenge, a contest that funds new-technology ideas that will shape the future of news and civic media. Michael Mateas, associate professor of computer science at UC Santa Cruz, proposed one of the winning projects — announced today by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. [read more]

The University of California, Santa Cruz, has named Michael Mateas, associate professor of computer science in the Jack Baskin School of Engineering, as the first holder of the MacArthur Foundation Chair at UCSC. The endowed chair provides $80,000 annually for a five-year term to support Mateas's teaching, research, and public service activities. [read more]

The University of California, Santa Cruz, has approved a new major in computer game design, the first of its kind in the UC system. The new major, leading to a B.S. degree, provides students with a rigorous background in the technical, artistic, and narrative elements of creating interactive computer games. [read more]