Consalvo runs the mLab, which is dedicated to developing innovative methods for studying games and game players. President of the Digital Games Research Association, she has held positions at MIT, Ohio University, Chubu University in Japan, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Her talk will address material from her most recently completed book Players and Their Pets, which she wrote with Jason Begy. The two argue that Faunasphere, a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG), which existed from 2009 to 2011, is more important than more commercially successful games such as World of Warcraft that have all too often shaped game studies discourse.