Academic study of the reception and remediation of antiquity in video games has become increasingly popular over the last decade. Not only is the subject used as the focus for more and more journal articles, conference presentations, lectures, monographs and book collections, it is also ever more frequently offered as a university course in history and ancient studies departments around the world. Work is also being done outside the traditional frame of academia, with scholars going live on YouTube or Twitch to stream and discuss their in-game experiences firsthand and to answer questions from interested viewers. The increasing attention reflects a broad fascination with the ludic reception of the ancient world in a field that is interdisciplinary by nature and has welcomed archaeologists, historians, literary scholars, art historians and many more.
Paizomen wishes to contribute to this rising trend, and therefore wants to open itself up to blog posts from scholars and students of antiquity and video games. Game designers are also very welcome to write a piece on their experience creating a game set in ancient times. Paizomen offers a platform that is already being used around the world and, with this project, aims to be more than a database by giving a voice to researchers and designers who are captivated by the topic. While the website is officially set up as a database for antiquity games set in Greece or Rome (though we are looking to expand this), we equally invite blog posts on other ancient cultures in video games (e.g. Egypt, China, Mesopotamia, etc.).
Possible topics include, but are of course not limited to:
- discussions of (specific aspects of) game texts (e.g. simulation/representation of history, ethnic or demographic groups, environments, historical/mythological characters, gender, narrative, languages and texts, game mechanics, …)
- antiquity game reviews
- archaeogaming
- presentations of (ongoing/completed) research projects or methodological resources
- user-created modifications (‘mods’)
- teaching with antiquity games
- scholarly involvement in antiquity game production
- interviews with antiquity game designers
Blog posts can range from 1,000 to 2,500 words and are preferably written in English.
If you are interested to write a blog post, please send an email to alexander.vandewalle@uantwerpen.be with an outline of your idea (which can be everything from the blog post itself to a short abstract of unspecified length or even just a general idea worded in a couple of lines). We will then discuss a suitable deadline for the post to be added to the website. Should you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
I am very much looking forward to it!
All the best,
Alexander
Paizomen 
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