It’s all fun and game Wisconsin’s roots run deep when it comes to ways to play. Many taverns have a version of bar dice. Strikes are still being rolled on Milwaukee’s South Side at the Holler House, the country’s oldest sanctioned bowling alley. The region is the birthplace of Dungeons & Dragons, which appears to be as popular as ever around the world nearly five decades after a Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, man — in collaboration with others in the Midwest — created the fantasy, role-playing game. Those ties helped make southeastern Wisconsin an epicenter for tabletop roleplaying games, according to UWM anthropology professor Thomas Malaby. So what’s with all the fun and games around here? Malaby’s doctoral student, Laya Liebeseller, is so intrigued by this question that it’s the topic of her research. “It’s so interesting to me how Milwaukeeans in general use games, festivals and playful behavior to bring people together and create community here,” said Liebeseller, who is from Iowa. Whether it’s rolling a bowling ball or a 20-sided die, such games serve as a lure to bring people together and create friendships. Or it could also be that there’s something about the culture in southeastern Wisconsin that lends itself to folks being drawn to creating and congregating over games. Maybe it’s a little of both. “So that is part of what I’m trying to figure out,” Liebeseller said. Also a game designer, Liebeseller plans to study community gaming spaces, like bars that cater to video or board gamers, as well as the history of how games have shaped social interactions.
12 • IN FOCUS • January, 2020
UWM doctoral student Laya Liebeseller is studying why southeastern Wisconsin is such a hotspot for gaming. (UWM Photo/Troye Fox)
Big business This isn’t just child’s play. The Entertainment Software Association said in January that the U.S. video game industry generated a record $43.4 billion in revenue in 2018, up 18% from the previous year, and that about 150 million Americans play video games. Malaby is part of a group of UWM faculty and students called Serious Play, which is using its own Twitch channel to explore the academic aside of video games. They break down game theory and serve as a venue for gaming scholars to conduct research. An estimate by the website ICv2, which follows the “hobby game” industry, estimated that there were nearly $1.5
