UCI GAME CULTURE & TECHNOLOGY LAB
The UC Irvine Game Culture & Technology Lab -- a research lab in UCI's Department of Studio Art in the Claire Trevor School of the Arts -- deals with games, animation and the Internet.   The Game Culture & Technology Lab was formed out of the Games Research Initiative of Cal-(IT)² (see below).  The mission of the Game Culture & Technology Lab is to expand the notion of how game metaphors, design principles and technologies can be utilized for alternative content and context delivery.  The Game Lab's focus is on the next generation Internet.  The Game Lab's approach combines theory and practice, science and art, education and entertainment, to create an environment that supports diverse forms of expression in a wide range of applications.  The Game Lab brings together interdisciplinary faculty from both the UC Irvine and UC San Diego campuses. Currently represented disciplines include: Studio Art, Drama, Dance, Music, Information and Computer Science, Engineering, Art History, Sociology, Psychology, Economics, Management.  The Game Lab also has extensive partnerships with outside artists, researchers and industry.  Game Lab programs include:

"ALT+CTRL" -- A Festival of Independent and Alternative Games
The exhibition includes independently produced games and game art, performance and installations, student games, and "machinima"-digital films created using computer game engines.  ALT+CTRL will be accompanied by a conference on game design and culture, with an international list of speakers from game industry, arts, and academic institutions.  ALT+CTRL is being developed as a biennial festival and conference showcasing alternative games and game-related art.

Game Preserve
One of the Game Lab's ongoing projects is the creation and maintenance of a digital archive called "The Game Preserve."  This project will function both as an archiving initiative and as a research project into problems of digital collection building.  The long-term goal of the Game Preserve is to create a comprehensive archive of the material and digital culture of games, and make these materials available to an international community of scholars and students.

Game Grid
The Game Grid enables groups of artists and researchers to rapidly form persistent, network computer game worlds using open source software and peer-to-peer resource sharing techniques.  The game grid facilitates research into matters such as developing persistent worlds of extraordinary scale and scope, how to achieve ease of development for content, system, and online community formation, and how to rapidly create and evaluate users and usage scenarios.

GAME LAB LEADERSHIP

Robert F. Nideffer, Director (nideffer@uci.edu)
In addition to directing the newly formed Game Culture & Technology Lab, Robert F. Nideffer researches, teaches, and publishes in the areas of virtual environments and behavior, interface theory and design, technology and culture, and contemporary social theory. He holds an MFA in Computer Arts, and a Ph.D. in Sociology, and is an Associate Professor in Studio Art and Information and Computer Science at UC Irvine, where he also serves as an Affiliated Faculty in the Visual Studies Program, and the Art, Computation and Engineering (ACE) Program.  Robert has participated in a number of national and international online and offline exhibitions, speaking engagements and panels for a variety of professional conferences. Currently he is hard at play initiating an interdisciplinary program in Gaming Studies.  His vision for the Cal-(IT)² Games Research Initiative:
      "Short-term: institute sponsorship of ongoing R&D inititiatives, and a large-scale collaborative testbed project dealing with massively-multiuser educational environment utilizing game design principles, metaphors and technologies.  We have the talent in this group -- from design and implementation, to tool building and evaluation, to theorizing about the cultural impact of games."

Celia Pearce, Associate Director (celia@cpandfriends.com)
Celia Pearce is a game designer, artist, researcher, teacher and author of "The Interactive Book: A Guide to the Interactive Revolution" (Macmillan), as well as numerous other articles on interactive media, game design and culture. She currently holds a position as Research and External Relations Manager for the Arts Layer of Cal-(IT)², UC Irvine, where she has also taught game design and interactive art. Current research activities include assisting in the creation of a game research group.  Her vision for the Cal-(IT)² Games Research Initiative:
      "Create a distinct 'brand' as a leading-edge interdisciplinary game research center.  Content: expand game genres, audiences, applications. 'Guerilla Research' built on a foundation of open source, game hacking culture.  Study emergent cultures, 'gift economics,' legal and social issues.  Create financial and intellectual partnerships with the local game community."

Walt Scacchi, Associate Director of Research (wscacchi@ics.uci.edu )
Walt Scacchi is a member of the research faculty at UC Irvine's School of Information and Computer Science and a senior research scientist at UCI's Institute of Software Research (ISR).  ISR is a leading center for research on free/open source software and is actively engaged in multiple research projects conducting empirical studies of development practices, processes, tools, and communities.  In addition to his research work, Walt teaches courses on software processes, and systems analysis and design, and has published numerous papers and articles on open source software.  His vision for the Cal-(IT)² Games Research Initiative:
      "I am interested in the design, prototyping, use and community evolution of game grids.  A grid can be a cluster of heterogeneous NCG systems that collectively enable the composition of geographically dispersed groups of game/NMA participants into virtual organizations that can share infrastructure and exchange resources for collective interests."

META-GAME GROUP OF CAL-(IT)²
The Meta-Game Group of Cal-(IT)² is an interdisciplinary, intercampus research group devoted to computer games and game culture.  The group's mission is to:
     -- Advance the cultural practice of game-making and critique with an emphasis on multi-person, networked interactivity. 
     -- Develop the study of games and game culture as a serious academic field. 
     -- Collaborate with the game industry in the research and design of tools, content, consumer products, and gameplay experiences.

CAL-(IT)²
The California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology [Cal-(IT)²] is one of four institutes established through the California Institutes for Science and Innovation initiative proposed in the year 2000 by California Gov. Gray Davis. On April 25, 2003, Gov. Davis signed a bill that fully funded the four California Institutes for Science and Innovation. T he bill authorized $308 million dollars in lease-revenue bond financing for completion of the capital projects associated with the Institutes. 

CAL-(IT)², a partnership between UC San Diego and UC Irvine, seeks to ensure that California maintains its leadership in the telecommunications and information technology marketplace.

The Cal-(IT)² mission:
Extend the reach of the current information infrastructure throughout the physical world to enable anytime/anywhere access. This, complemented by research and development in related information technologies, will help California provide new capabilities to important market segments poised to be transformed by the new Internet and prototype ways to monitor and manage growth anticipated in the coming years.