Tag Archives: play

Bogost & Colbert

8 August 2007

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Ian Bogost was a guest on The Colbert Report promoting his new book, “Persuasive Games. The Expressive Power of Video Games” – oh the courage!! I have to say, I was partially disappointed and partially impressed. Disappointed by Stephen Colbert, because I didn’t find his jokes that amusing and impressed by Bogost because he articulates his thoughts so well – it must be pure joy to be in his class. I was expecting to have a good chuckle but instead I’m in a pondering mode. Ian Bogost says that video games are an expressive medium because “video games model the way things work”. To me, there’s not question – he brings up an interesting example from San Andreas where the only thing you can eat to get energy levels up is fast food a.s.o. He sums up really nicely by accepting Colbert’s pun on World of Warcraft preparing him for orc invasion “You will be ready to think of the way things work”, the system, the complexity. I think that’s very nicely put. Video games do make you think about the way all things are interconnected and related to each other! Whew – sounds very philosophical! Persuasive Games are designed to comment on society and politics – and they manage to do this through gameplay – not interactive storytelling – but gameplay – they’re really quite genius!
Will you look at that? I can embed a Comedy Central clip – lovely!

 

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Ian Bogost
www.colbertnation.com
http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:91012
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

Now I need to run! I’ve got so much fun stuff to do and my head is just spinning with excitement and delight – need to take a breath and focus on one thing at a time!

Is the Second Life hype brought on by overly eager marketing types, killing Second Life?

31 July 2007

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Yesterday my feed reader was bombarded with Norwegian articles and blog posts about Second Life. Now, being a ‘job hunter’ who wants to continue working within the virtual world field, I get quite excited about such days! When I hardly have time to read all the Norwegian news about a virtual world – that means my future job prospects are looking up, right? Ssshhhh – don’t answer that – let me continue being deluded, sometimes ignorance is bliss and hopeful! ;)

The attention, it seems, comes from Wired’s “How Madison Avenue Is Wasting Millions on a Deserted Second Life” by Frank Rose about how most places in Second Life are deserted and businesses aren’t finding the consumer wealth they were looking for. I’m not certain what to make of it all. Two thoughts spring to mind: 1) Refreshing to see Second Life getting som critical press coverage from Wired 2) Do I really care enough about Second Life to go defend it on the different critical Norwegian blogs and websites? Not really.

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Naw – lawsuits can’t happen here because it’s virtual FANTASY world!

12 July 2007

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This is an odd tv segment. I found it interesting and just really weird (even odder – I was absolutely certain I’d blogged about the case – but apparently not, must be getting confused with my del.icio.us’ing).
So for those out of the loop:

South Korea claims tax on Virtual Goods

3 July 2007

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Worlds In Motion (which I’ll get back to later) reports that Korea’s National Tax Service (NTS) “has begun adding the new tax automatically to all virtual transactions involving real money as of July 1st, says the report, translated as follows:

Sellers who do between 6 and 12 million won ($6,500 – $13,000)/half year in
business will have VAT auto applied by transaction’s middle-man.

Sellers who do more than 12 million won/half year in business will need a
business will need a business license and will pay the tax by themselves”

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Social Networks in Virtual Worlds

1 July 2007

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Here’s a video of one of Aleks Krotoski‘s presentation entitled “Social Networks in Virtual Worlds” – it was a refreshing find. Aleks doesn’t focus too much on the ‘OMG!’ factor and is very straight to the point about her research. She’s also willing to share her methods of research which I found extremely interesting and helpful. This should be useful to some people out there! ;) The more I think about my own thesis the more I wish I had spent more time on methodology techniques, so methodology has started to interest me. I feel like my thesis discusses more what we’re talking about and why and chapter 2 should be something like “Ok, now we know ‘what’ now let’s concentrate on how to really research the ‘what’!”.

It’s a great find – but I’m writing this already late for an appointment so I haven’t done enough digging from where and why this presentation was held. All I know is that it’s from an event called “Massively Multi-Learner” at The University of Paisley.

Video thumbnail. Click to play
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BBC on goldfarming

8 May 2007

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I’m a big fan of the BBC! Here’s a nice little segment on how and why virtual currency in WoW has become so popular. I really like it because it gets to the heart of the matter and doesn’t dwell on the dramatic realization that people are using real money to buy virtual things. It’s really to the point – and I’m so glad that they included a Blizzard representative that could voice their concerns with RMT. Thanks sis for sending it to me!

Bully

15 October 2006

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You can’t really surf through the web, like I do, and not have heard of Rockstar’s new Bully! I’m certain most households are aware of it’s existence and that it’s coming out October 17th. There have been protests and court cases. All of these, include Jack Thompson, ofcourse! I mean…how irresponsible to come with comments like “Columbine Simulator” – that’s just tearing up wounds and fears that should be left to heal.
I haven’t played it yet, but I really can’t wait! And after watching the trailer, bellow, I can’t help thinking that this game is really a social commentary! An investigation into school politics from the kids perspective, if you will! But ofcourse I may be wrong! I just seems to me that the game is trying to mediate something, actually using game as media! Oh how I love that!

What an excellent way to be a fan!

27 September 2006

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I’ve been completely smitten by Keane’s “Crystal Ball”! I know, I’m late and everyone else is probably sick of it – but I’m completely and utterly smitten!!! I saw a clip of the music video and there was my favorite B-actor (oh dear…is that an insult?)! Does anyone else have those? Actors that you just adore, but don’t remember the name of?

Anyways, wanted to have a look at the whole video and naturally headed over to YouTube! And, naturally the RIAA had requested the video removed! Idiots!

But ofcourse I found so much more interesting stuff with the song!!! A Lost mashup! An adorable puppet! A Harry Potter love triangle drama! Three best friends portraying the weirdness of growing up (I think)! An amusement park mash-up! And….

Well…I think I’m gonna have to stop there, the song’s starting to wear thin in my ears! Hehe!

I think this stuff is just adorable and entertaining (although I really shouldn’t be spending this much time enjoying myself). And ofcourse….how could I ever mention fan culture without mentioning machinima?!!! Hehe!

Girl gamers

22 September 2006

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I had the priveledge of meeting a new enthusiastic Media Masters student a few weeks ago looking to write something about gaming. Yay!!!!! From what I understand, she had grown up being a bit of a gamer and didn’t quite understand why other girls weren’t as well. We ended up having a conversation about the phenomenon “female closet gamers”. You know the type…the girls who’ll gladly dismiss games as a waste of time and a nerdy thing – but secretly they have a nintendo at home! Anyways…it seems like this is the topic she wants to pursue – and I just thought I’d throw it out there and see if anyone knows of someone doing something of the same research?

I guess she’s gonna have to divide between casual and ‘serious’ (although I hate that word) gamers. And I know I’ve got some articles hidden away here somewhere in my del.icio.us. (it’s taken me SUCH a long time to find a tagging system that actually works for me – some stuff just gets lost). I’m wondering how best to tackle such a question.

I’ve already mentioned Hilde Corneliussen (also…didn’t a student from good ol’ HI department hand in a thesis about this recently?)and Torill Mortensen. Also Henry Jenkins ofcourse.

The student is a blogger – AND WE LOVE BLOGGERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So bless her!!!

She’s written a post where she ponders about tackling the Nintendo Wii and how they’re trying to bring in the casual gamers and women (in Norwegian) and I was thinking it might be interesting to analyse how the Xbox360, PS3 and Wii differ in their advertising.

But I thing she’s more of an audience kind of gal! I’m wondering if the answer lies in finding the hardcore female gamers who are out of the closet, interview them to see if they think it’s a big deal or not? And I think maybe she should stay away from MMORPGs – because they sometimes seem to be an exception. And I think it would be cool to look at 20 year olds and above.

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