I’ll see if I’ll bother coming back and editing this post and elaborating….but just in the middle of reading a paper on game studies I had a little idea or thought! You can’t use ludology to analyse MMORPGs, cause there is no way of designing the game play!!! There’s no way MAXIS could have predicted what the actual game playing aspect of their game became! People are taking the game play rules and creating stories!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh dear lord….I’m such a narratologist!!!

Well….it’s not like we were expecting this not to happen after the Hot Coffee incident! Now an American (of course!) attorney called Jack Thompson is claiming that The Sims 2 is just as bad! He’s making claims that it’s a pedofile’s wet dream (how?….I’m really not sure). Now Jeff Brown from EA, has made some interesting comments as well, about how you must be terrible good with script to download patches…and so on. But then again…it’s not the first time he’s taken the ‘ignorance is bliss’ road, and I’m starting to think that it might be the best way!

What are we to do with these people? Naked Sims encouraging pedofilia? Oh dear oh dear oh dear! The only thing I can hope is that the politicians, industry and lawyers will close their eyes and just let it drift away. But we’re beyond that now, aren’t we? So is this the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning?

So…I started finding some sites for my next post in this blog and stumbled across House Bill 2178, which has completely passed by me! Are you freakin kidding me? Is this law really suggesting that the game manufacturer should be responsible for a person’s sanity? What’s next? Authors responsible for their reader’s actions? This is just scary! Specially for the artistic freedom for future games! I suppose I should just be thankful that it doesn’t contain any words like nudity and sex!

I’m just having a day full of wonderful discoveries (yes….avoiding things I really should be doing, of course)! I’ve discovered The Edge and I can’t believe I haven’t noticed it before!!!! It’s amazing! They have a theory of a third culture, combining intellectuals (or literary scholars) and scientists…..this is reminding me so much of what’s going on academically in Game Studies. But this site is just amazing!!! They’ve got Kevin Kelly answering the question of “Can computers achieve everything the human mind can achieve?” with “Computers can’t, but the children of computers will!” And then there’s a guy called Richard Foreman who runs a theater called ‘Ontological-Hysteric Theater’ contributing as well!!! Isn’t that just the most fabulous name for a theater….definately want to go there some day!
But yeah….very cool site…and I dare to say that they’re all futurists and are trying to discuss topics across whatever spectrums. Fascinating thoughts and some really interesting members of, what they call, “The Reality Club” (I just love cyber nerd humor!!!!). Definately worth a visit…it may get a bit too technological and scientific for me at times, but that’s ok! I’m learning aren’t I?

Been reading a bit about the US Department of Defense Game Developer’s Community and just thought I’d share a tiny little laugh with you! I think, Cyberwar XXI is trying to tell me that there’s also democratic options in the game…by using this magnificent thing OOTW (Other than War) situations, actually….they must be thinking of Iraq…aren’t they? Not democracy! Duh! I’m such a fool!
Anyways…my point being…leave it to the Americans to find such an idiotic expression OOTW, and what on earth is the other O there for!!!

“The Golden Age of dead media, most of them with the working lifespan of a pack of Twinkies!” – Bruce Sterling

I found these words on a fascinating new website I found. Well….Ren Reynolds mentioned it when contemplating cyberlife after rl death

It’s the Clock of the Long Now

Absolutely fascinating!!! Unfortunately…I drank a bit too much wine last night, so my head isn’t working as it should be and I need to read through the site a few times to figure out what the hell it’s all about! But DEFINATELY media theory related and quite technological deterministic as well!
Either way fascinating. It’s basically about how digitization is ruining our future! And, in my hung over opinion, they’re saying that the digital world has maybe made it easier to document information but not to preserve it properly. And without history, how can you have a future? Oh hell!! Just enter the site…believe me, it’s fascinating!
“When I was a child, people used to talk about what would happen by the year 2000. For the next thirty years they kept alking about what would happen by the year 2000, and now no one mentions a future date at all. The future has been shrinking by one year per year for my entire life. I think it is time for us to satrt a long-term project that gets people thinking past the mental barrier of an ever shortening future. I would like to propose a large (think Stonehenge) mechanical clock, powered by seasonal temperature changes. It ticks once a year, bongs once a century, and the cuckoo comes out every millennium!” – Daniel Hillis

And they’re actually doing it!!!!! They’re building this clock! Amazing….!

Huh….what do you know! I think I’ve gone around for weeks now thinking “Whan idiotic immature academics! What an absolutely ridiculous discussion to waste time on! Of course one does not survive the other! They’re dependent on one another!”
Then today, as I’m sitting in a posh office trying to look like I’m doing something important while the phone rings about once every hour, it hit me! I think I’m a bloody narratologist. And I say ‘bloody’ cause I really don’t want to be….I wanna be a Ludologist….but this is my take on the whole thing:

I completely and whole heartedly agree that the ‘gameplay’ aspect is incredibly relevant for digital games. Infact… it goes hand in hand with the narrative. But if I can go so far as to say that it is the narrative of a game that creates the aesthetics….not the game play design (hmmm….there’s a new word for contemplation), I might as well say that it is the aesthetics that creates much of the rules of the game as well. I keep thinking about game designers at the drawing board….now….computer nerd geeks or not…..I really don’t think the designers of Tomb Raider sat there and just discussed codes and gameplay….I’m quite sure they started off with a narrative! And I’m very certain that there were some excited voices in the room as Lara Croft was being created! So it is my belief that it is the narrative that creates the game play. Now….I’m not saying that Tomb Raider wouldn’t be fun with a different story….but with the same actions (as if that doesn’t exist), but that’s what makes it even more fun! Oh dear….this really is a messy subject. But I’ll try to go on!
I keep coming back to FPS (First Person Shooter) games and how incredibly mindless they can be….with no direct story telling involved….just shoot whoever you want to….but yet again…I come back to the aesthetics of the game….they are a part of a narrative. When you see blood as a result of you shooting, when you can’t go anywhere cause you’re trapped….I believe all of this is narratological….and the pure play aspect (dangerous word to use, I know) becomes “What do I do now….if you can’t come up with anything…you quit and you want to start over to make yourself a hero or villain (whatever mood you’re in that day, LOL) by overcoming all obstacles the narrative/game design throws at you.
But I understand what ludologist mean, however. As I’m playing GTA: San Andreas I really couldn’t care less about what type of people I’m killing. Sometimes I had trouble getting on with the story (bad joystick hands) and I just went around killing people for fun to see how much money they had, how much they fought a.s.o. Not once did I think over any moral issues, which narratologists do way toooooooo much, in my opinion. I certainly didn’t feel at one with CJ. But I often sat there hunched, like you do and screamed “Yeah, die motherf***er. Die.”
I think a lot of people hide behind game theory or ludology to dodge questions like “Are games harmful?” and embrace narratologists who say that you are playing a story.
ROTFL! Lost? LOL, so am I! Just need to air out some stuff going on in my head without referring to much to academia as well! But then again…I write this right after understanding I’m not a professional….yet….so go easy on me! Anyways….I don’t really think anyone reads this little blog but me….and that’s good enough for me!!! ;)

I was trying to get into the whole narratologist vs. ludologist discussion the other day and ended up just pulling my hair. I called a good friend and mock weepingly cried “I can’t keep up with these academics! They keep writing and writing and lecturing and attending conferances and blogging and blogging….it’s extremely difficult for a mere masters student to keep up with them!!! Well….at least this Masters student! And my good darling friend (I have the best friends) told me to calm down and take a few breaths and realize that I’m not a professional yet! I can’t know about everything…yet! I need to focus on getting what I want so I can write my thesis….less is more….and all that!
And I’ve realised that it is so true! Soooo off I go to write!!

In case you’re wondering….I’ve started as a receptionist in conservative shipping environment and things are so quiet that I can study and blog! So basically I’m just using this blog to preserve some of the thoughts and ideas I have while here, so I can start writing when I come home (No! I’m not buying a bottle of wine and having a social life this sunny friday evening…NEVER….LOL!)!

So Station Exchange goes live, I honestly thought it would never happen! But I can’t believe I haven’t discussed this virtual economy issue here at all! So in my spirit of taking a step back, let’s discuss.
Where to start? Now we cannot discuss this without mentioning the virtual economy guru, Edward Castronova who must have been the first to recognise the importance of virtual economies and markets. Google him and you’ll hit almost every media story or conferance discussing these topics. He found a way…or at least a suggestive way of looking at the relevance of vw economies vs. real world economies. He’s an entertaining writer as well so don’t hesitate to look at the papers listed on the right here!
To boil it all down….it’s all about time play combined with worth combined with ‘value of life’ (if I remember correctly). Now….ever since reading his papers, I’ve stumbled upon words such as gold farming and virtual crime, let me see if I can sum this up in a few sentences, ey? Ok….you play an avatar in an MMORPG, and you acquire virtual property and money along the way. The longer and more you play the more property, skills and money you pocess. Now! You can trade within these games. How to get real money? Auction sites such as E-bay. But soooooooooooo many problems have evolved cause of this, that SOE has decided to create this Station Exchange place. What do I mean by problems? Well, say I went to e-bay to get some simoleons (The Sims Online Currency), found some (LOL, very cheaply cause TSO sucks) and I have to coordinate with the seller a time and place for the exchange in The Sims Online, but the real (debateable) money has to be given to the seller first. Where are my guarantees that the seller will ever show up at our agreed place and time?
Well, Sony Online Entertainment feels it has found the solution (and also a way to get some extra revenue) with Station Exchange. Infact, to all you “what’s the fuss about, it’s just a game”, SOE has estimated the Everquest II virtual goods market to be a $200 million market. And I think they’ve been very careful with that figure.

Ok! So now Dagbladet has managed to write what I’ve been struggling to figure out the last two months. How to sum up the whole virtual gaming world. Although the journalist, Bente Kalsnes has an interesting take on the whole situation which she’s apperantly gotten from Julian Dibbell. According to the article sex is played in online gaming worlds when there’s nothing better to do, which is pretty bogus if you ask me.
But anyways…very annoying that she managed to write this summary before me! I’ve realised that I’ve involved myself way too much in what everyone’s writing that I’m having difficulty stepping back and having an objective view of the whole situation.
To me it just seems ridiculous to even discuss the whole ‘it’s just a game’ discussion, cause we all seem to agree. I had to suffer through several pages of such arguments by reading the DIGRA 2005 papers (as if I will ever manage to read them all!). And I guess I just got bored with the whole ‘the experience is real, it’s much more than a game…blah blah blah), which is sad, cause I still haven’t written anything about it in my thesis (I swear, my advisor must hate me!). So I suppose it’s true what they say about keeping things simple! Cause the more I read the more confused I get….and the more convinced I get that I know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!