Rune Klevjer presented his PhD thesis on Friday – sadly I had to work, so missed it! But I’m so looking forward to reading
What is the avatar! Fiction and Embodiment in Avatar-Based Singleplayer Computer Games.
I’m sure it’s absolutely amazing! No doubt!
It’s funny how certain tragic events can spawn new luscious things!
There’s been a whole lotta uproar these past few weeks because Super Columbine Massacre RPG was pulled as a finalist from the Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Competition.
Personally, I can’t believe they waited for it to get so far only to pull it off the list – which makes me rather suspicious. They write that:
“There are always legal checks and balances with any Slamdance program. Specifically with the subject matter of Super Columbine Massacre Role Playing Game Slamdance does not have the resources to defend any drawn out civil action that our legal council has stated can easily arise from publicly showing it.”
Man! Capitalist society can be such a ruthless freedom-of-speech stomping evil dictatorship!
Then, other game developers start pulling their games from the festival in an act of solidarity. TGC (thatgamecompany) explained it very nicely:
“As game designers, each project we have done so far, and plan on doing in the future, aims at showing games as a serious and expressive medium. We cannot help but wonder, if SCMRPG were a film, if the reaction by the Slamdance organizers would have been the same. Removing it from the festival is discouraging, because it implies that games are still not to be taken seriously, that games are only for mindless fun. If we are trying to work against this stigma as artists, then we also have to fight against this stigma as entrants in the festival as well.”
So this incident has really triggered an inspirational discussion about games as art! Which I think is really exciting! And my heart pounded even more when I read Clive Thompson‘s excellent piece, ‘I,Columbine’ in Wired this week! I don’t think I’m exaggerating by saying it’s the best artistic critical analysis of a game I have ever read!
You’re constantly reminded of how creepily unbalanced Harris and Klebold were. One minute they’re tossing off nihilistic riffs: “When I’m in my human form, knowing I’m going to die, everything has a touch of triviality to it,” Klebold muses. The next minute they’re quoting Shakespeare: “Good wombs hath borne bad sons.
I’m having a hard time pulling out quotes because it’s all so relevant and good – but I’ll paste this one in just in case you don’t read the whole thing – but you really should! It’s a beautiful beginning of art criticism in games!
“It uses the language of games as a way to think about the massacre. Ledonne, like all creators of “serious games”, uses gameplay as a rhetorical technique.”
Gameplay as rhetorical technique! I love it!!!
It’s tragic that Slamdance felt they had to pull it from the competition – but I’m loving the discussions that have spawned from it!
I can’t stress enough how unbelievably great Chris Bateman‘s blog is for anyone wishing to look into what games are!
He’s got a great post about Wii and Kinaesthetic Mimicry in video games! He’s so generous with sharing his knowledge, experience, thoughts and time! I know some readers of this blog are thinking about writing about games for their thesis – subscribe to the feeds of this blog – you’ll be so much richer for it!
Oh dear – I feel compelled to write a list now – seems unfair to just mention Only A Game – but my list is long – and that should be designated to another post, I think!
So they’ve had a State of Play conference in New York and Mark Wallace does a wonderful job of summing up the whole thing – bless him! Looks like they’ve really been critical of themselves and looking to see what could be done in future research – which I think is good!
One thing that surprised me however was Jesper Juul’s post on the discussion of ‘games have rules’. I’ve accepted that ages ago, and I really don’t understand what the problem is in acknowledging that games have rules and most importantly NEED rules – but apparently, they still can’t agree on that. Juul breaks the discussion down to two positions – pro-rules vs. anti-rules.
“Pro-rules people generally make pragmatic descriptions of the gameplaying activity, and anti-rules people commonly apply a general poststructuralist skapticism towards descriptions of structure.”
I’m baffled that this is still disagreed upon. In my thesis (which I’d love to write all over again) I broke everything down to two issues – gameplay and societal -> rules and identity. Just because some players choose to defy some of these rules doesn’t mean that they’re not complying with them. Rather acknowledging them to then defy them. The gameplay rules are what makes the world a game – and we mustn’t forget that worlds like, Second Life are NOT games – so we should stop using them as examples. The societal rules are something that is considered by your gameplay method and social communication. Um – maybe I’m not ready to talk about this yet.
Ooooh!!! I was in stitches!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Firstly…this gruesome, yet somehow hillarious story from a very unfortunate WoW’er on his way to meet an in-game friend in Canada. It all started with an ipod and an airline toilet – to then having to explain WoW and guilds to two very angry detectives! Poor thing!!! Terrifying, but so surreal, you just can’t help but laugh!
And then there’s this very amusing post pondering how a rich person could buy their way into überdom in WoW, how much it would cost a.s.o. – I loved it!!
Will Wright (omg I’ve become a groupie haven’t I?) spoke at BAFTA on “The Future of Games” and David Hayward was generous enough to blog his great notes (bless him!). Inspiring, as expected! “They teach systemic thinking. Players learn to analyse and play systems of rules. They can also teach us to navigate the future. They could teach kids to think long term instead of short term.” Wooo haaa!!! But you know…sometimes I’m worried that we’re all just a bit too optimistic.
I’m glad I’m alone here right now and no serious students around trying to study! I just had one of my surfing breaks from my hellish monstrosity and was introduced to the Reservoir Dogs Game ads!!! I love them!!! I’m sorry – I know they’re crude and all that….but I’m certainly smitten!!!
Aleks at the Guardian Games Blog asks if it isn’t illegal to use kids to promote something “that would give broadcast output an 18+ rating”? That’s an interesting question actually! How exactly are broadcasting regulations and the internet combined?! Ooooohhh!!! This would be a great subject for a Master’s thesis!!! Although I’m sure it’s already been written a lot about….seems so familiar…yet I cannot remember what the law is! Must restrain myself from searching for the info – MUST FINISH, MUST FINISH!!!
Anyways! Hope you enjoy them just as much as I did!
“You can’t put emotion into games. Games are just code, they just sit there – the emotion is in the player”
Huh…well this is interesting! The words were uttered by Margaret Robertson, Editor of Edge Magazine at the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival.
She had an interesting observation on the Final Fantasy issue (you know…the ‘games that make you cry’ issue). In Ren Reynolds‘ Gamasutra write up of her talk:
“The popular theory about why Final Fantasy is emotionally engaging, Robertson explained, is that it’s because of the story, but she added: “No one can ever remember what the story was”. What people do remember are individual characters and the impact their stories have on us as players. An example of this is the character of Vivi, who experiences an emotional rollercoaster near the end of the game.
With Vivi, “…you always had the sense that something tragic was about to happen” Robertson said, but it is important to understand the events in the context of played experience. When we are hit with the revelations about the character the player has probably been with the game for 20 hours or so, usually spread over weeks. In this case, Robertson said ‘it’s not emotional sophistication, it’s attrition’.”
She provides some fabulous examples of emotions and games, even where they seem unlikely, such as Ouendan – and does a fairly convincing argument that “One thing that is often overlooked is that making someone cry can be a mechanical process”.
This whole narratology vs ludology discussion is quite…well…ARGH! Just frustrating, I guess – and ofcourse this comes from the fact that we’re still trying to figure out the language of games.
So I had a glance at my huge ‘to read’ pile the other day, upset because I keep maneuvering myself into tight suffocating corners that I can’t spread my wings and fly away from. But I guess that’s what writing a thesis is all about ey? Narrowing things down to the bare essentials and constantly contradicting oneself?
Anyways! I pulled out some Gonzalo Frasca, which I had put aside because I naively thought I could escape the whole narratology vs ludology debate! He uses a Markku Eskelinen quote which I LOVE!
“As Markku Eskelinen argues, “outside academic theory people are usually
excellent at making distinctions between narrative, drama, and games. If I
throw a ball at you I don’t expect you to drop it and wait until it starts
telling stories””
Don’t you just love that?! What a great way to mock the debate! Anyways…the article (or is it an introduction chapter?) can pretty much be summed up by:
You’ll be reading a bit more about this later on today or tomorrow! I’m at work right now and I don’t have my Jesper Juul or Espen Aarseth notes available!
Hmmm….so why did I even bother writing this post? Well first off…you have to admit that quote is amusing, but probably because I’m in the middle of writing a job application to a really cool job, and didn’t want the first post they saw to be my emotional worship of the Sultan’s Elephant! He he! The dilemma’s of linking to your blog everywhere and at the same time trying to sell yourself as a sane desirable person!!
Remember What The Dormouse Said 