Tag Archives: games

So you’ve lost a ring ey?

16 March 2008

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ARG-guru Jane McGonigal has designed a new game for the 2008 Olympics, The Lost Ring.

At the moment it seems like a sort of collective-blogging/web 2.0-story-game.
We’re introduced to six characters. Ariadne, Markus, Noriko, MeiHui, Diego and Lucie. They all woke up in some form of labrynth with amnesia, some funky white fitness suit, white goggle that you can’t see through – blindfold and a funky tattoo on their arm which reads: Find the lost Ring in Esperanto.

I’m quite pleased that this is truly international. French, English, German, Spanish, Chinese and I think Japanese (I can’t be bothered to look up right now). I also like the way they use many different types and brands of web 2.0 media. I’m astonished by how much work they’ve put into it and how thorough they’ve been. I think Jane McGonigol’s genious is clearly evident.

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Protesting in a virtual world

11 March 2008

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Joseph DeLappe is an active artist protesting the war in Iraq.

On March 20th, the date of the US invasion of Iraq, DeLappe will enter America’s Army, peacefully.

America’s Army is an MMORPG designed by the US military which also functions as an active reqruiter. for the army.

He’ll be using the login name “dead-in-Iraq” and well…I’m almost tempted to download America’s Army to witness the action. But quite honestly, I’m not sure if that’s a good idea. Would I be supporting America’s Army or would I be supporting Joseph DeLappe?

“As of 1/17/08, I have input 3745 names. I intend to keep doing so until the end of this war. As of 1/17/08 there have been 3929 American service persons killed in Iraq” – Networked Performance

So he’ll be manually(!) writingthe name, age, service branch and date of death of each service person who has died to date in Iraq.

Does it all sound familiar? Well, it seems he started dead-in-iraq in 2006. It kinda gives you a perspective on matters when an artist repeats his protest 3 years in a row. That’s interesting.

I have to admit I’m feeling a tad sorry for the poor MMORPG players – I mean what are they suppossed to do? Hmmm – maybe they should join him somehow? Maybe he should invite them to. It would be lovely if someone documented the discussions this sparked in-world. It seems he doesn’t engage in any social conversation…well…who could blame him with 3745 US soldiers to memorialise.

It certainly made an impression on me. I think it would be cool if they could stream the protest but I worry about the privacy rights of the players.

Bow Street Runners

17 February 2008

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Congrats to Channel 4’s Public Broadcast Gaming initiative! And Alice Taylor!

I just tried Bow Street Runners and by golly it’s amazing! I really enjoyed it! It’s really good lookin’ and even educational! Which seems to be the point of Public Broadcast Gaming – creating games that educate. For example – I didn’t know gin had such a societal impact on London in the 18th century. I learned that just by clicking on a bottle – they called it Madame Geneva. So after the game episode I looked it up and listened to a BBC podcast on the subject – apparently it was a female craze. Really interesting!
The game is in unison with the Channel 4 series, City of Vice, which I ofcourse aim to see now that I’ve played the first episode of the game!

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Age of Conan delayed – again

21 January 2008

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According to Dagens It (ofcourse!) Funcom’s Age of Conan is delayed, yet again to May 20th.

I worry that they’re gun shy after the problems endured after the Anarchy Online release – but then again – maybe perfection upon release is the way to go. They’ve learned from their mistakes – but then again, I don’t think perfection is completely possible before release. Is it?

While waiting, though, Massively did a great in-depth interview with Jørgen Tharaldsen (I can’t believe he’s not in Wikipedia – I’ll have to sort that out in a sec)before Christmas, which is worth a look at. They go into the politics of rating, which I found really interesting! Akela Talamasca also shot this gameplay footage:

exploration_CD.mov

Using Game Design to "foster social change"

17 January 2008

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The World Wide Workshop, an organisation commited to using the internet for educational purposes of youth and children in developing communities, has created a wonderful site called MyGLife.org, through it’s Globaloria Project. It’s still in Beta – so I haven’t been able to test it yet – but just look at this:

MyGLife.org is comprised of an open architecture of educational, programmable websites and related wikis that offer more than 100 educational activities, simulations and tutorials to play, learn, explore and contribute new ideas online.

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Gamers connecting through common interests – the new market?

11 January 2008

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According to Red Herring, game developer start-up, Outspark (site unavailable at writing moment) has managed to secure $11 million in funding from Tencent (a Chinese internet service company who’s mission is “to use Internet-related technologies for the betterment of human life”), Altos Ventures (Silicon Valley venture capital firm) and DCM (another venture capital firm in Silicon Valley).
Apparently they’re combining web 2.0 applications with casual games and focusing on revenue from the sales of virtual items – such as avatar clothing a.s.o. To me it all sounds very Habbo Hotel’ish, but why wouldn’t new gaming companies focus on the Habbo model?
It seems they’re using independently developed games and using them within they’re community. As Justin Moresco writes:

“And with an office in Seoul, Korea, Outspark hopes to tap into the
much-lauded game developer pool in the country. Both its current games, Fiesta
and Secret of the Solstic, are licensed from Korean developers.
Altos Venture general partner Han Kim said Outspark will continue to source games from Korea and then “localize” them for the North American market.”

I’m intrigued by the sourcing of gamedevelopers and the localizing efforts.
They’ve already registered one million users in the course of five months, which seems cautiously promising. I’m intrigued.
Venture Beat writes:

“Users get a single ID and use the same currency across all of Outspark’s games,
so they don’t need to sign up multiple times for the same services. The idea is
to encourage Outspark users to connect through common interests, not just
through the games they play together.”

P.S. – practicing writing articles in a hectic work day and publishing quickly – for reasons I’ll come back to soon. This was read about and reported in the course of 1 hour – constantly interrupted by other things. Me thinks me needs more practice – he he!

The art of McGee

28 December 2007

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American McGee’s in Shanghai developing Grimm with his company, Spicy Horse Games. And lucky for the world I live in, McGee’s a blogger! He was quiet there for a while – but he’s now frequently sharing his brilliant creations with us, his fans. One clue as to why I like McGee’s work is to be found on his ‘about’ page:
His stated mission is

“to create a unified production method for story telling across the interactive and film industries” and of himself, he says, “I want to be the next Walt Disney, only a little more wicked.”

It’s just so gutsy, ballsy and well…I’d say a realistic goal with such a creative mind as his. I like to think of him as one of the best storytellers in game art, so I think he’s well on his way to achieving this status. I’m a big fan, although, I actually haven’t played Bad Day LA yet. Like, Alice – I didn’t think it was quality McGee stuff – but it seems it might just be. OooOOoo – looking forward to having my account filled up again after a really expensive Christmas!

Digital Culture, Play and Identity – a WoW Reader

12 December 2007

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Keep a look out for Jill Walker Rettberg and Hilde Corneliussen‘s Digital Culture, Play and Identity. A World of Warcraft Reader which is now available for pre-order at amazon. The table of contents looks snazy, tasty and delicious. It’s a book I’ll definitely be reading no matter what I’m doing in my life at point of release. I can’t tell you what a thrill it is to have two women like Hilde and Jill at the university. I keep kicking myself, though, for staying the media studies path instead of joining the Humanities. Oh well – such is life. Either way, they’ve been such an inspirational source for me the last couple of years – and I’ve never even had them as a lecturer for any class! Jill’s publications can be found here and Hilde’s here. Seriously, though, whenever I was going mad with the complications of thinking about virtuality, their writings always made me see a light at the end of the tunnel. This promises to be an excellent book. Contributers include: Scott Rettberg, Lisbeth Klastrup, T.L. Taylor, Ragnhild Tronstad, Tanya Krzywinska, Espen Aarseth – and more!

Media Coverage

2 December 2007

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Marianne Westerlund wrote a great piece for Bergens Tidende, the Thursday paper – unfortunately I can’t find it anywhere online – which is a real bummer really. I asked most of the people who had showed up if they’d read it, but most shook their head and told me they never read the paper version anymore. Well – there’s some food for thought! But she wrote a great article where she had interviewed quite a few machinima artists about their art, which was just really really interesting. There’s also an interview with me – hehe – it was weird seeing the words “Says Linn Søvig while shaking her head”. But really cool as well – she’s a great journalist and I hope to read much much more of her stuff in the future!

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2 Films that didn’t make it

2 December 2007

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We never really had the opportunity to run through the whole program before the machinima night (my fault because I have to work during the day) – so I spontaneously cut 2 films from the program.

I already knew that we had too many films and that I would have to limit my time on the microphone. I wanted the films to speak for themselves – but then again – I have so much to say about these films. But in the end I was glad – because it turns out that I still get nervous with a microphone and specially when the room is filled with sceptics and people I admire so incredibly much. But I’ll get into that more later.

There was just too much, so I had to cut

Tristan Pope’s ‘Not Just Another Love Story’

Part 1

This one hurt me the most. Because I was talking to some folks after who started discussing why there weren’t any political machinima – and this was my example of that – but oh well! Another time.