At the University of Warsaw’s Laboratory of Media Studies, we had the pleasure of hosting Professor Nicholas D. Bowman, a scholar of games and interactive media from the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, who opened the seminar with a lecture entitled “Friction or Facilitation? The Implications of Conceptualizing Interactivity as User Demand”.
Professor Bowman discussed interactivity and the ways in which games and interactive media can place a variety of cognitive, emotional, physical, and social demands on users.
The lecture was followed by four discussion panels, which took as their starting point the concept of interactivity as a form of user demand presented during the lecture.
The panels explored the topic from four perspectives:
- emotional (Tomasz Gackowski, University of Warsaw, Laboratory of Media Studies),
- cognitive (Marcin Łączyński, University of Warsaw, Laboratory of Media Studies),
- physical (Dominik Kudła, University of Warsaw, Games Research Association of Poland),
- social (Mateusz Felczak, SWPS University).
These discussions allowed us to further explore the central argument of the lecture: interactivity in games is not only about freedom of action, but also about the specific challenges and demands that players encounter.
We would like to thank Professor Bowman and all participants for an inspiring and thought-provoking exchange of ideas.
