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Professor Alan Meades

Professor Alan Meades

Faculty Director of Enterprise and Innovation

Faculty of Arts, Humanities & Education Faculty Office

Design and Photography Suite Lead

I've worked at CCCU since 2002 and have run lots of different successful degrees including Games Design, Graphic Design, Web Design, and wrote the undergrad and postgrad games courses, foundation year, and the postgraduate taught suite. I am currently Suite Lead for the Games, Graphics, and Photography. I have a degree in Interactive Arts, Master's in Electronic Arts, a PhD in videogame communities, a PGCHELT, I'm a Senior Fellow of the HEA, and was nominated for a NTFS teaching excellence award in '22.

I have considerable experience in QA and course development, I'm currently Director of Quality and Curriculum Development for SCA&I. I've held Examiner roles at Bournemouth, Manchester Metropolitan, UCLan Futureworks, Salford, and Leeds Beckett Universities. I help other universities with course development, review, and quality assurance.

In 2015 I published Understanding Counterplay in Video Games (Routledge), exploring motivations behind cheating and game-breaking on the Xbox360. Since 2014 my research has focused on my childhood love of British arcade culture. I've rescued long-lost arcade games, interviewed arcade game designers, arcade owners, and industry veterans, and worked with SEGA and BACTA (the arcade industry trade body). I've delivered lectures about arcades around the world including Stanford University, New York University, The University of Malta, and institutions in Norway and Germany, and spoken on the subject at various international conferences.

All this arcade work has resulted in my latest book Arcade Britannia telling the social history of the British amusement arcade, published with MIT Press in October '22. I'm also working on a digital/VR recreation of 1980s amusement arcades, also called Arcade Britannia, that is due to be exhibited at London Design Bienalle 2023. I'm also Director of the Nic Costa Archive of arcade heritage, a fantastic collection donated by Nic Costa.

I'm also pretty good at Street Fighter II.

All of my interests and research dynamics feed into my teaching, which focuses around design theory, research methods for design, play and digital humanities… and at the end of a busy week I’m always up for a round or two of Street Fighter 2 in the design studio. I’m always happy to hear from people who might want to talk about any of my interests, please feel free to contact me via email.

If you'd like to find out more about the Games Design programme that I designed, wrote, and now lead take a look here, please watch the Games Design course video

Please view my latest project - a collaboration with students making a virtual recreation of British amusement arcades

The long-lost arcade machine: Street Fighter 2 whack-a-mole Ken Sai Mogura

Watch my Stanford University lecture.

 

• Workshop: British Arcades, History of Games 2022, Montreal, Canada, 11/11/22.

• Monograph: Arcade Britannia: a social history of the British amusement arcade, MIT Press, 25/10/22. https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262544702/arcade-britannia/

• Workshop: Japanese, American, and British Arcades, DiGRA 2022, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland 7/7/22.

• Paper: Coin Slots, Showmen and Sandancers, Sites of Gaming, University of Oldenburg, Germany, 21/6/19.

• Lecture: Arcade History and SEGA Amusements, SEGA Europe Ltd. Annual Review 2019, 16/5/19.

• Article: The George Wilson Collection, T&F Journal of Photography and Culture, Vol.12, issue 1. 03/19. https://doi.org/10.1080/17514517.2019.1582940

• Chapter: Meades, A. (2019), The American Arcade Sanitisation Crusade, in Transgression in Games and Play, MIT Press.

• Lecture: Arcade Photographs, Arcade Comics, Arcade Tales, University of Malta, 06/18.

• Lecture: Arcade Tales A Social History of the British Amusement Arcade, British Amusement Caterers’ Trade Association, 23/11/17.

• Article: Space Invaders, Pac-Man and the British seaside arcade, photography article in The Financial Times. 20/10/17. https://www.ft.com/content/af8f9b0e-b38e-11e7-a398-73d59db9e399

• Lecture: Arcade Photographs, Arcade Comics, Arcade Tales – A Social History of the British Amusement Arcade, Stanford MediaX Series, Stanford University, 7/3/17.

• Lecture: Arcade Tales – A Social History of the British Amusement Arcade, Public Lecture: Games and Culture Series, University of Kent, 12/16.

• Paper: From Kill Screen to Goat Simulator – Rhetorics of the Videogame Glitch, GLITCH2015, 12/15.

• Monograph: Meades, A. (2015), Understanding Counterplay in Video Games, Routledge.

• Paper: Digital Carnival: Misrule in Digital Culture, A Virtuous Circle colloquium, 06/15.

• Chapter: Meades, A. (2015), Boosting, Glitching and Modding: Assertive Dark Play in the Call of Duty franchise, in: Dark Play, Mortensen and Brown (Eds), Routledge.

• Chapter: Meades, A. (2015), Strategies of Remediating Landscape in: The Animated Landscape, Pallant (Ed), Bloomsbury.

• Lecture: Exhibition of the Lost Cabs: Digital Heritage and Arcade Restoration, Dreamland Visitor Centre, May 2014.

Research Projects

  • A Critical, Cultural History and Quasi-Ethnography of British Professional Wrestling. Researcher(s): Mr Dave Boyd. Supervisor(s): Professor Alan Meades, Professor Chris Pallant. [Postgraduate Research Project]
  • An account of how video games can be used as protest art to establish a framework through which activist games can be studied. Researcher(s): Miss Holly Steventon. Supervisor(s): Professor Alan Meades, Dr Magz Hall. [Postgraduate Research Project]
  • Are Games-as-a-Service (GaaS) model video games struggling to keep up with consumers demands for additional content. Are consumers getting the full value of video games?. Researcher(s): Mr Jay Gowers. Supervisor(s): Dr Joe Baxter-Webb, Professor Alan Meades. [Postgraduate Research Project]
  • Creative polymaths and Interdisciplinary practice as validated and sustainable working practice Artist as collaborator in emerging creative communities and creative participatory cultures both off and online.. Researcher(s): Mr Emrys Plant. Supervisor(s): Dr Alan Meades, Dr Karen Shepherdson. [Postgraduate Research Project (past)]
  • Cutting-edge research on virtual games in Chinese art education. Researcher(s): Mr Suhan Li. Supervisor(s): Professor Alan Meades, Dr Andy Birtwistle, Dr Magz Hall. [Postgraduate Research Project]
  • Defining the Indie Game: History, Culture and Challenges.. Researcher(s): Dr DARIUS MALEK. Supervisor(s): Professor Chris Pallant, Dr Andy Birtwistle, Professor Alan Meades. [Postgraduate Research Project]
  • Doctoral Research Project. Researcher(s): Mr Temidayo Oladehin. Supervisor(s): Dr Alan Meades, Professor Chris Pallant. [Postgraduate Research Project (past)]
  • Gender Transgressions in Folksong: Using Digital History to Understand Gender Nonconformity in Early Modern Broadside Ballads. Researcher(s): Miss Abi Kingsnorth. Supervisor(s): Dr Catriona Cooper, Dr Dave Hitchcock, Professor Alan Meades. [Postgraduate Research Project]
  • How is the sub-aesthetics of Generation Z arising from new media affecting commercial graphic design?. Researcher(s): Mr HONGYU TENG. Supervisor(s): Dr Rob McPherson, Dr Alan Meades. [Postgraduate Research Project]
  • How is toxicity managed within online games by their companies?. Researcher(s): Miss Amberlea Hoare-Foote. Supervisor(s): Professor Alan Meades, Professor Chris Pallant. [Postgraduate Research Project]
  • Many faces of cancer: the roles of video, animation,?and interactivity?in?exploring evolving identities associated with a breast cancer diagnosis.. Researcher(s): Miss Joanna Samuel. Supervisor(s): Professor Alan Meades, Professor Shane Blackman. [Postgraduate Research Project]
  • Research on the Exploratory Plot Framework and the Audience's Psychology of the Movie in Interactive Movies——A study of Chinese audiences. Researcher(s): Mr Xiao Gong. Supervisor(s): Professor Alan Meades, Dr Andy Birtwistle. [Postgraduate Research Project]
  • Studio Ghibli’s Landscapes and Animation: Design, characteristics and process. Researcher(s): Mr James Linghorn. Supervisor(s): Dr Alan Meades, Professor Chris Pallant. [Postgraduate Research Project (past)]
  • Tabletop Role-Playing Game (TTRPG) as a form of literature.. Researcher(s): Mr Joe Arnaud. Supervisor(s): Professor Alan Meades, Dr Sonia Overall, Dr Andy Birtwistle. [Postgraduate Research Project]
  • The Evolution of the Video Game and Game Effects in Contemporary Society. Researcher(s): Mr Scott Williams. Supervisor(s): Dr Joe Baxter-Webb, Dr Alan Meades. [Postgraduate Research Project (past)]
  • THE METAXIC PHOTOGRAPH. Researcher(s): Mr James Tucker. Supervisor(s): Dr Joe Baxter-Webb, Professor Alan Meades. [Postgraduate Research Project]
  • The scholarly hunter: A textual analysis of the ways in which Bloodborne’s narrative and environment invites player involvement and initiates critical debate. Researcher(s): Mr Devin Lampani Payne. Supervisor(s): Professor Alan Meades, Dr Andy Birtwistle. [Postgraduate Research Project]
  • What impact is county lines and gang involvement having on multi agency support for vulnerable young women in education. Researcher(s): Miss Lara Rufus. Supervisor(s): Professor Shane Blackman, Dr Ruth Rogers, Dr Alan Meades. [Postgraduate Research Project]

• Arcade Tales / Shutterbugs (game), The George Wilson Collection, Daphne Oram Building inaugural exhibition, Canterbury Christ Church University, May – August 2019.

• Still Under the Map, Games as Arts / Arts as Games, Falmouth University, 2016.

• Arcade Tales, Burton Gallery, Broadstairs, 2016.

• Exhibition of the Lost Cabs: Digital Heritage and Arcade Restoration, Dreamland Visitor Centre, Margate, May 2016.

• Under the Map – the Art of Transgressive Play, Burton Gallery, Broadstairs.

• Mobile Seven Visualisations, Orange Street Hall, Sounds New Music Festival 2010, Orange Street Canterbury.

• In the moment visualisations, Orange Street Gallery, Sounds New Music Festival 2009, Orange Street Canterbury.

• IAAYTSMM, 2 Days Later, Pharmacy Gallery, Margate, October 2006.

• Better than chess, Renewal, Sidney Cooper Gallery, Canterbury, April 2004.