About the talk
Games are widely recognised as significant cultural objects, but bringing them into university teaching remains difficult. Ludolio was built to remove the access problem by licensing commercial games to universities so staff can assign them as readings, playable on students’ own devices. This panel reflects on its first year in classrooms across media and communication, education and game-design units, discussing what changed once access stopped being the barrier, what students made of short and formally unusual games outside the commercial mainstream, and what remains difficult.
Speakers
Dr. Ben Egliston
University of Sydney / Ludolio
Ben Egliston is Chief Officer of Games of Ludolio and Senior Lecturer in digital cultures and an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow at the University of Sydney. He researches shifting business models and practices in the videogame industry, with particular attention to how institutional and economic arrangements shape the kinds of games that are made and the labour conditions under which they are produced.
Dr. Caitlin Cole
Professor · University of Sydney
Dr Caitlin Cole is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Game-Based Learning at the University of Sydney, leading co-design for the Play-Based Learning in Engineering project with Ludolio. The project explores how commercial games can be applied to teaching engineering concepts, with the aim of improving student engagement and learning outcomes. Her PhD at Western Sydney University explored secondary teachers' attitudes towards, and uses of, video games for education, and the factors that shape whether games make it into the classroom. Her most anticipated game right now is the new Witcher 3 expansion.
Prof. Marcus Carter
Professor · University of Sydney
Marcus Carter is Chief Executive Officer of Ludolio and a Professor in Human-Computer interaction at the University of Sydney, focusing on virtual reality, games and emerging technologies. He is currently leading an ARC Future Fellowship project on The Monetisation of Children in the Digital Games Industry, and is the author of various books including Fantasies of Virtual Reality (MIT Press, 2024) and Game Studies: A Critical Introduction (Polity, 2026).