Leuven.
The next presenter at EuroITV 2009 is An Jacobs, whose interest is in the potential role of television in gaming. A combination and convergence between television and gaming is complicated by the existing routines of using each medium, which need to be altered in order to arrive at new models. The television set remains mainly in a shared space, usually in the living room, and in recent time, gaming has traditionally taken place elsewhere - playing on a PC, for example, also makes it less likely that the player is interrupted by other household members. Even the arrival of new media forms in the households doesn't tend to change such routines.
How the household is organised (with respect to the placement of media devices) is determined in part by technology (the placement of powerpoints and cable sockets), but also by social needs and attitudes. Gaming consoles, interestingly, tend to be connected to the main, living-room television - in part because there are social barriers against keeping such consoles to oneself in a family environment, in part because the living-room television tends to be the most technologically advanced.
