Tom Chatfield (born in 1980) is a British author, and game and technology theorist.
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Chatfield took a doctorate and taught at St John's College, Oxford, and has subsequently written for publications including The Independent, The Observer, The Times Literary Supplement, The Sunday Times, the New Statesman, the Evening Standard, and Wired magazine.[1]
His book on the culture of video games Fun Inc was published worldwide in 2010. He is an associate editor at Prospect magazine,[2], Fellow at The School of Life [3] and guest faculty member at the Said Business School, Oxford [4].
A frequent speaker and consultant on games and new media, he spoke at TED Global 2010 on "7 ways games reward the brain",[5] is a lead content designer and writer on Preloaded's game The End,[6] and appears regularly in the British and international media as a commentator.
Italian think tank LSDP named him among its 100 top global thinkers in 2010 for his work on games.[7]
Fun Inc was published in 2010 by Virgin Books in the UK and by Pegasus Books in the US. An investigation of the business, cultural significance and larger lessons to be learned from the video games industry, it addresses popular concerns such as the debate over violence in games, as well as the questions of games as art, as a fundamental human activity, and as an index of ongoing transformations in the social sciences, economics and 21st century life.
The book was reviewed around the world, including by The Independent,[8] Wall Street Journal,[9] The Guardian,[10] The Observer,[11] The Irish Times,[12] The Hindu[13] and The Scotsman[14]
Activism or Slacktivism? was published in July 2011 as a short eBook by Vintage Digital, and examines the impact of new media on politics and political activism.
50 Digital Ideas You Really Need to Know was published in September 2011 by Quercus, and introduces 50 key ideas for understanding the digital age, ranging from the basics of email and markup languages to location-based services, virtual goods and the semantic web.