A Lift Home (S1:E3) for Dr. Joleen Blom

Wide-angle view of Helsinki Airport's taxiway with a Finnair turboprop aircraft in the foreground and multiple aircraft parked at gates along the terminal building in the distance

White Finnair passenger aircraft with blue livery parked at Helsinki Airport's apron, with boarding stairs attached. The modern terminal building displays 'HELSINKI AIRPORT' signage, and a distinctive angular control tower stands prominently on the right side of the frame against a clear sky.

A Lift Home is back and ready to take off, soon! In the next episode (S1:E3), live on November 19, 2025, we will take premium passenger Dr. Joleen Blom from Lublin-Świdnik (EPLB), where our plane was parked for almost two years, to Helsinki-Vantaa (EFHK). The departure time will be 7 pm (Central European Time)/8 pm (Eastern European Time) and the estimated flight time will be around 2 hours. We may go live earlier so you can watch our pilot configure the plane (ca. 6.30 pm).

Watch the Stream

You are cordially invited to watch the stream here below or you can visit our Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/gamestudiesinthesky.

Inflight Menu: Video Game Characters in Transmedia Storytelling

Joleen Blom has written a book called Video Game Characters and Transmedia Storytelling. The Dynamic Game Character (Amsterdam University Press 2023, open access). During the flight we will have time to talk about what Joleen means with a dynamic game character? What is the motivation to develop such a concept and how did Joleen come to research it? And what does this have to do with her experience of having lived in Japan? Why is there reason to critique the idea of a continuuous character identity who exists across many different media and/or works? In addition to all this we may also find the time to discuss the significance of airtravel for international (game) scholarship in the age of global communication networks and the climate crisis.

Blom, Joleen (2023): Video Game Characters and Transmedia Storytelling: The Dynamic Game Character. Amsterdam University Press. https://doi.org/10.5117/9789463722957

Book cover for 'Video Game Characters and Transmedia Storytelling: The Dynamic Game Character' by Joleen Blom, published by Amsterdam University Press. The cover features an illustrated Japanese-inspired cityscape in coral pink, white, and blue tones, depicting various video game character silhouettes among buildings with Japanese text signage. A large red sun sits in the background sky with white clouds, while figures including people and a rabbit character stand among geometric buildings and stairs in a stylized urban environment.

The Premium Passenger

Joleen Blom (PhD) is a postdoctoral researcher in the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies at the Tampere University Game Research Lab. She researches the commercialization of game characters and their affective roles in games and transmedia monetization models, with a focus on Japanese popular culture. She is the author of Video Game Characters and Transmedia Storytelling (2023), and a co-editor of the edited collection Monstrosity in Games and Play (eds. Stang, Meriläinen, Blom, and Hassan 2025), both published at the Amsterdam University Press.

The Pilot

Sebastian Möring has been a game studies scholar for many years. Since October 2023 he has been a Professor of Game Design at Macromedia University of Applied Sciences | Campus Berlin. Apart from teaching and research, he enjoys experimenting with formats combining games and science communication.

The Format

A Lift Home is a streaming format by the channel @GameStudiesInTheSky. The general idea is to virtually fly a game studies expert from a place where the last episode ended to the place where this expert lives or works. The idle time during a flight leaves a lot of space to speak about the expert’s work. The first episode of A Lift Home took place on the channel of our friends over at ScreenWalks on May 24, 2023. With our premium passenger Dr. Ida Jørgensen, we flew from Berlin (Germany) to Copenhagen (Denmark) and had a chat about the topic of simulation. After that we flew with Dr. Agata Waszkiewicz from Copenhagen to Lublin (Poland), where our plane is still virtually situated. With Agata we talked about food in games. Check out the two episodes: