Weird Fictions Research Group invites you to a talk on “Becoming Something Else: Death and Disease in Video Games” by CD Projekt Red’s Magdalena Zych (Senior Writer, Story Coordinator) and Karolina Niewęgłowska (Associate Director of Player Experience and Safety.)
Becoming Something Else: Death and Disease in Video Games
Monday, May 20, 2024
4.45 PM
You can get 3 OZN points for participating in this event.
Where?
Dobra 55, room 3.110
(the building features some mobility accommodations: ramp and lift)
What?
Video games offer unique opportunities to present deep and immersive stories touching upon even the most difficult aspects of the human experience, like death and disease. We will discuss several examples from across the video game industry, including the 2020 CD PROJEKT RED game, Cyberpunk 2077. Video games are an interactive medium that allows players to immerse themselves in situations that can be difficult or normally unknown or unavailable to them, often leading to more understanding, self-awareness and empathy, as well as a satisfying gameplay experience.
Who?
Karolina Niewęgłowska is the associate director of the Player Experience & Safety team at CD PROJEKT RED. She started her adventure in the games industry in 2010 and in CD PROJEKT RED in 2011. She created and developed the Technical Support team in CDPR. The team evolved into the Player Experience & Safety team in 2023. All throughout her career she’s believed in two things: that gaming can make a better world (thank you, Jane McGonigal), and that working in the space in-between in a game dev studio provides a unique panoramic perspective of a magnificent complex system. As a student of English she never imagined she would be translating Changelist-ish to English. When studying psychology she never thought she would apply her learnings to player behavior and bug prioritization. She’s in love with what games, and the people making them, are and can be. In her spare time she enjoys fighting the good ol’ hopeless fight against the Ancient Ones in Arkham, Dunwich, or perhaps the Mountains of Madness arm in arm with other investigators.
Magdalena Zych is a senior writer at CD PROJEKT RED, involved in the development of narrative and dialogues as part of the Story team. Most recently, she worked on Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, and before that, on the Cyberpunk 2077 base game. She created the Judy Alvarez storyline, among others. In her eight years at CD PROJEKT RED, she has worked on The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt expansion Blood and Wine and the standalone GWENT: The Witcher Card Game. She joined the industry in 2015 as a writer. Her credits also include a novel published in Polish entitled The Seven Glasses.
