So today I lecture to Games and Animation students about the use of internet sources in preparation for their dissertations. Last year I opened the lecture with Wikipedia open on the big screen behind me on the 'Luddite' page. I am aware that I will come across as the most reactionary anti-technology, anti-freedom of information traditionalist thug trying to make their lives harder by refusing them the easy option of Google as solution to everything.
And yet I have been known to venture online. I even use Wikipedia as a starting place when I want to find something in a hurry. I look up the Game Studies entry when I want to reconfirm my prejudices about the value of internet wisdom of crowds and community peer review thinking.
And yet I have been watching Noah Wardrip-Fruin's experiment with peer review with interest, and even chipping in. I have problems with some assumptions about peer review that are being discussed in the meta commentary, and hope to get around to expressing them, but the nobility of what he is attempting is clear, and I applaud it.
I wouldn't be keen for peer review in its current form, whatever its imperfections, to be replaced with such an alternative for my own work, mind.
I have a blog, but I will tell my students to distrust blogs.
I distribute my own work online, but I will ask them to be deeply distrusting of non-conventional distribution channels.
I have pseudonyms in various places where I hide my credentials so I can say things that are polemic and inflammatory without worrying about the comeback affecting what reputation I have. I enjoy many of the liberties of the internet.
And yet I will stress the need to connect knowledge to a material knowable being. I might even be frothing at the mouth and waving my arms like an old testament prophet by this point.
I may simply be a fossil already, at the very dawn of my forties. The offence I felt yesterday seeing pornographic images dropped (tagged? Stencilled?) onto the beautifully designed walls of Team Fortress 2's spaces was quite extreme. I wish to rend my clothes and wail against the collapse of civilisation that we endure in the face of the information slurry of the internet.
With any luck I will calm down enough to give them useful advice on how to navigate the internet and gather useful information.
Thursday, 21 February 2008
Thursday, 7 February 2008
Nostalgia
One of our PhD students was talking about games and narrative in a paper here last night, which took me back to my beginnings in game studies, especially as he was using Half-life as his example. And I have been answering interview questions by email from someone who reminded me of some things I had written back in those early days. So, while I was in reflective mood I wandered over to Grand Text Auto, where Noah Wardrip-Fruin is allowing his new book to be exposed in all its pre-published nakedness and saw him writing about Knights of the Old Republic. I just thought I'd post a link to an early paper I gave on KotOR back in 2003 in Utrecht. If nothing else it lets me connect a lot of the work I have subsequently published. And I still have a warm fuzzy feeling towards KotOR (and a less than warm or fuzzy feeling towards the git who knicked my copy of KotOR II).
Saturday, 22 December 2007
Small in Brasil
Thinking about the little game prototypes I have knocked up, and the why of that has led me ambling across the internet. So it was a bit of a surprise to see SCMIV turn up at a Brazilian site redistributing freeware. What surprised me was that it has 719 downloads. So at least it gets played a bit.It only has 92 plays on YoYo, but I might BabelFish the Brazilian commentary and see what makes it attractive. [Edit: Ouch -- the grabled translation I got seems to indicate that whoever posted really really didn't like this -- from the black and white design to the deferred control. Go figure.] I know it gets some traffic on a Czech site (mentioned somehwere below), but I have no idea, in this age of Web 2.0 and hyperbole about numbers of hits and downloads etc. if that is good or bad, or indicative of the grazing of web content that is endemic. Is it good (perhaps) to have wasted the time and computing resources of 800+ internet persons?
Meanwhile, almost no one will touch Flight of the Snowman. I wonder why? The core of the game was knocked up in a few hours over couple of days (to show the students just how rapid prototyping can be. Since then I have added a fair amount of gloss and playability, but it just doesn't seem to attract anyone. Oh well, it is all a mystery.
And in my ambling I came across the Experimental Gameplay Project site, which seems like a fantastic idea. Just need to work out whether I should join in. Some very interesting ideas, and the same focus on something different that I kid myself I am trying to explore.
Mind you, I was in a staff development event early in the week dealing with IP issues (the upshot of which seemed to be that we should all cling like limpets to any idea rather than allow distribution without gain), and I begin to wonder if the university would approve of chucking my work out into the ether in this way anyway.
Meanwhile, almost no one will touch Flight of the Snowman. I wonder why? The core of the game was knocked up in a few hours over couple of days (to show the students just how rapid prototyping can be. Since then I have added a fair amount of gloss and playability, but it just doesn't seem to attract anyone. Oh well, it is all a mystery.
And in my ambling I came across the Experimental Gameplay Project site, which seems like a fantastic idea. Just need to work out whether I should join in. Some very interesting ideas, and the same focus on something different that I kid myself I am trying to explore.
Mind you, I was in a staff development event early in the week dealing with IP issues (the upshot of which seemed to be that we should all cling like limpets to any idea rather than allow distribution without gain), and I begin to wonder if the university would approve of chucking my work out into the ether in this way anyway.
Monday, 17 December 2007
Doubts. Lots and lots of doubts.
Should those who teach game design actually design games? If so, why? Answers on a postcard to…
I am seriously wondering about this – I don’t teach design per se (despite having been shunted out of the Film School into the Design department) but project management, game histories, game studies, and the basics of academic, intellectual and professional practice. So that’s OK. I am not a game designer, and would not want to swap my academic job (for all its faults) for that of a designer. Mortgage to pay, kids to feed etc.. And then there is the little matter of not having the prerequisite talent.
And yet I am still wondering. After the Arden project went the way of so many other academic projects, including one or two I was linked to at ICDC, it reminded me that academic departments are not in the main – and probably shouldn’t be – developers. At least unless they have the same funding and drivers (and the drivers are evil) so that it makes no difference.
So why do I feel the need to make scratchy little game prototypes? Does it help me professionally, or is it just a hobby that I should separate from the job, probably by using an untraceable pseudonym and not signing my posts with my real name?
I liked Shush. I really like Snowman. But it isn’t the job. Maybe practice should be left to those who really know what they are doing and I shouldn’t dabble, even on a hobby basis. I can’t even remember when I took my game links out of the sidebar, but there must have been a reason. Do I feel some strange need to disassociate myself from game-making to keep my credentials as cultural critic/academic?
Long term, long year.
I am seriously wondering about this – I don’t teach design per se (despite having been shunted out of the Film School into the Design department) but project management, game histories, game studies, and the basics of academic, intellectual and professional practice. So that’s OK. I am not a game designer, and would not want to swap my academic job (for all its faults) for that of a designer. Mortgage to pay, kids to feed etc.. And then there is the little matter of not having the prerequisite talent.
And yet I am still wondering. After the Arden project went the way of so many other academic projects, including one or two I was linked to at ICDC, it reminded me that academic departments are not in the main – and probably shouldn’t be – developers. At least unless they have the same funding and drivers (and the drivers are evil) so that it makes no difference.
So why do I feel the need to make scratchy little game prototypes? Does it help me professionally, or is it just a hobby that I should separate from the job, probably by using an untraceable pseudonym and not signing my posts with my real name?
I liked Shush. I really like Snowman. But it isn’t the job. Maybe practice should be left to those who really know what they are doing and I shouldn’t dabble, even on a hobby basis. I can’t even remember when I took my game links out of the sidebar, but there must have been a reason. Do I feel some strange need to disassociate myself from game-making to keep my credentials as cultural critic/academic?
Long term, long year.
Sunday, 16 December 2007
Happy Holidays
Hah, this actually works (unlike the prototype below which did its job as a prototype by showing me just how much unplayable mush what I thought was a good idea actually was).
Anyway, this is a very strange thing. Sort of a slow building bullet hell, but with a snowman in flight. And all the stylings are all wintry and mellow. Had fun putting the menu system together, which actually involved me sitting down and understanding some proper scripting/code. Maybe I was a programmer in another life. Certainly not in this one.
I think it is fun. And its seasonal too. Built for class, to show my lovely first years how you can throw something together fast for a presentation without relying on PowerPoint to drain all enthusiasm from an audience.
It lives here, and is a PC download.
Ho Ho Ho.
Thursday, 29 November 2007
One Thousand Penguins On Ice
When I grow up I'll stop doing this, but I have another prototype that is play test ready. Not sure how it works, and I am astounded that a couple of minutes watching Peggle over a colleagues shoulder should have such an effect, but never mind.
Next: Death by Cellphone, if I get the chance to put the bits together.
And, yes, I am too busy to be doing this.
Oh, and (PC only) it can be downloaded from [nowhere any more because it was rubbish, rubbish, rubbish -- although having worked out the maths of gettinga cannon to point at a target will come in handy sometime else...)
Saturday, 10 November 2007
The Player Conference
Somehow reposting stuff from elsewhere seems a bit lame, but what interests me about the CFP below is that it seems to coincide with the prokject Tanya Krzywinska and I tried to push through with Videogame, Player, Text. And if there is one outfit that has done more to shape current games research than anywhere else it is ITU, so it promises to be good. Now to think of something clever enough to get accepted.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Center for Computer Games Research at the IT University in Copenhagen is pleased to announce The [Player] Conference, a conference for games researchers taking place August 26th - 29th 2008.
There is no escaping the player in games research. Whether the focus is on formal aspects of games or on studies of actual gamers, the player is an intrinsic part of the gaming situation. Despite this, the underlying assumptions that inform the notion of the player are often not made explicit in the work of game scholars, regardless of their academic background. This is problematic in itself, but even more so in the inter-disciplinary field of games research where unclear terminology may cloud communication across the borders of academic traditions.
The central focus for The [Player] Conference is to uncover the assumptions that inform our work as game scholars with regards to the player and to consider how we think about and study the player as embodied, represented, derived, historical, idealised – to mention only a few of the positions the notion of player may be put in.
While all papers should focus on the player in some respect or other, there is a diversity of topics to consider. The topics include but are not limited to:
- Conceptions and definitions of players within different disciplines.
- Ideal and real players.
- Player experience, emotions, affects and cognitions.
- Player agency.
- Player taxonomies.
- Methodological issues of studies that deal with players.
- Ontology of player representations.
- The player’s perception and comprehension of the gaming situation.
- Player motivations.
- The position created by the game for the player.
- Player expectations.
- The player as subject and object.
- The player in history.
- Playing for academic purposes.
- The many different roles of players.
- Videogame’s possible effects on players.
- Assumptions about players within academia and the industry.
- Control of player creativity and communities.
We invite submissions of full papers and panels by the 31st March 2008. All submissions will undergo a double blind review process. Notification of acceptance will be announced by the 5th of May 2008. The maximum word limit for full papers is 10000, and 600 pr participant for panels. Note that the panels should focus on debating a chosen topic both among its participants and with the audience.
Inquiries can be sent to player2008@itu.dk. More information will be available on http://game.itu.dk/player/ shortly.
On behalf of the organising committee
Sara Mosberg Iversen
--
Sara Mosberg Iversen
MA, PhD Candidate
Centre for Computer Games Research
IT University of Copenhagen
Rued Langgaards Vej 7
DK-2300 København S
Denmark
www.itu.dk/people/mosberg
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Center for Computer Games Research at the IT University in Copenhagen is pleased to announce The [Player] Conference, a conference for games researchers taking place August 26th - 29th 2008.
There is no escaping the player in games research. Whether the focus is on formal aspects of games or on studies of actual gamers, the player is an intrinsic part of the gaming situation. Despite this, the underlying assumptions that inform the notion of the player are often not made explicit in the work of game scholars, regardless of their academic background. This is problematic in itself, but even more so in the inter-disciplinary field of games research where unclear terminology may cloud communication across the borders of academic traditions.
The central focus for The [Player] Conference is to uncover the assumptions that inform our work as game scholars with regards to the player and to consider how we think about and study the player as embodied, represented, derived, historical, idealised – to mention only a few of the positions the notion of player may be put in.
While all papers should focus on the player in some respect or other, there is a diversity of topics to consider. The topics include but are not limited to:
- Conceptions and definitions of players within different disciplines.
- Ideal and real players.
- Player experience, emotions, affects and cognitions.
- Player agency.
- Player taxonomies.
- Methodological issues of studies that deal with players.
- Ontology of player representations.
- The player’s perception and comprehension of the gaming situation.
- Player motivations.
- The position created by the game for the player.
- Player expectations.
- The player as subject and object.
- The player in history.
- Playing for academic purposes.
- The many different roles of players.
- Videogame’s possible effects on players.
- Assumptions about players within academia and the industry.
- Control of player creativity and communities.
We invite submissions of full papers and panels by the 31st March 2008. All submissions will undergo a double blind review process. Notification of acceptance will be announced by the 5th of May 2008. The maximum word limit for full papers is 10000, and 600 pr participant for panels. Note that the panels should focus on debating a chosen topic both among its participants and with the audience.
Inquiries can be sent to player2008@itu.dk. More information will be available on http://game.itu.dk/player/ shortly.
On behalf of the organising committee
Sara Mosberg Iversen
--
Sara Mosberg Iversen
MA, PhD Candidate
Centre for Computer Games Research
IT University of Copenhagen
Rued Langgaards Vej 7
DK-2300 København S
Denmark
www.itu.dk/people/mosberg
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