The Weston Game Lab, established through a gift from Dr. Shellwyn Weston and Bradford Weston, JD’77, and directed by Patrick Jagoda, Associate Professor of English and Cinema & Media Studies, opened in February 2019 as an integral part of the new Media Arts, Data, and Design (MADD) Center on the first floor of the John Crerar Library. 

The 3,800-square-foot space will feature classrooms and studio spaces, open work areas for collaborative design and development, and access to the Library’s collection of historically significant video games via a growing collection of vintage and contemporary consoles. It will be co-located with additional MADD Center groups focused on teaching and research that takes place across digital fabrication, virtual reality, GIS, data visualization, and other cutting-edge technologies.

Through the Weston Game Lab, students, faculty, and staff will collaborate the research and development of games—whether digital, board, card, or alternate reality—that produce social impact or experiment with form. Participants will also be able to research the history of games from technical and theoretical perspectives, attend workshops that afford new development skills, and organize collaborative groups for game-based experiments.

Access to many WGL resources is managed through the MADD Center Canvas course. Self-enrollment in the Canvas course is available via this link.