Bob De Schutter | |
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![]() De Schutter at the 2011 CHI Belgium
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Born | 1981 (age 42–43) |
Alma mater | Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Karel de Grote-Hogeschool |
Occupation(s) | Video game designer, researcher, professor |
Employer | Miami University |
Known for | Game Design for Older Adults |
Title | C. Michael Armstrong Professor of Applied Game Design |
Website | www.bobdeschutter.be |
Bob De Schutter is a Belgian video game designer and researcher, who is the C. Michael Armstrong professor of Applied Game Design at Miami University ( Oxford, Ohio). He is best known for his work on the design of video games for players in middle through late adulthood. [1] He has advocated the importance of play in later life [2] and has spoken out against the stereotyping of older video game players in marketing and game design. [3] He has also published on the design of experimental classrooms for gameful instruction. [4] [5]
De Schutter graduated from the Karel de Grote-Hogeschool ( Antwerp, Belgium) in 2003 with an MA in Visual Arts, and in 2011 he received his Ph.D. in the Social Sciences from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Leuven, Belgium). [6] His doctoral thesis was on "The meaning of digital games to an older audience". [7]
From 2007 until 2012 De Schutter was a researcher, teacher and game designer for the e-Media Lab of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (campus Group T), [8] where he worked on games to facilitate inter-generational knowledge transfer, [9] rehabilitate psycho-motor skills, [10] train entrepreneurial skills, [11] sensitize university students on urban mobility for the disabled [12] and teach the psychology of game design. [13] [14] At Miami University, he worked on an interactive app about Freedom Summer. [15]
De Schutter founded the Flemish Chapter of the Digital Games Research Association and chaired its executive board until May 2013. [16] He is an honorary member of DiGRA Flanders. [17]
Since August 2013, he is the C. Michael Armstrong Professor at the College of Education, Health & Society and the Armstrong Institute for Interactive Media Studies of Miami University (Oxford, Ohio). [18] He is also a research fellow at the Scripps Gerontology Center. [19]
In 2014, De Schutter became the founding president of the Gerontoludic Society. [20]
De Schutter was one of the speakers at South by Southwest in 2013 in a panel on "Designing Games for Realism". [21] He spoke at TEDxMiami University on April 25, 2015. [22] He presented at the main conference of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco with a talk called "Beyond Ageism: Designing Meaningful Games for an Older Audience". [23] He has organized several workshops on game design for older adults. [24] [25] [26]
He is a lifetime member of the International Game Developers Association [27] and a board member of the International Society for Gerontechnology. [28]
He is currently an associate professor at Northeastern University, holding a joint appointment with the College of Arts, Media and Design and Khoury College of Computer Sciences. [29] [30]
De Schutter has published more than 30 peer-reviewed research papers in areas such as design, communication, education, media studies and technology. [31]
Some selected works can be found below: