About

Sebastian Möring (he/him)

Since October 2023 I have been a Professor of Game Design at Macromedia University | Campus Berlin.

Previously from 2015 – 2023, I was an assistant professor teaching and researching game studies and media studies in the joint study program European Media Studies of the University of Potsdam (Arts and Media Department) and the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam (Design Department). During the same time period, I was the head coordinator of the Digital Games Research Center at the University of Potsdam (DIGAREC).

Until the end of 2022, I led the subproject “Media Culture Studies” of the project “Forschen | Lernen Digital” (Researching | Learning Digitally) funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

I am involved with the Gamephilosophy Network as well as in organizing the annual Philosophy of Computer Games Conference in varying capacities. I am an elected member of the team of speakers of the special interest group AG Games of the German Society for Media Studies (GfM).

I am a member of the Brandenburg Centre for Media Studies (ZeM) and an associate member of the research school “SENSING: Zum Wissen sensibler Medien” (“SENSING: The knowledge of sensitive media”).

Research

My research focuses on the philosophy and aesthetics of computer games, in-game photography, representations and functions of climate in computer games (green game studies) as well as games in educational contexts. I am further interested in game art and art games, media philosophy, systems theory, metaphor theory, and more.

Teaching

I have taught more than 45 classes at the undergraduate and graduate levels at universities in Denmark, Hong Kong, and Germany in the areas of game culture studies, game studies, and media aesthetics on subjects like game studies, game art, game culture, in-game photography, game criticism, theories of media aesthetics, media theory, play theory, islands in computer games, ecological approaches to computer games, ludification, gamification, and others.

PhD and Postdoc

2014 – 2015 I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Creative Media at the City University of Hong Kong. Previously, I earned my PhD degree at the Center for Computer Games Research at the IT University of Copenhagen with a thesis about the metaphor discourse of game studies in 2013. My thesis was supervised by Espen Aarseth.

MA and BA studies

I hold a Master of Arts in Media Studies from said European Media Studies program. My Master’s thesis (2010) investigated the Heideggerian fear structure as a fundamental characteristic of competitive games. During my Master’s I worked as a research assistant at the Digital Games Research Center (DIGAREC) at the University of Potsdam.

I received my Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Studies from the European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Germany. The thesis (2006) investigates metaphors used in the coverage of football on radio and television.

Publications

Please find my publications under “publications“. You can find pre-print versions on academia.edu and researchgate.net. You can find me on Twitter as @seb_o_mat or on Mastodon as @seb_o_mat@fedihum.org.

Get in touch

Please get in touch via the contact form if you wish to discuss topics related to game studies and game philosophy, media studies, and cultural studies, or in case you are looking for a supervisor for your thesis project.