Game Designer Shawn Alexander Allen on 'It's Bigger Than (Video Games),' Feb. 27
February 21, 2018
Contact: Office of Government and Public Affairs
Phone: 410.837.5739
What do poetry, rap, jazz, and funk have to do with video games? What about the civil rights movement? Your first reaction might be "They're just games"—but that's where you'd be wrong.
Join game designer, writer and critic Shawn Alexander Allen at he University of Baltimore on Tuesday, Feb. 27, as he covers these topics and more to lay the groundwork for how we can rethink what it means to make games, what they say about who we are, and how something deemed so frivolous can be so powerful. Allen's talk will begin at 5 p.m. in the Moot Court Room in the John and Frances Angelos Law Center (home of the UB School of Law), 1401 N. Charles St. The event is free and open to the public.
Allen describes himself as "a hip-hop obsessed visual artist, designer, writer, and speaker comfortable working both independently and fully ensconced in the corporate world."
"As an independent creator I have been involved in game design, art direction, graphic/type design, sound design, marketing a successful kickstarter for >$50K, PR resulting in numerous articles, trailer editing/creation, streaming, the works. I even made a commissioned board game that ended up in the Museum of the Moving Image," he says. "On the corporate side I used to work at Rockstar Games ... mostly working on game trailers that have been seen by millions of people.
"My focus used to be speaking and writing about race and representation in the games industry. Now I work toward getting people of varying backgrounds to continue the conversation, as well as working to get more creators and creations to reflect the diversity of the world that we live in."
"It's Bigger Than (Video Games)" is sponsored by the University of Baltimore Foundation.
Learn more about the Simulation and Game Design program in UB's Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences.