Professor Drachen is Head of the SDU Metaverse Lab, CCO for the think-tank the Digital Observatory and co-director at consulting firm Agora Informatics. He is recognized as one of the world’s most influential scientists and innovators working with creative technologies. Professor Drachen’s multi-award-winning research focuses on harnessing creative technologies for the improvement of society and is regularly covered by international media.
Every day, billions of people interact with creative technologies such as games and social media, and yet we have very little data available about the trillions of hours we spend yearly with such technologies. This is a great roadblock towards protecting users, emphasizing the positive effects of our interaction with creative technologies, and also towards informing public policy in this space. Professor Drachen is leading cross-disciplinary, international efforts towards establishing the evidence needed to make decisions about our future relationship with creative technologies, and how to harness their societal potential.
Professor Drachen’s work has assisted major international game publishers, as well as SMEs, in making better decisions based on their data. He works with policymakers on defining public policy for societal benefit and is a leading voice for public well-being in interacting with technology.
As a prolific author, Professor Drachen has authored hundreds of articles and is the editor and author of three field-defining books on Creative Technologies: Game Analytics – Maximizing the Value of Player Data, read by over 200,000 people, Games User Research, a standard work of reference in the games industry, and Game Data Science, the first textbook on the use of data in the creative technologies.
”Just during the past two decades, games have changed dramatically. From a niche industry, games have grown to touch the lives of billions daily, and the playing of video games has become an integral part of our life and society, for everyone irrespective of age or culture.” – Anders Drachen
Professor Drachen is involved with multiple organisations and societies. For example, he is an Honorary Professor at the School of Computer Science, University of York; and co-director for the Arena Research Cluster, an international research network focused on innovation in esports and sports, and is adjunct faculty at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. He forms part of the steering committee of the International Game Development Association’s Special Interest Group on Game Analytics. He is a member of Turing Institute Special Interest Group on Data Visualisation and the Council of Professors and Heads of Computing in the United Kingdom.
He collaborates with international networks of colleagues in academia and industry and works with students worldwide on research projects. He has been part of the leadership teams of research projects with a combined value of over 250m DKK, generating societal, economics and cultural impact. He is a strong proponent for work-integrated learning and an active partner for the Creative Industries in matchmaking students for internships and careers.
Having lived and worked on four different continents, Professor Drachen has had the mixed pleasure of fending off three shark attacks in Africa and Australia. He is also the youngest Dane in history to publish a cooking book – dedicated to ice cream. In his spare time, he writes books for children about technology and economics.
For more on Professor Drachen, click here.
URL´S TO PUBLIC PROFILES
LinkedIn – Twitter – Google Scholar
For examples of publications, see the “Publications” section of this website.
All views expressed in this blog are strictly those of Professor Anders Drachen and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer or companies he advises advise or are affiliated with.
Game Analytics Resources 