Playing with Mobile Gaming's History

This event introduces workshop participants to the Retro Mobile Gaming Project and consists of two parts: an interactive workshop and a guided tour of the the Retro Mobile Gaming collection.

We invite participants to explore the guiding rationale for this project: Designing a comprehensive resource that develops and preserves an yet-to-be-known history of mobile games. Presenters will outline a "playful" approach to uncovering this unknown history, which included building and iterating from a database as a minimum viable product, crowd-sourcing valuable but error-prone data, and learning to locate yet-to-be-known information through inference.

Workshop attendees can anticipate learning strategies for how to design from a single, unrefined idea into a comprehensive and publicly-engaging resource. After experiencing the Retro Mobile Gaming Project and playing with gaming devices at the Center for Design, participants will be invited to a guided tour of the Retro Mobile Gaming collection at Snell Library, where they will be able to contribute their own ideas and creative approaches for future iterations of the project.

This event is part of Design Research Week 2026.

Speaker Bios:

Ragan Glover is the Director of the Michigan Research and Discovery Scholars at the University of Michigan. Additionally, she serves as a faculty affiliate to the Digital Studies Institute and the Center for Ethics, Society, and Computing. Her research explores users' experiences with mobile and immersive technologies with a focus the infrastructures shaping these experiences.

Adriana de Souza e Silva is a Communication Studies Professor and Director of the Center for Transformative Media at the College of Arts, Media and Design (CAMD) at Northeastern University. She is also Senior Editor of the Mobile Media & Communication journal and Chair of the International Communication Association (ICA) Mobile Communication Division. Dr. de Souza e Silva’s research investigates how engagement with mobile and locative media technologies shape urban mobility and interactions with public spaces, primarily in the developing world.

Sutanuka Jashu is an interdisciplinary artist and PhD researcher working at the intersection of mobile media, AI, design, and cultural history. In affiliation with the Center for Transformative Media, her work examines how mobile, AI-driven, and archival technologies shape cultural memory and everyday media practices. As part of the Retro Mobile Gaming Project, she explores playful, design-led approaches to preserving and reconstructing the early and often overlooked histories of mobile gaming.

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Host or Publisher Center for Communication, Media Innovation & Social Change at Northeastern