Jaroslav Švelch

Jaroslav Švelch is a postdoctoral researcher at University of Bergen and assistant professor at Charles University. He is the author of the upcoming monograph Gaming the Iron Curtain on the social history of games in 1980s Czechoslovakia. He is currently researching history, theory, and reception of video game monsters.

University of Bergen


We have always been indie: Lessons from social history of game making in 1980s Czechoslovakia

Keynote, FROG main conference | Sunday, 15th October, 15:00 – 16:00

In my talk, I want to look at my historical work about history of games in Czechoslovakia, and find its implications for digital game theory and design. Through a social historical lens, I want to rediscover the connections between state policies, institutions, banal facts of everyday life and the practices of playing and making games. I will argue that games have always been used for more than entertainment and that many aspects of today’s independent games find their foreshadowing on 1980s homebrew scenes.

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