Will you look at that? My name published in a Norwegian financial paper (well…the IT section, at least). It’s all a bit scary. And by golly I’ve promised to come with a series of articles! The pressure is on!
To be honest, I’m quite frightened about the law of it all, I’m still not sure I comprehend all that was talked about at the conference. Will have to dig deeper, I think. And I’m suppossed to be on holiday?! Naw – no use complaining – I’m lovin’ it!
Huh…exactly one week from today I’ll be prancing around the Marina Mandarin Singapore with a press badge! Yup – that’s right! I’ve actually been commissioned to write about the State of Play conference! So apparently, dreams really do come true!
It’s very bizarre being all proffessional. I’m so used to waving my arms franticly in the air only to be ignored and disappointed again and again, which then is followed by a lot of bitching and complaining about how negative and stupid the Norwegian industry is. Now, I’ve actually managed to get an audience which I have to admit has got me a tiny little bit freaked. It’s just so much more easier and comfortable sitting in the backseat complaining, than actually well…doing something constructive. So now that I have the attention, what is it really I want to say? Why exactly have I been franticly waving my hands in the air for attention?
My darling sis has started blogging! She’s always been the hardcore gamer of our family and offers some interesting stories from her WoWing. A few weeks in and she’s already in Cerise writing about the frustrations of being a non-stereotypical gamer customer.
She’s also an avid reader and offers her thoughts on the recent books she’s read.
Welcome to the world, Strumpet (honestly…I have no idea where this nic comes from).
Below you will find descriptions of nine hypothetical player patterns that
I would expect to find by examining the gaming audience in terms of the
following three areas: Caillois’ patterns of play, Agon, Alea, Mimicry
and Ilinx, plus Ludus and Paidia. No study has ever been conducted on player attitudes to these patterns, and I believe it could be useful.
Emotions. Not just the ones Nicole Lazzaro reports in her Four Keys Model (which of course I adore), but all the emotions that might apply: Sadness/Agony, Anger, Surprise/Fear, Disgust/Contempt, Amusement, Contentment, Excitement/Relief, Wonder, Bliss, Fiero, Naches, Elevation, Gratitude, Schadenfreude, Guilt/Shame, Embarrassment, and Envy. Plus emotion-like behaviours such as Curiosity, Belonging and Greed. (See here for more information). I expect to broadly validate the Four Keys model, strengthen the implied connection between Anger and Fiero, and demonstrate further connections previously unexplored such as Amusement outside of People Fun and Contentment as a key play emotion previously overlooked because of the method used for Four Keys. Skills (derived from Temperament Theory), namely Strategic, Tactical, Logistical and Diplomatic skill sets.
Every now and then a ‘battle of the sexes’ discussion comes up in the gaming blogosphere which always stirs up a loud debate. Personally I think these debates can be healthy because I’m always introduced to new voices, which I enjoy. I may be getting old because I really don’t get provoked by the sexist comments – instead they just make me chuckle.
Recently Crecente from Kotaku wondered why there aren’t more female gaming bloggers. Apparently Kotaku’s looking to expand their repertoire and want to include a female voice in their writing staff – well good for them.
The shocker, however was:
‘But despite my digging around and my somewhat overt nosing around at GDC, I was hard-pressed to find the same sort of, for lack of a better term, job pool that I usually find with male writers.’
My experience coincides with ‘Always Makes Me LOL’ Amber Night:
‘This seems a little strange to me, since my own experience has been that there is fairly large pool of female bloggers in the gaming space’
I find it incredibly odd. And I have to admit that a thought passed through my mind wondering if Crecente posted this piece just so we could point him in the right direction so he didn’t have to bother looking.
So yet again ‘the battle of the sexes’ discussion has produced something wonderful. One Hundred Little Dolls has written a list of female gaming bloggers and I’m sure we’ll see it growing too! A joy to see some locals on the list: Jill Walker, Hilde Corneliussen and Torill Mortensen – I’m so proud! I can’t wait to go on a little link adventure and explore these blogs! Wouldn’t it be precious if T.L. Taylor started blogging?!
Raph Koster has released yet another excellent presentation slideshow from one of his talks. This time it’s five years old – but I agree with him when he says “…the examples are dated, I don’t think the state of the art has moved forward in most of these areas”.
“Storytelling in the online medium”
Would be such a joy to experience one of these talks like someday!
I remember back in 1999 I tried becoming a member of The Well. I had to list a few things that interested me and wanted to ‘discuss’ – being a young student who had just been introduced to new ways of thinking, I registered that I was interested in conspiracy theories. I wanted to register something that I could get into heavy discussions about because that’s what The Well is all about – discussions – and I thought that I had plenty to say about the subject. Boy was I wrong! I got a few messages inviting me to join discussions and they were all filled with dreadful warning language like “You better be interested and not one of those fools who just sit and discuss conspiracy theories for fun!”. I never did join any of those discussion groups, they were all just a tad too serious for me and I ended up not renewing my The Well subscription because I just couldn’t figure out what I wanted to talk about. Everyone was so extremely serious about their subjects of interest and I was just there trying desperately to become a member of an online community and I felt like a fool because there was not one particular subject I felt qualified enough to be a part of.
I had a conversation with a fellow student the other day and we both figured out that our executive decision to stop gaming so that we could finish our thesis’ was a really bad idea!!! We both concluded that we would be finished now if we had continued gaming!! It’s all about instant happiness and gratification!!! So yeah! Free Yourself!!!!! ;)
From Wooster Collective.
There’s been some interesting blogposts lately about the frustrations of what articles to put where, what to discuss where and what words describe what?
Aleks, at The Guardian Games Blog ponders on the acceptability to blog about social software in a games oriented blog. Second Life (which my puter stubbornly is denying me access to), MySpace, Flickr and del.icio.us all encompass play, as well – but is it right to discuss them in a games blog?
“For me, social software often fits the bill more so than goal-directed environments in which I have to shoot things (badly), solve puzzles (incorrectly) or collect items I don’t care about (slowly). Yet in these environments there is play. Even if the play is not formal, there are playful experiences. And so I think they deserve as much time on here as the latest chart toppers.”
I think I disagree. I think we’ve moved beyond this now – these places deserve their own spaces for discussion. But ofcourse, sometimes these social software sites produce games as well and sometimes people make some fascinating gaming observations of them, like “Digg-ing the game”! Which definitely deserves discussion in a games blog!
Meanwhile, over at Wonderland, Alice ponders about BBC’s editorial decision to report that the World of Warcraft expansion is delayed in the Technology section, alongside news about YouTube and Google. I think a lot of news about World of Warcraft is very interesting to technology readers and definitely deserves space there as a lot of what’s going on there has to do with technology, culture and society. But that the expansion is delayed is pure entertainment news, to be sure! I understand that it can be confusing at times, though. Seb Potter has a comment which I agree with:
“I’d like to see “Virtual” as a section, but I guess you’d start to need to just duplicate all the categories of real-life news eventually.”
I’m partial to ‘Virtual Life’ as a section. Some World of Warcraft news is pure gaming news, technology news and virtual life news – we shouldn’t have to think that just because World of Warcraft is a game, that all news from within has to be documented in a games section. And I certainly feel that there is room for another section of news with the title ‘Virtual Life’ – I’m sure most gamers who don’t play Second Life are extremely tired of all the Second Life news in their medium, and well…Second Life isn’t a game! BUT! If someone were to design a really cool game in Second Life – I’m sure they’d love to read about it! And as for the technology section, I’m sure the social impact new technology has had in MMORPGs is only interesting to a certain point, I think it’s time to move on! Unless you’re actually interested in ‘virtual life’! Sigh…am I making any sense?
It certainly is obvious that we’re at a crossroads here, which is so exciting! I can imagine myself as a granny someday saying “Oh…I remember back when we thought these worlds were just games for pure entertainment! Ha ha ha! We were so naive!”
Remember What The Dormouse Said 
