Ian Bogost

Ian Bogost is an American philosopher and video game designer. He holds a joint professorship in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication and in Interactive Computing in the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he is the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts Distinguished Chair in Media Studies.
He is the author of Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism and Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames as well as the co-author of Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System and Newsgames: Journalism at Play. Bogost also released Cow Clicker, a satire and critique of the influx of social network games. His game, A Slow Year, won two awards, Vanguard and Virtuoso, at IndieCade 2010.

Bogost received his bachelor's in Philosophy and Comparative Literature from the University of Southern California in 1998. He then went on to get his masters in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2001, and received his doctorate in Comparative Literature from UCLA in 2004.

In 2008, Bogost became an Associate Professor in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In 2010, he was appointed Director of the Graduate Program in Digital Media, a position he held until 2012. In 2011, Bogost became a Professor of Digital Media and an Adjunct Professor of Interactive Computing. In 2012, he was named the Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies and a Professor of Interactive Computing, both positions he still holds. With Christopher Schaberg, he is co-editor of the series Object Lessons from Bloomsbury Publishing.

His Alien Phenomenology or What It's Like to be a Thing (U of Minnesota P, 2012) critiques aspects of Bruno Latour's Actor-network theory.

Bogost was also a Founding Partner of Persuasive Games LLC Atlanta, GA, and Persuasive Games Latin America SA. He is currently the Chief Designer for Persuasive Games LLC Atlanta, GA.

• TIME Magazine Best 50 Websites 2012, for persuasivegames.org
• Winner, Vanguard & Virtuoso Awards, Indiecade Festival 2010 (for A Slow Year)
• Finalist, Indiecade Festival 2010 (for A Slow Year)
• ELearners.com Mindshare Awards, first place, gaming category, for website bogost.com, 2010
• Finalist, Independent Game Festival 2010, Nuovo category

Bogost has designed and developed a variety of video games since 2003, among which are: