Markus Montola

I am a Helsinki-based game scholar, designer and entrepreneur.

As a game designer, I focus on free-to-play mobile games as a co-founder at Playsome, Helsinki. Previously, I’ve held senior and lead game design positions at Next Games, Reforged Studios, Boomlagoon, Housemarque and Grey Area, working on titles such as the location-based zombie shooter The Walking Dead: Our World, the card battler Spirit Hunter, the location-based MMORPG Shadow Cities, and the map-based tank shooter Tank Legions.

As a games scholar, I worked from 2004 to 2010 at Nokia Research Center and University of Tampere Gamelab. My award-winning doctoral dissertation, On the Edge of the Magic Circle (2012) discusses role-playing and pervasive gaming and proposes a theoretical framework for studying ephemeral games.

I’m an author or an editor of Pervasive Games: Theory and Design (2009), Nordic Larp (2010), Playground Worlds (2008) and Beyond Role and Play (2004).

I have been active in the Nordic larp scene for more than two decades. Most recently, I was a designer in Proteus: Sotakarjujen synty (2018).

Contact

Cellphone: +358 44 544 2445
lastname@iki.fi
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