I really should consider getting my del.icio.us hooked up here so I don’t have to write a post each time I just have a link to add!!
But till then…here’s a new paper that’s out
“MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research” by Robin Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc, Robert Zubek.
I’m pretty much finished with my game analysis, so I’m gonna keep this one ‘on the shelf’ for a while so as I don’t get swayed and confused again! I’m pretty much in the process of mapping out the communication levels in TSO at the moment – hence new papers on ‘my list’ like Yochai Benkler’s “Communications infrastructure regulation and the distribution of control over content”. There’s probably others as well…but I honestly can’t remember what’s new and what was there to begin with anymore! Sorry!
But I thought maybe you, Stavelin or anyone else in Klevjer’s class might be interested in it!
Remember What The Dormouse Said 
I don’t like the MDA-paper, it messes up the concepts of aesthetics and rules. I also feel that it tries to make thing easier that it really is, and the chain of the designer and players approach to games.. It’s a start, but I don’t think is that easy and it’s at least not so in all games.The other paper I haven’t read, yet. It’s so bloody long. Why can’t academics try to write good instead of long..
Oooh…I’ve actually become quite nerdy there! I actually enjoy long papers now, more than short ‘to the point’ ones! That’s when you really get the juicy stuff out of these brilliant academics. But yeah…don’t torture yourself through the Benkler unless you feel you really need it someday!! Interesting observations on the MDA paper! You, as usual, bring up some brilliant points, yet I’m finding that the more simpler a theory seems the more complicated game studies is becoming. It’s a good starting point…and definitely one that we, as academics, have a tendency to overlook and overanalyse. I don’t know how you’re building up your own analysis – but I spent a good deal of time trying to build up a solid structure of analysis even before I started looking at the aesthetics. It took quite some time to feel comfortable with that structure and it’s truely in the spirit of our cut’n’paste society (borrow a bit of Juul, add a pinch of Klabbers, stir it with some Aarseth – you know the drill). So I tend to enjoy those that seem just a tad ‘too simplistic’ because those are the ‘easy’ ones to build on! Excellent tetris blocks, you might say! They tend to make me go “Aha! You’re right…it really is that simple!”. Anyways, thought you might like it! I’m pleased that you read it! ;)
Displaying your del.ici.us-links in your blog is easy:linkrolls. Paste the code into your blog-template where you want your del.ici.us-links to appear.