J676: Video games and mass communication

Schools out!

2008-07-11T17:56:00.002-05:00

Thanks for a great class, everybody. I'll leave the weblog active for a few months in case anybody ever wants to post some more video game goodness here. Hopefully we'll get to run this course again at UW-Madison sometime! Cheers,

GREG

Second Life

2008-07-11T15:32:00.002-05:00

My experience with second life is the first time I have ever explored a virtual world. Seeing the way people interact and roam about these worlds was totally alien to me. The closest experience I’ve had prior to this would probably be Final Fantasy, but the characters in that game are only programmed. It is also funny to see how the materialistic world also enters into these games. Especially interesting to me is the idea that you can actually buy cyber real estate and create your own estate in the virtual world. Why this appeals to people I’m not sure. The part that involved roaming virtual worlds makes sense to me and communicating with other avatars, but buying virtual real estate just seems a little ridiculous. My avatar I choose to use, as you all saw, was a blue dragon. Although I did some modding, I think the blue dragon still exists. I don’t think I’d ever really enjoy playing as my true self in such a game--Probably because it would not feel real to me. In either case, I like to keep my person to people that actually are agents in my life—at least in actual reality. I am glad to finally see the world I have been completely uninvolved with but understand the attraction and value of such games.

2008-07-11T14:35:00.001-05:00

p.s. my character won't publish to the blog for some reason, but he was a stick figure holding an accordian--nothing major

All Bow Before the Accordion Thief

2008-07-11T14:33:00.001-05:00

I logged in under the name AuroraNever during my play of Kingdom of Loathing for this weeks hand on assignment and had quite an interesting experience therein. Who knew that the world of biting sarcasm and stick figures could be so uneventfully-eventful. Yes, indeed, I too followed the tutorial with the Toot Oriole on Mt. Noob, north of the plains. I found this character to be rather hilarious, having made the game play more interesting with his off-beat humor and snide manor, though, I have to admit, I’ve met snarkier folks in my life. The toot sent me down into a cave at the foot of the mountain where he had hid some shiny pebbles. He said that I could spend several of my allotted adventures in the cave and so I ventured inward, hoping to see some stalactites if I could.

My passageway inside the cave was blocked by a stack of large crates. Therein, “[I] saunter up to the pile of crates and, pretending that it's the jukebox back at Al's Diner, hit it in exactly the right place with your elbow. It sets up a series of reverberations that resound through the corridor, blasting all of the crates to powder. Moxious!” After all of my effort, however, this only marked a dead end., I gained two sarcasm points from this adventure and ended up ‘looking cool’ in the act, so all in all, I can’t really complain.

A cave in! Oh no! This marks the second of my twists-and-turns in this game. I move the boulder and gain one ‘fortitude point’ while commenting on how good this will be for my figure. I move, under the boulder lifted above my head, and continue on. Luckily, at this point in my journey, my growing thirst does not go unanswered, as I come upon a blue body of water. There, I use a Frisbee to scoop the water and drink it. Apparently, it was delicious.

Finally, my actions do not go un-awarded, as I found behind a pile of laundry the pile of shiny pebbles the Toot had sent me in after. I bring the pebbles back to the bird, but he doesn’t do much of anything in response. From there, I adventure into the Hall of The Legends of The Times of Old. Herein, I do not have the proper keys to access the doors, and gesture to one day find my way through.

All in all, I found the tone of this game interesting and its twists and turns rather random and funny. I like the minimalist approach taken by the games authors in creating a world in which I can roam about unabated while getting a few laughs out of the process.

Kingdom of Loathing

2008-07-11T12:42:00.002-05:00

I would just like to preface with the fact that MMOGs don't appeal to me at all. Personally, I don't see what the fuss is about and what their appeal is and I just don't find them interesting. So I decided to stay away from World of Warcraft and Second Life, and wanted to give Kingdom of Loathing a shot. Suprisingly, I found it fun.

I started out by creating a character (dubbed Tom Cruise) and picked the character of a Disco Bandit. When I started the game, I spent about a half hour interacting with the Toot Oriole, which was my first introduction to the humor and sarcasm in the game. Liking sarcasm, this hooked me into the game a little bit. I did some tasks for the Toot Oriole such as buying gum on a stick to fish for a worthless trinket, killing bunnies for meat, repairing his favorite action figure, and going to get a golden twig from a hermit. After completing the tutorial, I was left to explore a little bit on my own. I went to the nearby plains and into Cobb's Knob where I fought a Knob Goblin BBQ team, got medicine for a guard who stubbed his toe, and taught a kid about vandalism and petty theft.

Overall, I had a better than expected time playing this game. The wit and mostly text-based really intrigued me and this is a game that I would definitely consider playing if I wanted something to do. However, I still refuse and will never play World of Warcraft.

Vodka Martinis and Saucerors

2008-07-10T20:52:00.004-05:00

I began playing KoL just before the beginning of the week, hoping to get an edge on the work I knew that I'd need to do. Overall, I chose it, largely because I was looking for something that wouldn't have a truly MMO feel. I've seen too many people get sucked into WoW or other games, and I didn't want to be yet another casualty to them.

Making my character, I patterned it after my best friend (as much as one could), and so I quickly decided that she would be a Sauceror (my best friend is more saucier than pasta chef).

Quickly, one of the things that I found most appealing is the way in which turns are handled. There are only a finite number of turns that you can use in a particular real-world day. In essence, the game only lets you play just so much, and after that, you simply cannot adventure any longer for the day. In a way, this puts a natural limit on the ability of a player to just gun a whole crap-ton of hours on the game, and just continuously farm an area for cash. If you want to farm an area for value, it absolutely will LITERALLY take you days to do so, if you want to really spend the time. Personally, I love this feature. It also helps to both stoke and suppress the addictive nature of the game.

Since I took that screen shot of my campsite, I've progressed a few levels, and am soon to make Level 7, I hope. Right now, I'm at Thyme Wizard. Wish me luck in leveling up!

The End of the World...of Warcraft!

2008-07-10T20:40:00.008-05:00

For this last hand-on assignment I decided to take advantage of my WoW account. I started playing again after the semester ended with a group of friends--shame on me, I know. Not many things have chanced since I played last so there are few new experiences I can chat about. Instead of commenting on an hour of play I'll talk about the past two months and my playing.

I don't consider myself one of those "hardcore", end game players. I'm more into the PvP (player vs player) part of the game. PvP consists of Battlegrounds and Arena games. The battlegrounds are instances where 10v10, 15v15, or 25v25 players battle it out in games of capture the flag, controlling areas, or killing a leader. In arenas teams of 2v2, 3v3, or 5v5 battle each other to the "death" with the winner's rating going up and the loser's going down. All of these reward the player with "honor" which he can turn in for items. I've had many experiences in the BG's and arenas, most being the victor.

My character at the moment is "Wait" a undead priest. For the past two months I've been leveling as fast as possible so I can play with my friends at 70. I cheat and use mods to quest--mods that show me what to do, not actually cheat the leveling system. I plan to PvP with my friends until the summer is over and they quit, then try to sell my account for whatever I can get for it.

I highly discourage anyone to play the game, since it can be addicting and a waste of time, lol.

The screenshot below is a shot of me "camping" another player. Camping is when you wait by the players corpse until they resurrect and then killing them again, etc etc.

Daily Life on a Synthetic Earth

2008-07-10T20:39:00.000-05:00

Castronova's goal for this article was to give unaware readers an overview of how someone gets into a synthetic world and what to do when you enter. He does this by taking the reader on a "tour" of the typical experience of getting involved in a massive online rpg.

The tour ends up being more than half of the article and needs no explaining, but there were three important moments in it. He goes over all three in the most important section of the article, "reality check".

The first of the moments he reflected over was when the avatars attributes felt like they were your own. He states that it seems to be psychologically natural because you begin to feel the avatar as just an extension of your own body. He claims it is similar to a man with a prosthetic arm calling it his own arm.

The second moment is when you acquired an emotional investment in a virtual world event. This occurred when Ethelbert took 5 of the 10 bottles Sabert had found and Sabert became angry. It may seem silly to those who haven’t ever played an online game to become emotionally flustered because someone took something that is made of 0s and 1s from you.
The third and final point of reflection is when Sabert was thankful for Ethelbert when he gave him the gold piece. The difference between the bottle and the gold piece is the gold piece cant help you fly like the special ale. So what value does it have? Financial value. Massive online games have an economy just like in the real world. That is why Sabert was filled with joy when he received the gold.

Castronova then goes on to talk about how factors in the game can jump the digital line and effect events in the real world. The real world economy can be affected by events in the game. A good example of this is the gold farmers that are well known from World of Warcraft. He also goes into that social effects and political effects can also spill over and affect the real world.

Overall this article is like an “idiots guide to” MMORPGs. It is clearly meant for readers who are inexperienced in the online gaming world or those who are looking to learn about it.

Hermit Permits and Earning Meat

2008-07-10T17:19:00.002-05:00

I first played Kingdom of Loathing several years ago, when it first came out. It was all the rage among my nerdy community of Internet friends and, steeped as we were in the lore and mythology that goes along with said communities, all the inside jokes in KoL were heartily received. The beauty of the game was its ironic simplicity, particularly in the face of the ever complex MMORPGs that were becoming popular at the time. For someone like me, who enjoyed throwbacks to an earlier time, when the Internet was a "text-based medium" (har har), the stick-figure drawings and simple interface were charming and welcome.

We quickly got into the game and, as I played for purposes of class, I remembered how truly addictive it is. The hook, in this case, is to see what quirky, fun inside joke lies around the corner; it's certainly not cool graphics that brings one into the game.

The other great part of the game is that it's browser-based, making it accessible from just about any computer with an Internet connection. No fancy software is needed, and it's easy to log in and play a few moves from, say, work - not that I am advocating this.

I chose to be a Pastamancer this time around, and I am tickled by the fact that the game has both Pastamancers and Saucerors, mirroring the classic RPG distinction between various kinds of magic users...oh, the list of references to the canon of RPG and geek culture goes on and on and on. This game is so clever.

Thanks for getting me cracked out again.

Lots of Moxie have I

2008-07-10T09:50:00.002-05:00

For this weeks hands on assignment, I entered the world of Kingdom of Loathing as Buddy-Lee, the Disco Bandit. Right off the bat I felt a little lost, as little informmation was provided about the different character classes. After a little thought I managed to map the short descriptions given onto my pre-existing schema of characters for this style of game (WoW, D&D) and began to feel much more at home. After creating my character, a much more simplified experience than experienced in similar games, I proceeded through the "tutorial" sections provided by the bird on top of the mountain. I quickly began to try to "game" the system. As I knew that I would only be playing for a short time, I repeated the first "quest" over 80 times, racking up extreme levels of the different drops (still a little unsure what these will do). Following this I proceeded onto the next quest and slayed the horribly vicious bunnies (see, Tim the Enchanter was right).
All things considered I enjoyed my time in the KoL. The stripped down user interface did present some problems (I had issues returning to the main screen after entering the inventory, skills, etc.) but the sarcasm and overall style presented a truly enjoyable experience. I never made it out of the training area, which I beleive to be the reason why I was working/playing in isolation, but hope to soon. I wouldn't recommend this game to people who have never played a MMO or RPG before, but for fans of the genres it is a wonderfully loving and insightful spoof.

Sharendipity in the news

2008-07-10T07:33:00.001-05:00

The Capital Times has an article on Sharendipity today in "77 Square":

Sharendipity was founded by Gehring, Greg Tracy, Jeffrey Hoffman and Dale Beermann, who all worked together at UltraVisual Medical Systems. UltraVisual was acquired by Emageon in 2003.

Emageon went public in 2005, and moved its operations from Madison to the Milwaukee suburb of Hartland the following year. The quartet had made enough money in the IPO that they could afford to leave Emageon and stay in Madison.

"We didn't actually have a concept," said Gehring. "We actually sat around a conference table and brainstormed about things we might work on. We had worked together for years, and we knew all it would take was the idea, and we could build whatever that was. We had broad experience and different areas of expertise. We just had a lot of confidence that we could figure something out."

Gehring said that inspiration for Sharendipity came from his two daughters' math schoolwork.

An early idea for the company was software that would allow students to visualize and better understand algebraic equations.

That evolved into a more general platform that would enable algebra teachers, students or parents to make algebra software. But it was broad enough that other users could take the software and create physics software, or a game. The company hopes to help people create their own applications.

Retrogamers rejoice

2008-07-09T13:08:00.002-05:00

Being an insane fan of the original 8-bit Megaman series, when Nintendo announced that they were releasing a new Megaman game for the Wii I freaked out adequately. Then when I found out they were doing it in 8-bit, and having it play much like the old nintendo classics, I freaked out even more. Here is a link to the story:

http://www.nintendowiifanboy.com/tag/mega-man-9/

But, what this really gets me thinking about is how now that we've advanced graphics so far (think about how good GTA4 looks) they are going back to retrogaming programs. I've heard rumors that if this megaman does well, they are going to start up making sequels to old classics with the same graphics and platforms as the games we remember and love. Siiiiigh. It's a happy thought.

Whose Game is this Anyway?

2008-07-08T21:27:00.001-05:00

Article summary- Marlon H.

This article starts out by noting the creative power offered by several games, including City of Heroes (Coh), which behaves much like a “high-tech deck of crayons,” serving the gamer in their ability to create (even in cases of copyright infringement) super heroes. This, again, reminds us of the upcoming game Spore, in the two games abilities to create worlds, obscene creations (if intended, such as Boobalicous, a Spore character created by someone that caused controversy for her robust, naked mid region). With the use of these “Creation Engine’s” as the starting point of his article, T.I. Taylor makes it perfectly clear that from creating “tax protests in Second Life, to offering out underage prostitutes in the Sims, anything is possible in the world of games such as these.

Taylor continues by explaining that the original form of these games came in the package of text-based MUDs. “But the current terrain of multiuser game space looks quite different…the move to commercialized virtual environments is presenting some unique challenges for users negotiating between their private lives and corporate interests” (126). The boundaries once erected between consumers and producers have been seriously warped.

Taylor’s thesis: “The struggles, discussions, and debates taking place in game communities about the status of player and company ownership, as well as questions of responsibility and accountability” goes to the heart of our everyday interactions with technology and culture, within our “citizenship in commercial society.” In short, the precedents being set now for the “networked future” of media have been arbitrated through “commercialized systems of authorship and exchange,” wherein there is quite a deal of interplay between the creators, consumers, and regulators, etc., of games.

The many spheres of communication orbiting around any video game—e.g. fan forums, etc.—represent the “collective production of game experience.” That is to say, if these newer forms of media did not exist, the game would not be recognized as the same, as they have been incorporated on the fringes of the game space, and once clean, now tangled boundaries separating the game from the rest have become faded and smudged. Consumers, essentially, serve as a wall of the echo chamber for game creators, “beta-testing” games for creators.

Other than the game creators there exist a plethora of co-constructions that play a hand in deciding the formulation of the space surrounding the game. Taylor mentions designers, managers, legal counselors, marketers, and everyday players, creating a perpetual tug-of-war over the game.

Culture matters- today’s ‘culture’ sees a great extension in authorship rights, explains Taylor, wherein well-branded and well-protected brands pervade into cultural spaces, begging the question of how much creative control the average consumer has. Consumerism, he argues, is colliding with citizenship. This leads the article down the avenue of exploring the consequences of commercializing virtual community spaces (e.g. Sunny-D and the digital Hills?).

.With so many corporations being considered legal ‘citizens’ in the court of law, Taylor argues that copyright laws, which are meant to die off after said author kick’s the boot, can today be as immortal as any number of undying corporations. And what about the creators of the pieces within the larger work owned by the corporation? Well, they have no rights to it either. It’s the corporation that owned them when the piece was created and therefore the corporations it remains.

Indeed, Taylor points out, it is hard to imagine a world without brands. This same war has extended to the digital world today on a worse level, as people are unable to alter characters legitimately (back to the Marvel heroes example). This is where we really get into the meat of the article, as Taylor questions when or whether it ever should become ok for a piece of intellectual property to become public domain.
This leads the discussion down a familiar avenue dealing with file-sharing networks such as Napster. “Game worlds,” explains Taylor, “do not lie outside of our ongoing cultural battles, anxieties, or innovations but very often mirror them quite well” (p. 129). This leads us to question, again, whether players are in fact co-authors of the game spaces that they help change over time. Should people be allowed to sell high scoring game accounts that they put labor into creating? This bothers game creators that charge a monthly subscription for playing the game, as any financial shortcut under the table for a player means cash out of the pocket for the game creators. The larger question on Taylor’s mind, however, is about the “nature of the game and the status of the artifacts in it” (p. 130). Within this view, this phenomenon represents something potentially damaging to the game. This type of problem could be especially damaging for games that rely on reputation, etc. This could be especially damaging to Massive Multiplayer Games, wherein it could undermine the entire game, status, structure.

Clearly, with the ban on auctioning characters and powers, many people feel cheated, as the labor they invested in the game should be worth something. The corporate realm, however, controls the sword and usually wins out in battles over intellectual property. When an entire account can be whipped out at corporate headquarters, players are reminded squarely about where the power lies. Relying heavily on his example of EverQuest (EQ), Taylor continues his discussion with the idea of ‘unruly play,’ and of whether or not people can actually ruin game play by playing the game wrong. Indeed, with game makers so wrapped up in the worlds they create, its no doubt that newer gamers might sometimes play the game in a different way, a style that formed free of the bias accrued by the creators during game creation.

When EQ players found a way to open more than one application while playing the game—such as an mp3 or another game screen—this allowed players to play the game in a way the company had deemed ban-able. This would give someone a chance to undo mistakes, to look up directions online, etc. that was unfair to the other players who knew not these secrets. The author is not interested in the rightness or wrongness of this debate, but is rather interested in the discussions this raises about ‘fair play.’

Taylor then folds this debate back into earlier considerations taken into account by the article, such as EQ’s right (or lack-there-of) to pull the account of a player that chronicled a violent rape and revenge murder scene that took place within the game space. Should not this person have the right to freedom of speech, to print a fiction about the game? According to EQ, they did not. The biggest question coming out of all of this is, of course, whether or not the corporations have such rights to do such things to consumer authors?

Eventually EQ apologized to the author, perhaps pointing this debate conclusion in the direction of the consumer. With EQ itself being deeply rooted in fantasy lore that came into being before the game, people are forced to extend the same debate about ownership into the past, along with projecting it to the future. Are EQ creators hypocrites for creating such a double-standard?

Remapping Ownership- With new ideas of market relations emerging in the face of this dilemma, one is reminded of Sharendipity, at least for this class, as Taylor discusses the ability of game users on many forums in contemporary games, being equipped in such a manor, as to being critical to game space development. However, “despite some interesting moves within development communities to reckon their players as agents within the construction of the product… the power of corporate authorship claims” continue to trump the rest (p.146). In response to this and concerns expounded by female gamers about stereotypes surrounding the appearance of girl Avatars, Taylor argues that we must reassess our vision of the digital world, of co-ownership, and of user experience and independence.

The idea of creating a “Guild Summit”—a congress of sorts in which top players represent the world of gamers in negotiations with management—plays into the conclusion of the article as an interesting segue into future possibilities. This issue is far too complex for game designers to tackle alone, and thus, there must be an interplay and exchange through all of the areas surrounding a game space. There must, more than anything, be movements towards employing more progressive depictions of intellectual property, and of the possibly elastic nature of those rights.

Rise and Fall of Infocom

2008-07-08T17:38:00.001-05:00

My article was "Down from the Top of Its Game: The Story of Infocom, Inc. by Hector Briceno, Wesley Chao, Andrew Glenn, Stanley Hu, Ashwin Krishnamurthy, and Bruce Tsuchida. This article chronicles the rise and fall of Infocom from its rise by members from the MIT's Lab of Computer Science and their take off on the heels of it's very successful text-based game Zork. Also contributing to its success were developing an effective system for supporting new platforms, maintaining an engineering culture that excelled in writing games, and marketing its products to the right audience. However, when they tried to transform to business products and with a little bad luck, Infocom fell.

First, the authors give us a little timeline that shows the goings on in the company and the games that they were putting out, along with the economics as well.

Like I said before, the company started out with some LCS students at MIT creating this game Zork. Zork was a text-based game where the screen consisted of text and a command prompt. The player enters text to respond to the prompt and then the game returns with more text. This game was cool to players in that even though they couldn't see anything on the screen, they could picture the game playing out in their minds. In 1979, the MIT guys decided they wanted to work together outside of the lab and started their own company and their first objective was to make Zork available to the blossoming home computer market. The demographic of computer buyers worked out in Infocom's favor in that computers were expensive, so the buyers were wealthy and refined people who liked to read.

However, Infocom ran into many problems in getting their game to fit the memory specs of the personal computer. The authors go on to describe their Z-machine design which just went right over my head. The company was finally able to fit the game and really took off when the Apple II version sold 6000 copies. Then, they describe the company's culture which was very laidback and I got some laughs about the trial they held for the death of goldfish.

Going on the success of Zork, the company began coming out with more and more games. Marc Blank wrote Deadline, which was a mystery game. Dave Lebling wrote a science-fiction game called Starcross, and Amy Briggs wrote the first romance game aimed at women. Each game had to be different since it was only text-based. So it had to be new and have new puzzles. The games were made cheap and the company was turning huge profits. They were consistently at the top of the bestseller lists of computer software.

The games appealed to players because the brought the intellectual aspect of reading a novel with the puzzling nature of logic puzzles. Then, the authors go on to talk about Infocom's unique marketing strategies. After publishing unsuccessfully with a company called Personal Software, Infocom decided to do it themselves and repackaged all the games. Infocom also got into the published tips aspect as well selling books to help the gamers through puzzles.
Unfortunately, the downfall was not included in our reading.

I think that the article was an interesting read into how some of these game startups got started. And how the evolution of gaming started out without even graphics, but just text-based. It says something to the appeal of video games that these games were successful.

Things get a little more interesting.

2008-07-08T14:20:00.001-05:00

I continued to poke around about RE5, but it appears that Capcom decided the argument held enough water to change the game.

http://www.gamegrep.com/news/11078-capcom_will_add_more_white_characters_to_resident_evil_5/

Racism and Zombies!

2008-07-08T14:13:00.003-05:00

This is one of the more interesting news pieces I've seen about race and a video game lately. Is this racist, or is it just because of the location of the game's story? (This post relates to the recent controversy over Resident Evil 5).

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/8257-resident-evil-5-fuels-the-flames-of-racism-toward-blacks/

And for those of us who played Resident Evil 4, is this any different than the racial stereotypes that are included in that game? (For example, the rural Spanish-speaking Eastern European zombies).

Bogus Author

2008-07-08T13:49:00.002-05:00

Here are a couple links to articles on the woman Sarah mentioned:

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/mar/04/local/me-author4

http://gawker.com/5003501/fabricating-writers-hilarious-interview

A Rape in Cyberspace (or TINYSOCIETY, and How to Make one) by Julian Dibbell

2008-07-08T08:59:00.002-05:00

The article/recount A Rape in Cyberspace (Or TINYSOCIETY, and how to make one) by Julian Dibbell concerns the account of a “virtual rape” in the internet society of LambdaMOO. LambdaMOO is a text based online virtual reality that involves mainly a house and a community of users. The story is told from the point of view of Dr. Bombay. Dr. Bombay is, for most of the article, a newbie to the world of LambdaMOO. However, most of the story concerns a sadistic player by the name of Mr. Bungle. In the beginning of the article Mr. Bungle’s horrible crime against other LambdaMOO users is described. In essence, Mr. Bungle used a text-based program to commit a virtual rape on several other characters. A player named Iggy was summoned during his virtual attack, and trapped Bungle in a cage of words.

After the virtual rape, the community of LambdaMOO was forced to decide how to punish Bungle. Many called for his “toading”—for all intensive purposes, a death sentence on LambdaMOO. His character would be turned into a toad, thereby wiping all of his character traits. The only users able to make this happen are known as wizards. The wizards are not only users, but they are also programmers. One problem stood in the way, however. The wizards had recently shelved their judicial powers in LambdaMOO. They decided to relinquish any powers they had that could affect the social lives of the MOO. Now, members of the community would be forced to fend for themselves. In effect, this forced the users to create a kind of social system, complete with laws and rules, in regards to the conduct of LambdaMOO members. The need to punish a crime created the need to make a system for punishing crimes.

The different kinds of social structures varied, and there were arguments on all sides. Many wanted to see if Bungle could be tried under RL (real life) laws. Still others didn’t believe that LambdaMOO was about ultimate imaginative freedom. These users take a very anarchist look at the society, and instead of “toading” Bungle they instead wanted to see him banished from LambdaMOO. This discussion prompted many larger questions poised by the narrative. Many ask if it is not better to release violent fantasies in an online environment than in real life. Even others began to point to the way that this kind of virtual crime was really a crime of the mind, leading to the question of “Where does the body end and the mind begin?” (22). While the form of virtual government continued to be discussed in a forum called *social, a large meeting was finally called. Almost all the members of the community showed up to the online debate, including Dr. Bombay and eventually Mr. Bungle himself. When Bungle shows up to the meeting the tension is palpable, almost as if this were a RL community meeting about a criminal. However, Bungle answers for his actions only in sociopathic ramblings, so he is quickly ignored. While no concrete form of social law was settled upon, in the end a wizard named Tom Traceback made the decision to toad Bungle.

The aftermath of Bungle’s toading is both felt by many and felt by none at all. That is to say, very little had changed in LambdaMOO after, but many still remembered the horror and question of Bungle. There was however, a new system set up, wherein wizards would only act according to a series of votes and petitions put forth by users. Therefore, the action of the wizards became dependant on the will of the users. Yet Bungle was not dead. A few days after his initial departure, Bungle returned under a new name—Dr. Jest. Through a loophole he managed to set up a new, totally clean account. A guilty user now became a new, clean name.

This drives the narrator, Dr. Bombay, to seek out Dr. Jest and try to get some answers from him, which he never does. Bombay then dips back into the argument for rape as a “crime against the mind,” since even in RL it is classified with other “crimes against person or property” (27). He goes into saying that the actions you command into a computer don’t so much “communicate as make things happen, directly and ineluctably, the same way pulling a trigger does” (28). In the end, Bungle’s ultimate trick is revealed: Bungle was not a single user, but instead a community account of an entire NYU dorm floor. On the night of the rape it wasn’t just one user acting, but one user typing while a room of others encouraged the action and suggested new, twisted ways to torture the other LambdaMOO users. The new user, Dr. Jest, was just a fragmentation off from the original group that was Bungle. From this Bombay is left questioning the essence of LambdaMOO and other online virtual community spaces, the difference between appearances and the “realities” of a virtual reality.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Game

2008-07-07T15:56:00.001-05:00

http://www.douglasadams.com/creations/infocomjava.html

I think this one is far more fun. :)

More Pop Culture

2008-07-07T15:02:00.002-05:00

Enjoy this fantabulous Chick Tract on the evils of RPGs (such as D&D).

Square Pegs, 1982 - Pac-Man Fever

2008-07-07T14:33:00.004-05:00

Enjoy watching Ms. Sarah Jessica "Carrie Bradshaw" Parker as the high school nerd.

Monroe St. Library, Madison Public Library System

2008-07-07T12:12:00.002-05:00

I visited the Monroe Street branch of the Madison Public Library to check on the video game offerings at this neighborhood branch of the local public library system.

This was the library that was in my neighborhood when I was a kid, and I spent many hours, especially in the summer, perusing its shelves.

I was very surprised to discover a seemingly dwarfed library; truly, the space is the exact same size but seems much smaller to me now that I am older.

This library is also filled to the gills with children - there were probably ten, or more, of them on site during my brief visit.

The library's shelf space has been largely repurposed since the last time I visited (probably 20 years ago). Simply put, there are much fewer books, and those that are there are dominated by nonfiction (Visual C++ for Dummies, etc.). Beyond that, there are racks and racks of media - DVDs, books on tape, DVDs for kids, books on tape for kids, music CDs for kids and adults and so on.

What there is not, in this small and unruly library (filled with screaming kids), is any type of game or software for checkout. I was surprised by this, given that so much of the small space in here is consecrated to every other type of media imaginable.

When I inquired as to what the status of games were at this library, and at others in the system, the reference assistant told me that they simply are too cramped, spacewise, to be able to offer any titles. When I asked where I would have to go to find something (already knowing that the downtown main library does offer software), we honed in on the Sequoia branch, further to the west side of town, which is probably triple the size of poor Monroe Street.

Sure enough, we were able to locate titles in the online catalog - but for kids - available for the Mac and PC as CD-ROMs (at least that's how they were coded in the catalog).

The state of the Monroe Street library makes me awfully depressed. This is not how I remember it from childhood.

:(

Mifflin St. Branch

2008-07-07T12:06:00.002-05:00

Stopping by the public library was an interesting experience. I didn't know what I'd be finding there. I was reminded about when I was in middle school, and I would always try to find my way to the computer in the library to play the games that were available. There really weren't many, and they were all educational games, but I sure did manage to waste a lot of time doing it anyway, because it was an excuse to not be doing other things.

The public library branch on Mifflin Street was an interesting experience. There were a few rows of games, and far more than I expected. The games were largely educational, it seemed, with a few things that were clearly 'after my time' ("The Magic Schoolbus"?), and also a surprising amount, to me at least, of branded projects. A few Barbie titles, but also a TON of Star Wars titles. This was maybe the biggest surprise. It seemed like it was a pretty clear split between Mac and PC.

They were kinda messy. It looked like the games might have been, at one point, in alphabetical order, but it had fallen out of order at some point. I imagined that there were some small number of kids that were hitting it up, going through, checking out as often as possible, but overall largely ignored by the majority of the people that go up to the kid's section.

Overall, it was definitely a surprising, interesting experience.

Union South Arcade/Games Room

2008-07-07T11:45:00.001-05:00

Instead of going to a local library I chose to go to an arcade instead. I went over to Union South because last year when I was in the Intramural Bowling League I noticed they had a good amount of arcade games. Going over there this morning I was definitely surprised by the amount of machines they had: 13. Also, which I had not been aware of before, was the fact that each machine had a rating on it. There were a total of three ratings:

Green Sticker(GS): Suitable for all ages
Yellow Sticker(YS): Life like violence mild
Red Sticker(RS): Life like violence strong

The game machines at Union South consisted of:
Ms. Pac Man GS
Tekken 3 RS
Die Hard YS
Time Crisis II RS
Monopoly Pinball GS
Crisis Zone RS
Trophy Hunter (rating N/A)
Dance Dance Revolution Super Nova GS
2005 Golden Tee GS
Police Trainer GS
Gauntlet Dark Legacy YS
Silent Scope RS
Emergency Call Ambulance YS

From these results we can see that five games had a green sticker rating, three games had a yellow sticker rating, and four games had the red sticking rating. So our union has done a well job of maintaining game machines for everyone and supplying a diverse amount of games within each rating category. It is good to see that the Union, while mostly occupied by people with ages 18+, is still concerned for any young goers that may happen to be bowling there or what not. It was especially nice to see that they still had some taste for the retro games even though they only had one: Ms. Pac Man. Unfortunately Memrial Union got ride of its game room, but it would have been nice to see how they would have compared.

Leaving the Library Behind

2008-07-07T08:43:00.002-05:00

Rather than visit the local library, I opted to head out to a local arcade and see what was on tap and who was playing. Only problem is there aren't really any arcades left in town, so I ended up at Star Cinema in Fitchburg, on one of the busiest movie weekends of the year observing who played any of their five video games.
Now, with only five videogames available (including the "claw" machine) the selection obviously leaves much to be desired. Looking at the lobby as you enter, to the right is a "Mrs. PacMan / Galaga" game, left standing all alone, and to the left is the claw machine, a boat-racing game, a pinball machine and "Time Crisis 2". The potential audience for these amusements ranged from 5 year-olds to octegenarians, with a roughly equal split between male and female. Note that I said "potential audience", as the actual audience engaging with these games was much smaller.
During the 2 1/2 hours spent observing from 5 to 7:30 on Friday night(and yes, I did get to talk to the manager after about an hour), I only saw three people actually use any of the games, all of whom came from the same group of about 12 boys and girls in their early teens. The game of choice? The claw machine (ah, young love), at which no one was a winner. There were, of course, the requisite young children who would run over and start mashing the buttons and pretend to play, but for the most part it appeared that people did not even register that the games were there.
At this point I decided to become a part of the experiment and see how people would react to someone playing one of the games. Unfortunately, the only game I have prior experience and some modicum of skill with is "Time Crisis 2", a first person shooter where you have a gun and a foot-pedal. Releasing the foot pedal causes your character to crouch, with no other controls provided. I played for approximately 25 minutes, timing the gameplay to include the exit of viewers who had just been watching "Wanted", a styled and brutal, but semi-laughable, action movie (exploding rats as a weapon? yeah right). I figured if any group would have a reaction, it should be them as they were already "primed for violence". The actuallity of it was quite different, with my "spotter" (a friends sister who works as an usher) noting no reactions among any of the exiting crowd. The only reaction either of us observed was again a small child who was "playing" beside me (the game allows for two players) until his brother dragged him away to go see "Wall-E".

My Adventure to the Kress Family Branch Library

2008-07-06T23:19:00.001-05:00

Once I heard we had until Monday to hand in these assignments I decided to check out my hometown library to see what games they have accumulated over the years. The Kress Library is part of the Brown County Library system. Its in my hometown DePere, Wisconsin and I haven’t been to it in years. The library overall is pretty small but I was pleasantly surprised with the selection of materials they had available.

I was quite surprise with the range of games the library had to offer. Being a huge sports game fan, I looked for new sports games right off the bat. They had Madden 2008, but only for the Wii. I thought that was interesting, that the library didn’t have any game for the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. I don’t know if this was because the 360 and Ps3 have M rated games and they are against that or if they feel that the Wii would attract more rentals. The vast majority of their games were for the ps2 including, Ratchet and Clank, Sly 2 Band of Thieves, Star Wars Battlefront, Yu-Gi-Oh! The Duelists of the Roses, Robotech Invasion and Winning Eleven 8. There were also a few Gamecube games such as Sonic Mega Collection, Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door and Mario Kart Double Dash. I asked the librarian if they had any other games and she suggested I look on the computers. So I went on to the computer catalog and noticed that you can request any item from the system of Brown County librarys. That means my video game options were 7x’ed. I searched the catalog for a number of games, including most of the major sports ones, and they had everything I searched for. Oh the other hand when I searched for GTA or a war game they didn’t have it. They are clearly stocking up on games that are very player friendly and for teens or younger.

Also when I was on the computers I noticed a number of computer games that I could sit there and play. They were all little kids games such as, Backyard Basketball, Kelly Club, Dora the Explorer: FairyTale Adventures, Star Flyers: Royal Jewel Rescue, and Arthurs Computer Adventure.

Overall I was happy with my visit to the Kress Library. Most of the games seemed to be pitched at the tween to teen age groups, while the games actually on the computers were more so for the younger kids. The library is a much cooler place with computers and video games, I might have to check it out more often.

Hands-on Assignment: Week 3

2008-07-05T18:52:00.001-05:00

Videogame Demographics and Options at College Library:

Marlon Heimerl

College Library turned out to be the go-to source among Wendt Library and the Union South on this fine Saturday afternoon. The latter two must have been closed on account of the holiday weekend. Nonetheless and ergo, this hands-on assessment will recount a journey that took me to the farthest reaches of campus (ok, so it isn’t that far from my house to get to College Library), wherein I discovered much about the excess of games that make their home at the educational utopia that is College library (no, really, it’s alright though).

I have categorized the games based on a number of earmarked differences that look into whether the games are ‘sports’ related, ‘fantasy’ or ‘racing’ related, or whether they are what one could consider for ‘all ages’ (along with all other game rating’s according to the same criteria), or ‘war’ based games (or ‘first-person shooter’ games, including the genre of ‘survival horror’), all encompassed by the larger category of ‘violent games’ (that could, in all reality, be considered in the assessment of virtually every game category herein assessed, depending on ones definition of ‘violence’).

Sports Games offered by College Library:

NBA Live ’08 (PS3 & Xbox 360), College Hoops (NCAA) 2K8 (PS3), NCAA ’08 Football (Xbox 360), Major League Baseball 2K8 (Xbox 360), Wii Fit (Wii), Hotshots Golf (Wii), NHL ’08 (PS3 & Xbox 360), and PES 2008 (Xbox 360), Summer Sports Wii (Wii), provisional game titles: Smack Down vs. Raw 2008, Tony Hawk’s: Proving Grounds,’ and Pinball Hall of Fame (Wii)accepting that in terms of this assessment, professional wrestling and skateboarding will be called sports).

Total: (≈12 games)

*Note: Though Wii sometimes represents a challenge for categorizing its games along with other systems—due to its uniqueness of style, sometimes befuddled graphics and strange controls—Wii will still be considered on an equal field of assessment, especially because its range of games vary from family oriented titles such as Summer Sports Wii to grotesqueries such as Resident Evil, House of the Dead, and the Godfather; demonstrating a range of both violence and nonviolence like any other system considering its game options.

Racing Games: are subcategorized because racing in certain contexts is for sport: Burnout Paradise (PS3), Motorstorm (PS3)

Total: (≈14 ‘sports games or two ‘racing games’)

Fantasy Games offered by College Library:

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Xbox 360), Dark Sector (PS3), and Night’s: Journey of Dreams (Wii). [And a subcategory]

Adolescent/Youth Fantasy: Castle of Shikigami III (Wii), Folklore (PS3), Star Wars Lego (Wii), Pet 2 Dogs 2 [contestable] (Wii), Viva Piñata (Xbox 360), Blue Dragon (Wii); Super Donkey Ball: Banana Blitz (Wii)

Total: (≈10 fantasy games)

War Games & Explicitly Violent Games offered by College Library:

Battalion Wars 2 (Wii), Virtua Fighter (Xbox 360), Condemned 2: Bloodshot (PS3 and Xbox 360), Evil May Cry (PS3) Deadrising (Xbox 360), Dynasty Warriors 6, (PS3), Mass Effect (Xbox 360), Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (Xbox 360), Prey (X box 360), House of the Dead 2 & 3 (Wii), and the Godfather: Blackhand edition (Wii):

Total: (11 war/violent games)

What’s interesting to notice is that each game category occupies roughly 1/3 of the overall makeup of College Library’s collection. The world’s being explored within these categories often represent (1) Sport’s world’s (which often entail underlying forms of violence) (2) Fantasy games (often dealing with war or violence on some level); and (3) War and explicitly violent games, which often contain an underlying premise of gore and horror).

Though in my 30-minutes at College Library, no other patron visited the game kiosk, it was clear to me that the primary audience meant to be reached is male college students with extra time on their hands and little cash in their pockets, as most of the games dealt with genres predominantly pertaining to masculinity—sports, war, gore and guns—stretching the breadth of boy culture and societal indicators of that culture, present here on campus today. This peace-sign amalgamation of games—each occupying roughly 1/3 of the selection) illustrates two things:

(1) What ‘rents’ on campus in terms of video game’s accessible via one of the university’s major library’s—assuming that the product matches the demand—are games dedicated to competition, expressing masculinity, and living out fantasies on either the field, court, or the 3D fantasy landscape, or

(2) These video games represent a concession by the public that exciting, fast paced, violent and competitive based sandbox, RPG, and non-educational games are wanted by college kids wracked by studies and just looking for a good time.

Hands-On Assignment: College Library Video Games

2008-07-05T15:26:00.001-05:00

For my hands on assignment this week, I decided to stay right here on campus and see what College Library had to offer in terms of games you could check out. I had heard during the end of last year that they were going to start getting video games, but hadn't really paid much attention to it. So I went in to College Library and into the Open Book Cafe and they had a pretty decent selection of games for Playstation 3, X-Box 360, and Nintendo Wii.

For the Nintendo Wii, games included The Godfather, Summer Sports, Lego Star Wars, We Ski, Petz Dogz 2, the Wii Fit, and House of the Dead, just to name a few. For the Playstation 3, the games they had in the library were NBA Live 08, NHL 08, Grand Theft Auto IV, and a game called Bloodshot. Finally, for the X-Box 360, they had NCAA Football 08, MLB Baseball 2K8, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, WWE Smackdown v. Raw 2008, Burnout, Dead Rising, Saints Row, Viva Pinata, and Tony Hawk to name a few.

Looking at this selection, I couldn't help but notice a few things. This immediately made me think about the gender articles we read. It seems like almost all of these games would be games that would apply to males. Many are sports and first-person shooter/violence type games. However, it's hard to make that assumption when I saw games like Petz Dogz 2 and Viva Pinata also available to be checked out. So it seems that even though College Library has a wide variety of games, most of them are themed towards males.

Even that College Library has video games that students can check out makes a huge statement as to how important video games are becoming as media in our society. Video games are being accepted as valid forms of media and are important to society in it's influences and College Library has realized that the impact of video games cannot be ignored. And if there is a demand for them, which there is because the library website says they have 110 titles and they probably only have about 40 not checked out, then I think it's awesome that UW has stepped up and started including video games in our libraries. Another thing that is cool is that you can go to the website and request video games that you think the library should purchase.

Yet More from Billy Mitchell

2008-07-04T17:14:00.002-05:00

Being a little bored today, I stumbled across this video on YouTube and thought it would be interesting to share for those of us who can't get enough of our class' new favorite villain Billy Mitchell.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SKZxvDQryA

Smart Bomb

2008-07-03T13:05:00.001-05:00

The narrative largely follows Dr. Michael Macedonia, a Gulf War veteran turned military simulator (after failing to secure funding for a MMO startup). In essence it shows us the way in which MMO kinds of technology are being used by the US Military to train soldiers. Rather than using 3-D modeling to create fantasy worlds, they are using the modeling to create digitized versions of real places with which to train. Before operations, pilots will know what to look for, and will know what is out of place.

One moment very early on in the article that I found incredibly disturbing was the take that Macedonia seemed to have on Ender's Game. This is a truly fantastic book, and the author manages to give it an excellent one paragraph synopsis. I always viewed it as having a cautionary element, with a military willing to use children playing games for their own ends. To quote the author, in speaking on this topic to Macedonia: "He explains that it was a source of inspiration for lots of people in the militaary when it came out in the eighties. 'I've always been fascinated by what you could do with a six-year old,' Macedonia muses." I find this take-away from Ender's Game seriously disturbing, and I know from that moment on, personally, I looked at Macedonia with a huge element of revulsion.

"If you can play Nintendo, you can operate this." This seems to be the thing that the US Military is taking advantage of: a culture that is preprogrammed to be savvy with certain kinds of complicated controls and means of thought. While I don't personally think that it is likely that violent media CAUSE violent behavior, I do have a feeling that it lowers the threshold required to bridge into violent behavior. Again, another illuminating quote, talking about ROTCs lining up to play the game: "They're a little glassy-eyed and utterly delighted, just like you can imagine the children who followed the Pied Piper into the ocean might have been." It is also worth noting that the military itself has concluded that there is no direct correlation between videogames and an urge to kill, but they use these games as a means to teach HOW to do certain things properly. Knowledge can be disseminated. Quoting Col. Wardynski, from the article: "What a video game does, at heart, is teach you now, in the midst of utter chaos, to know what is important and what is not, and to act on that."

After the end of the cold war, the US Military, left as the sole military force of a superpower had to evolve into a force that could handle the new challenges of no singular enemy, but rather small, disparate groups who viewed the US as an enemy. This new military challenge couldn't be handled the same way that old forces were handled, on major battlefields. In this space, a new kind of military was needed, and a new soldier.

The new soldier of the future will be wired - with multiple network access, graphic overlays, lightweight computer which provides further assistance. In essence, it makes the soldier almost like a cross between two figures from movies: Predator and The Terminator. This isn't just providing info directly to the soldier, but back to command, for their knowledge as well.

THe military's use of games began with 1980's Battlezone (a 1st-person tank game), then Flight Simulator, and then Doom, to the Sims, and beyond. Doom was a flashpoint, where it seemed as though moving into games seriously began to be thought about by the military. America's Army follows in the vein of what these others were, but is geared to prepare people so that entering the US Army would be an experience that they might already be prepared for, from day one. (I somewhat wonder what it might mean for the US's ENEMIES to get and use this to prepare for the US Army as well, but from a 'know thy enemy' perspective...)

What really stands out to me is how the 'protaganists' of this story, as it were, evoke to me the kind of images of formerly nerdy children who never managed to find emotional maturity and became bitter man-childs. They seem angry at the world, smug and wallowing in privileges now, king of their new castles (Macedonia p204, Zyda p205). Games permeate their existence, but in a way that seems to suggest to me that they view the world as a game, rather than the world as a real play THAT CAN BE INFORMED by games. The distinction, to me, seems to be an important one.

J.C. Herz, "The military-entertainment complex," Joystick nation: How videogames ate our quarters, won our hearts, and rewired our minds

2008-07-03T11:58:00.002-05:00

J.C. Herz, "The military-entertainment complex," Joystick nation: How videogames ate our quarters, won our hearts, and rewired our minds (Boston: Little, Brown & Co, 1997), 197-213

Readings for this class do not get much more straightforward than this chapter from JC Herz's book on videogames (referenced yesterday by Dr. Steinkuehler, incidentally). Herz, herself, has, interestingly enough, worked as a consultant for industry and for defense concerns, which I found quite salient.

At any rate, this chapter has as its goal to point out and then document the profound interlinking of the videogame/entertainment and defense industries. The interest the two share is technological, financial and even philosophical, to a certain extent. Earlier in class, it was pointed out (perhaps by Dr. Halverson) that the need to synthesize and analyze great deals of information presented dynamically and simultaneously is growing ever important in our information economy, and the case is the same for military applications. Herz notes that "most modern warfare takes place behind the screen, anyway," with controls and gadgets becoming secondary to their virtual information displays. She also points out that the use of videogame technology does a great deal to validate it (whether positively or negatively is a personal interpretation) outside of the confines of wasteful passtimes in video arcades - although it is worth noting that the entire chapter is characterized by a sarcastic, cynical tone. Perhaps Herz's knowledge of the inner workings of both industries, independent of each other as well as collectively, is to blame.

The type of gaming most often relevant to military applications, as we have already learned, is simulation ("M&S," it is called), and this article simply underscores that point. She was also able to glean interesting insights from some important industry insiders in the defense contracting, military and gaming industries, all of whom cited the relationship among them as being critical to military advance and success and game and technology development. In short, Herz suggests, all one need do is follow the money trail to establish this relationship.

Also of note is another point we have discussed previously, which is that there is a reality threshold that designers and military personnel are aware of, in which, on the one hand, games become unplayable for entertainment purposes due to being too realistic, and the realism in the military arena becomes counterproductive to the ends of training soldiers to kill (i.e. empathy for the enemy is inadvertently instilled if the enemy appears too real).

The bottom line for this chapter is simply that there is an intrinsic relationship between military and gaming development (and, arguably, with all digital technology development, really). Perhaps awareness of this fact is the important first step in being able to develop mindful critiques of them both. Herz does not offer a particularly hopeful solution to this situation - in fact, she might not see it as problematic, per se, in the first place - but the direct connections she has drawn among the various players involved are important for any student and scholar of video games, and for any social critic interested in a broader picture of how technologies are developed in our society.

"The Frag Dolls" [America's Army]

2008-07-03T09:39:00.003-05:00

No, I am not making this up.

I went to the America's Army website last night. I "can't" play the game, because, as far as I know, it doesn't run on Macs. That having been said, I'm not really comfortable downloading it, anyway, and would prefer not to. Instead, I looked over some of the media and support materials for the game, particularly some of the videos on the site.

The one I want to share with the class is called "The Frag Dolls." I watched this video that is just a few minutes long. It features footage from a gaming convention or some kind of competition or event. From what I gleaned, Ubisoft, who must now have some sort of relationship with this game/project, assembled a group of gamer girls who also happened to be "hot" (in the gamer convention sense), andthen let people challenge them on AA.

From the comments of the Frag Dolls, it was apparent most of them hadn't even played the game before, which I found amusing. I wondered if they were maybe Ubisoft employees, or something. Given that, I also found it amusing that they were mostly kicking ass for the majority of the competition.

In the interest of brevity, I'm not going to spend too much time trying to deconstruct all the issues at play here of commodification, gender portrayal, selling via sex (appeal), etc. It's all pretty surface. One thing that also bothers me, though, is the term "frag" in the first place. I realize that this is now common parlance in video game culture, particularly in FPS games and in militaristic ones, but I really have trouble separating it from the way it was historically used in Vietnam and elsewhere, where it meant murdering a CO of your own unit (who was usually a jerk, a bad person, mistreated soldiers, etc.). It's just an ominous, creepy term to me. The way it's bandied about now just kind of weirds me out. The way it was then applied to a bunch of T&A girls (who were also obviously really good gamers, but that is secondary to why they were chosen) just seems crass and disrespectful.

I dunno.

Where did that Memorial Union video game arcade go?

2008-07-03T07:03:00.002-05:00

A Capital Times story today has the answer:

After 37 years of operation, the video arcade on the first floor of the UW's Memorial Union shut down in May. In its place, a Peet's Coffee Shop will open in the fall.

The revenue for the arcade room had plummeted 80 percent in the last five years alone, according to Roger Westmont, vice president of Modern Specialty, a southern Wisconsin company that rents out video games, jukeboxes, pool tables and dart boards.

Now, all those games have been "dispersed into the ether," as Bob Wright, the Union's recreations service manager, puts it. Modern Specialty has relocated most of the machines to the Dells.

Update: A related article -- the rise of the DIY neo-arcade? -- at Isthmus.

games and gender by diane carr

2008-07-02T23:41:00.000-05:00

Games and Gender by Diane Carr

Throughout this article Diane touches on gender in video games through its representation, players and player culture, and aspects of the games industry. She starts by talking about gender and how it is represented in games. First she introduces some statistics on female gamers. In the UK the average age of women who game is between 30-35 years old. She points out that many theorists believe that women are turned off from video games because of the “look” of female avatars. Female bodies in video games are greatly exaggerated, and while males are exaggerated too they are not solely view for sexual interest.

She goes into how the whole industry of video games is male by default. Some games such as The Thing and Abe’s Oddysee where all the characters in the game are male. But she also urges us to remember that although representational factors are important they aren’t the only factor dealing with gender and video games, as we all know a player controls the avatar.
In the section on how the rules of the game are just as important as the representation Carr brings up the example of Baldur’s Gate where the characters, whether male or female, have the same characteristics. But then in the Sims the gender of the characters determine how the act etc. She argues for these and other reasons mentioned that the manner in which gender is inscribed in the game at a representational level might be over-ruled by the player. She also mentions then creation of “Jen” the main character in the game Primal. When the company attempted to export the game to Japan, the Japanese claimed that Jen wasn’t attractive enough and wanted a change.

From that she starts to talk about the culture of the gaming industry and how it is male heavy. The games are made by males and marketed for males, in fact she shows a stat where 90% of the makers of Anarchy Online where men. The majority of women working in the video game industry are those “booth babes” who take pictures with eager boys.

Next she goes into the “pink games” or attempts to make games for girls and the “grrl gamer” which relates back to From Barbie to Mortal Kombat. She also briefly talks about how sometimes gaming magazines try to lure girls in by having special girl issues, but most the time they are just filled with things guys want to see.

She ends by saying that with games becoming mainstream media the line between male and female players my become forgotten or at least reworked. Also she realizes that just by having female avatars doesn’t mean more females will start to play games because there are so many other factors dealing with gender in games.

Games and libraries (and research money)

2008-07-02T20:11:00.002-05:00

An American Library Association press release:

The American Library Association (ALA) will launch an innovative project to track and measure the impact of gaming on literacy skills and build a model for library gaming that can be deployed nationally. Funding for the project will be provided by a $1 million grant from the Verizon Foundation.

The announcement will take place later today at the American Library Association Annual Conference in Anaheim, Calif.

“Gaming is a magnet that attracts library users of all types and, beyond its entertainment value, has proven to be a powerful tool for literacy and learning,” said ALA President Loriene Roy. “Through the Verizon Foundation’s gift, ALA’s gaming for learning project will provide the library community with vital information and resources that will model and help sustain effective gaming programs and services.”

As part of the grant, the American Library Association will work directly with 12 leading gaming experts to document the use of gaming as a literacy tool and monitor the results of gaming initiatives. The information will be used to build “The Librarians’ Guide to Gaming,” a comprehensive, online literacy and gaming toolbox, which will then be field-tested by additional libraries.

The experts creating the best practices during the initial phase are from the following libraries:

Ann Arbor District Library, Ann Arbor, Mich.;

Public Library of Charlotte-Mecklenburg County, Charlotte, N.C.;

Columbus Metropolitan Library, Columbus, Ohio;

Georgetown County Library, Georgetown, S.C.;

Minneapolis Public Library, Minneapolis, Minn.;

Old Bridge Public Library, Fords, N.J.;

Pima County Public Library, Tucson, Ariz.;

Reidland High School, Paducah, Ky.;

School Library System of Genesee Valley BOCES, Le Roy, N.Y.;

The New York Public Library, New York;

Todd Wehr Library, De Pere, Wis.;

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Ill.

“In today’s technology-driven world, where learning does not stop at the classroom, the role of libraries in supporting literacy and learning is more critical than ever before,” said Verizon Foundation President Patrick Gaston. “Gaming for learning presents a tremendous opportunity for libraries to further literacy skills in children as well as adults.”

The Power of Play: The Portrayal and Performance of Race in Video Games

2008-07-02T14:48:00.001-05:00

By Anna Everett

Introduction: Young People, Games, and Learning

Certain research suggests that video games affect children disproportionately, augmenting the incidence of childhood obesity (fueled by “addiction” and addictive tendencies), and strengthening gender socialization, poor academic scores, intensification of aggressive behavior, and, presumably, providing fortification for racial pseudo-identities, stereotypes, and racial perceptions (or presumptions).

The burning question on Everett’s mind is how do young people interact with videogames while (or through) learning about race and difference in the world? Everett’s “critical framework” pushes for an assessment of popular game titles, their maker’s intentions, and how they “reflect, influence, reproduce, and thereby teach dominant ideas about race in America” (Everett, 140).

Are video game player’s influenced by certain video game author’s perceptions about a certain racial group within certain contexts? Could the context itself provide an insight into the racial arguments made by said game author? With television media research having already provided a map for critics to assess the ghosts out of any burgeoning technology, all video games were up for inspection and consideration, or for the guillotine, correlated with a angered third party prosecutors.

That is, of course, why this article is meant to explore “how the shift to digital and more interactive forms of media influences how and what young people learn from race” (Everett 1). How certain can we be that the racial lessons impressionable children have learned from video games are the proper ones?

Though things may look bleak, despair not, for video games may have one largely redeeming quality—they have the potential to provide a superior educational platform and access to a tailor-made, more enriching learning environment. (BUT, one must remember to question what form of educational experience users will be experiencing? And investigate to what end the ‘teacher’ (video game console or software) is pointing the ‘student’ (video game player).

Do video game creators reflect societal standards or are they creating a demand that didn’t exist before they overtly fell down the slippery-slope of sexually explicit and gratuitously violent content. Certainly, the underlying premise of Oregon Trail was that Indians were the enemies, and that people had to wrangle their wagons into circles to keep the enemies out at night. Does this not reflect the dominant ideas surrounding race relations between Caucasian, Anglo-Saxon people and Native American. Is not the underlying premise that the winners write the history and this effects feelings towards certain racial groups?

Racial perceptions take root at a young age. Anna Everett points to research indicating that from the age of five, children have often already formed strong opinions about race and differences between people. “Racial narratives “are “representations [of] belief systems” that follow the same line of logic that keeps “sexist and misogynistic constructs” afloat. Moreover, racial narratives have been largely overshadowed by the general portrayal of the woman as a sex object, prizes, and stereotypes. As the struggle for woman equality has more often then not followed a similar trail to that of the African American, so too is their portrayal often misguided.

Learning Race & Portraying Eace: Urban/Street Games, etc.

“Richly detailed and textured urban landscapes” provide a familiar setting for inner city children to learn and assess, from a safe gaming environment, the perks and pitfalls of living in the city. This type of game performs a crucial academic function—grounding the game in reality. These games blow GTA out of the water in their ability to put the gamer in situations relevant to actual life. Rather than dealing drugs as a Russian immigrant in America (the game makers holding desperately onto that day watched Scarface and got really excited) and deal with powerful, persistent and problematic lessons about race in American culture” (Everett, 142)

Grand Theft Auto – GTA
Key- “GTA teaches dominant attitudes and assumptions about race and racial otherness through what we term ‘racialized pedagogical zones’ (RPZs)”

From Mario to the Godfather
The use of racially marked characters is a relatively new occurrence. Mario represents the first major racially identified (Italian) character marked by some stereotypical attributes, and the common misconception that all Italians like squishing mushrooms with their butts. Based on the fact that Shigeru Miyamoto, the Japanese creator of Mario is, well. Japanese, one could expect that some archetypal images and borderline stereotypes made it into the game design, such as Mario’s love of pizza and pasta—but who doesn’t like pizza, really? The Godfather: The Game represents a much more blunt example of negative Italian-American stereotypes.

Despite the plethora of options to work with, racial depictions remain regrettably narrow. Evidence in testament to this is 50 Cents Bullet Proof. These misconceived plots steer societal perceptions toward fulfilling the prophecy selected for them by the media. As soon as every black male wants to be 50 Cent, a whole century of civil rights work will be seriously damaged.

Urban street games, however, represent a movement in the right direction. With culturally specific cities as the playing field, players learn important lessons about race and urban culture. These games are meant to “capture the cultural sensibilities of particular racial and ethnic group’s world experience.” A sense of “perceptual” and ‘social’ realism us crucial to the success of this conception of gaming.

Characters continue to be predominantly white in video games. Black characters generally play the more stereotypical version of African American’s—an athlete, a violent man, a gunman, etc. Most of the time black and Latino males are secondary characters. In newer, better urban street games, “designers strive for greater cultural authenticity, the spatial environment itself, where the characters live, play, fight and compete, also becomes a culturally specific location that animates ideas about race, class, and gender” (Everett, 145)..

In these urban street games, one must master a set of skills, technical (navigation, etc.) and cultural (subject matter and game play). NBA Ballers represents a vise city of sorts in which basketball players must learn how to balance life in the fast lane and on the court. Moreover, African American females still represent the most victimized group in games. This, of course, does not compliment the misogynistic portrayal of many women in games. Urban street games give the power back to the women and to the African American community. The loopholes that the urban street game industry will have to jump through include first-person shooter games that portray minorities as brutal or violent, and “fantasy-driven notions of black masculinity “ (Everett, 149). The ultimate goal is to produce a platform for “technologically mediated notions of race.” (DISCUSSSION question: does a notion so subjective render it dangerous to manufacture or program into gamers through gaming?)

GTA Reconsidered
RPZs – Racialized Pedagogical Zones – Chess as an example: is there any reason why white always gets to move first? It represents a double edged sword—video games as tools for teaching about acceptance and as tools for hate speech. It remains common to have the “super predator black male stereotype” terrorizing the ‘hood’ on any number of games—e.g. 50 Cent. The violence found in these games, similar to GTA, have a tendency to push for the values and attitudes of a “larger social structure” (Everett, 155). And what if a gamer wants a white Avatar while they only come in black, is that a legitimate gripe (as some GTA players grumbled)? This is an interesting question to consider. From the digital divide (and the lack of home computers in the inner city) to the uneven portrayal of black and other minority characters, it is interesting to dedicate time to assessing the effects of video games on children in comparison to depictions of minority groups.

The Brighter Side? Pedagogical Value

“What matters most to our inquiry, is the fact that video games teach—they are pedagogical—and that ‘what we’re learning from them bears no resemblance whatsoever to what we think we’re learning’…the video game playground on- and offline too often replicates racist attitudes, values, and assumptions found in larger social structures.” Boy culture was centered around division, rivalry and conflict. The “descriptive trifecta of nonwhite as uneducated and poor, etc. also pervades video game atmospheres. The digital divide also renders inner city kids with access only to gaming consoles, stunting their ability to do more difficult computer related tasks.
Conclusion
Any discussion of games in the future should consider two perspectives:
(1) Must continue to act like watchdogs over racial content making it into video games, including research, etc.
(2) These discussions should consider more closely the educational opportunities that present themselves in terms of video games.

A touch of the confused at the Madison Public Library

2008-07-01T18:52:00.000-05:00

For this assignment I went to the Central Madison Public Library, located at 201 W. Mifflin Street. When I first entered the library, I thought that the “interactive games” section might be located by the DVD and Video rentals, so I made my way into that section. After finding nothing that I could use there (except I did see that they keep the graphic novels by the DVDs), I went over to the help desk and asked if she knew where they kept any games, be they educational or other. The woman at the counter seemed a little confused by my request. After a few minutes of searching, she suggested that I either go to the section of books on media entertainment (which I didn’t do) or go upstairs to their children/teen section. She seemed to believe that the games I was looking for would be in the teen section, even though I told her I was looking for any kind of game at all. Once upstairs, the guy working at the counter in the children’s section knew exactly where the games were. He pointed me toward the back corner and said, “Yeah, they’re all kind of mixed together back there. You know…the fun ones and the educational ones.” This statement was pretty telling in that it showed that the conception of educational games as being separate from "fun" exists outside our readings and our class.

Once I was in the game section I noticed that while most of what they offered was “educational” gaming (including games from the Reading Rabbit series, a few How Does it Work games, some Dora the Explorer tie-ins), there were definitely a lot of entertainment games. Today in class we mentioned Oregon Trail, and there was an edition of that on the shelves, a game that to me blends genres. In particular, I saw a lot of Star Wars games. I had a touch of nostalgia when I saw the original Rebel Assault game, along with a few other oldies. They also had a copy of Myst. There were a couple Pokemon games, a few Sim games (Simcopter, Simtower among them), also Roller Coaster Tycoon. And, bearing on our game play and discussion from today, even a couple of Barbie games. I choose to make note of what I saw as the two ends of the spectrum for Barbie: they had a copy of Barbie: Secret Agent and also a copy of Barbie: Fairy Princess.

From these findings it seemed to me that the target group for these games was definitely kids, no doubt about it. I found it interesting that the woman at the help desk seemed completely confused by the idea of the library having games, be they educational or other, while the man working in the children’s section knew precisely what I was looking for. My guess is that a lot of kids come in looking for games, but not too many people on the first floor are. Seeing as how there were some action games, the library obviously wanted the option to be open for games to be (as the clerk put it) “fun.” The fun never got more violent than the assorted Star Wars space battle simulators. I don’t think they had a gender or race in mind. I feel that the library was doing its best to provide games that would teach, while still allowing early teens to find something with a little bit (but not too much) of a punch to it.

Fireworks

2008-07-01T07:18:00.002-05:00

Since this Friday is a federal holiday, you can turn your assignments for this week on Monday if you like! (Oooh. Ahhh.)

Summary of “Chess for Girls? Feminism and Computer Games” by Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins.

2008-06-30T23:14:00.001-05:00

This article focuses on a topic familiar to our class discussion, video games and girls. The article begins by talking about the game Chess, and the idea of “Chess for Girls,” a parody commercial from Saturday Night Live. The article moves on to explain that it is going to be about exploring the different attempts to answer the question of why video games are seen as “boy’s games,” and attempts to offer ways that games can become a medium enjoyed equally by both sexes. The authors show how one of the reasons that gender roles are so tightly associated to video games comes from a “commoditization of gender.” The problem is that the marketing of products has become so thickly engrained in genders that it is difficult to break the cycle.

The article then moves into describing the kinds of games, which have been made to appeal to female gamers. Certain types of games, and certain types of language, have become representative of how games are talked when it comes to marking for girls. A lot of the article focuses on different studies of what is defined as masculine compared to what is defined as feminine. Then, there is a fairly generic description of how to define different kinds of video games. Examples are given of the roles of female characters in games. Most are either overly sexualized heroines, or damsels in distress. After a detailed breakdown of what these roles mean in popular culture, the authors reassert the fact that violent video games are the best-selling, and that most of these games do not provide strong female characters, or if they do, there is a problem of sexualizing certain kinds of violence. Furthermore, violence is seen as an aspect that alienates girls from videogames.

Next up is a challenge of basic stereotypes about men and women when it comes to computers in general. Men are supposedly more interested in, and more proficient with, computers. The fear is that if we don’t make computers more interesting to girls, then we are putting them at a disadvantage when it comes to computer technology. This is described as creating an “alien culture” for girls. Tests have shown that boys more than girls, when given the option, will indeed play with computers.

The toy stores are taken to task for the way that they demand that games are immediate hits, and for the way that they genderized their toys. Barbie is brought up as being both good and bad. Some argue that Barbie is the best way to market games to young girls, and that she is not just an bimbo but in fact a character who helps feed into stereotypes about women. From here a description of different “games for girls,” and the positives and negatives implied in each.

The latter section of the article discusses the more militant, feminist calls for girls and games. One section discusses how the only attempts for making games for girls so far is just adapting women into games which are still meant for boys. They call for a reevaluation of the basic systems of games, that the platforms themselves need overalls. They can’t just “put the game in a pink box” (18), so to speak. A larger debate on the
kind of products and programs that are for children then arises. From this, there is more discussion of specific feminine characters meant to balance the field between strong male characters and strong female characters. Lara Croft is discussed, as is Barbie (again). To me, the article sort of began to repeat itself at this point. There was another discussion of media portrayal of women in video game ads, and the way that there is more media specialization for what are commonly thought of as men’s interest compared to what is commonly thought of as women’s interest. Then, women in other sources of media (such as books, Anne Rice novels specifically) are brought up. A page or so later the big question of the article is brought up. The “core question” is whether changing the market of games for girls should involve “changing the generic base of the game industry” or “shifting the kinds of cultural competencies recognized within the existing generic repertoire” (32).

At the end, the article picked up again with its discussion of girls who are doing their best to embrace violent video games through their feminist views. They seek to take command of both sexual imagery of women and the stereotype that games, partially violent video games, are man’s territory. This type of gamer is frequently referred to as a “Game Grrl.” In the end, these girls still play with male characters, but they seek a very different kind of relationship with them. They have groups that help with harassment online, and do their best to take online gaming by siege. After this, there is a short summary of the arguments that have been made, the sources of stereotype involved (toy stores, marking, social constructions), and the efforts that are being made to break down the barriers between girl and game.

"Media Analysis in the High-Intensity Marketplace: The Three Circuits of Interactivity" Article

2008-06-30T18:17:00.001-05:00

The reading for today was "Media Analysis in the High-Intensity Marketplace: The Three Circuits of Interactivity" by Stephen Kline, Nick Dyer-Witheford, and Greig de Peuter. They address multiple angles in their analysis of media that include media theory: time/space bias, political economy, and cultural studies. Then they present the three-circuits model to show how all these concepts come together.
First, they talk about media theory and Innis' theories regarding it. They adopt Innis' concepts of the "bias" of communication technologies, their role in the rise of fall of "empires", and their relation to "oligopolies of knowledge." Innis says the media effects the perception of time and space. Info can be sent over great distance and some can preserve memory. Then, they discuss Innis' idea of the oligopoly of knowledge by those who create the new media by exercising their political and economic control over it. Then they introduce the ideas of McLuhan. He states that the notion of media an extension of our senses. As it applies to games, games should be a medium of communication and games (the example of NBA Live) translate the game at the virtual level to the reality of hand/eye coordination and screen navigation. Then, the authors go on to criticize McLuhan saying the he doesn't pay attention to the relations of social power that structure media (resources to be able to afford games), and criticizing that "media is the message" overlooks content issues (gender, violence, etc).
Next, they talk about the political economy and Marxist ideals. They go into depth about Garnham's ideas, that the role of media can be seen under two aspects. Media industries are themselves businesses, selling information and entertainment to consumers, with their own interest in speeding the process by which these commodities reach the buyers. This is media saturation of innovations. And Garnham says mass media are the bearers of advertising. This is the view that the market is oversaturated with media which contributes to the "mediatized" marketplace. With the case study of video games, the authors state that political economists haven't addressed games and are ignored because of their perception as being mindless entertainment.
Next, they look at cultural studies. They talk about how media influences our culture and how video games such as Tomb Raider can convey messages about culture regarding gender, consumerism, etc. They also bring to my attention the interpretation factor, in that all consumers won't interpret the same messages from the same media. For example, I take a different message away after playing GTA than a concerned parent would. The criticize cultural studies as well saying they don't address the specific qualities of new media (what makes video games different), they underplay the commercial structuring of the video game industry, and they risk taking for granted that audiences are shaped by the media already.
Then, the authors come up with the model of the circuit of capital, then the sub circuits of technology, marketing, and culture. The circuit of capital models the production of commodities and that brings in money through purchases to start the cycle again. The three sub circuits in respect to video games are cultural (designers, gamers, players), marketing (marketers, commodities, consumers), and technology (programmers, consoles and computers, and users). Then they add the "interactivity" aspect of games that include the degrees of openness or closure, option, and limitation.
As a reader, this article was very hard for me to grasp where the authors were going and with the diagrams it just made it more confusing. I agree with the authors angles of media analysis and their connections to video games, I was just confused with where they were going with it.

An interesting, if flawed, take on interactivity

2008-06-30T15:44:00.002-05:00

Below is a link to the website for FABLE, a game from Microsoft, where your actions change the way you look, the quests available and the in game NPC interactions.

http://www.lionhead.com/fabletlc/

Speaking of video game competitions...

2008-06-30T14:10:00.003-05:00

Does anybody else beside me remember this movie? I so badly wanted to be this kid. But it is funny to read through this article and look at all the errors in the movie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_(film)

Here are some links to video reviews of the movie, both of which are amusing

http://www.thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/nostalgia-critic/34-nostalgia-critic/215-the-wizard

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/33161.html

Sharendipity Issues

2008-06-27T22:05:00.001-05:00

SO, I had a fun and convoluted adventure with Sharendipity. I hoped that it would be an easy process, despite having messed up my hand late on Thursday, thinking I would need to only do a minimum of typing. Sadly (though for the wrong reasons), I was right...

To begin with, in general project terms, I'm a hater, in general of applications on Facebook. They just drive me crazy. I hate to use them. I have two on my profile, one (Scrabulous) because I got hooked before the whole system went superflue with them, and the other (Courses 2.0) to mimic a feature that they removed from Facebook. I went to the facebook link for Sharendipity, and it asked me to give it my information and other such frustrating stuff, so I just said no, like I always do. I just hated the idea of adding another app. From there, it was a trip to the Sharendipity main page.

Upon arrival, I saw that there, front and center, was an Asteroids "applet" to be played. I was pretty excited about this, and so I clicked on it, loading up the Java application (which looks EXACTLY the same as the initial Facebook screen), and telling my browser that I trusted the provider of it. Soon thereafter, star and a dialog box pop up on my screen, but in a bizarre location, blocking other data. I can't click on the dialog box. I can't even close the window. Eventually, I use the toolbar and close it from there, trying again.

Same problem. Again, a box of sorts opens up, in some sort of twillight between 'in front of' and 'behind' the windows that are in that area. I notice some words at the bottom of the window, but I can't catch enough of them before they are gone. Eventually, redoing the same process twice more, I'm able to collect what the words say: "Frame rate has fallen below the minimum rate for application".

I try another application ("Bloomshine") and have the exact same problem, sans starry sky screen. Again, it totally mucks up my desktop outside of the proper window, and opens up a dialog inviting my to Alpha Sharendipity, but doesn't let me select it. This time, my Firefox crashes. Ugh. As someone who truly hates putting applications on my Facebook, and is generally against "being viral" on Facebook (I HATE it when people invite me to apps), I just found the whole exercise frustrating.

Sharendipity-doo-dah day

2008-06-27T16:12:00.001-05:00

I have to admit that I had a really difficult time using Sharendipity. I tried using some of the tutorials, but most of them were about behaviors and not specifically about getting started or where to begin. Also, I didn’t come into the program with an idea of what kind of game I wanted to make. I know that Greg advised against this. Maybe I should’ve made a game that involved listening! So overall I had a negative experience when I was trying to build a game. My game ended up being nothing special. It was a lot like some others I’ve seen with just an object that flies around and shoots things (it my case it was a little palm tree). Violence has permeated every game!

All that being said, I really did enjoy using Sharendipitty to play other people’s games. It made me really impressed that there are this many people out there who can program online games with ease. This was definitely my favorite part of the program. One thing that it solidified in my mind is that I am a game player, not a game maker, and there is a huge difference between playing a game and making a game. I spent a good amount of time playing “Death’s Door,” and also a version of Asteroids. Then I tried out the personalize option and played around with each game just a tad…although I was still having trouble making the games do what I wanted them to. Oh well. Such is life.

Judging by these two paragraphs, I had on one hand not very much fun with Sharendipity, but on the other a good time playing some simple games. I’m going to end by saying that the fun outweighed the frustration I initially encountered.

Nightmare on Share Street - Sharendipity- Marlon

2008-06-27T16:03:00.000-05:00

http://apps.facebook.com/sharendipity/assets/1335/
Never has a link looked so sweet! This hand’s on assignment was one of the most gut-wrenching, difficult and frustrating experiences I’ve ever partaken in, in terms of the world of technology. With no former programming experience to speak of I found the interface extremely difficult to navigate and found myself time and again needing to go back to start over. Maybe it is the PC I am working on or the internet connection, but things seemed pretty buggy to me as I worked on this project. The screen would seizure from time to time as if the blinking frames had come to a lull before everything would shut down. I found myself gritting my teeth and turning red through much of the experience and would consider myself at least mildly tech savvy, proving, that perhaps, the program could be simplified. This program, in my opinion, is not ready for release to beginners like me, as the interface is so static that I nearly felt powerless in my controls.

The game I made is exceedingly simple and has no sort of scoring method. In fact, most of the objects don’t even explode on contact. Nonetheless, this Game, SuperNova, would make for a good flight simulator for people to learn how to control with the key pad. I started with the idea of creating a Hubble Space Telescope educational game, where one would have to photograph certain systems and stars and identify their place relative to the rest of the Milky Way galaxy. This, however, turned out to be much more difficult than expected, and what you see is what you get.

Just make sure to steer clear of the black holes. They were a nifty pickup for me, I’d argue, making each turn that much more treacherous. Perhaps, someday, when I find the interface and navigation table simpler, I might be able to finish my Hubble Space Telescope game. In the meantime, however, I can only integrate components that others have contributed, identifying the greatest advantage to this computer program—the sharing aspect and the world wide web.
Happy trails space adventurers!

Cross Video-Game marketing

2008-06-27T11:10:00.002-05:00

This is just too on-point and amusing not to share:

http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/06/world-of-warc-1.html

Pocket Monsters

2008-06-27T11:09:00.001-05:00

In this chapter from Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture, and Marketing Kline, Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter take aim at the cultural capital and control fueled by the marketing industry and how it has been applied to the relatively new medium of video games. The authors start by providing a broad overview of the marketing apparatus in question and the potential power it has to shape the development and adoption of new product.

Kline, Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter then move into a discussion of the management of game systems and properties as “branded” commodities, requiring the development and maintenance of brand cachet and loyalty. This loyalty must withstand assault not only from competing games and game systems but also other entertainment options (as we only have so many hours per day).

The discussion of games in relation to other media outlets leads naturally into a discussion of how video game marketers use these opposing media for the promotion of the game products, thereby co-opting some of the threat posed to their properties. In order to distribute the image and message desired to the target audience, namely media-savvy, cynical gamers, these video game advertisements have become less like ads and more like the media they are embedded within, taking cinematic, dramatic or humorous, tongue-in-cheek approaches to promotion.

The barriers between the different mediums are further blurred by the synergistic flow between television, movies, books, music and video games. This flow exists in all directions, with properties being passed between all potential outlets with no restrictions. The flow even allows entertainment products to be incorporated into advertisements, as well as advertisements to be incorporated into entertainment products (i.e. product placements). To illustrate this fluid and all-encompassing approach to the creation and control of culture through marketing, Kline, Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter provide examples of the reach and deliberate cross-genre production marketing effort put forth by the Pokemon franchise.

Leaving aside the fact that Kline, Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter take a somewhat elitist view of media, culture and advertising, there is another aspect of this cultural marketing effort which they neglect to address: counter-arguing. The marketing field is represented as an all powerful juggernaut, able to impose its will on the masses without limit. Despite the view put forth by videogame marketers that “marketing…can turn a mediocre game into a successful one”, the roll of independent reviewers, particularly in this age of wikis, blogs and instant information access, is hard to ignore and should not be discounted.

(As an aside, if anyone has not seen the “ZeroPunctuation” videogame review series, you really need to check it out.)

Sharendipity Hands On Assignment: Big Ten Conference Asteroids

2008-06-27T04:33:00.003-05:00

After seeing Greg Tracy's presentation in class, I knew it would be very difficult to create a game from scratch, but I tried nonetheless. Although my effort proved to be unsuccessful, I gained an appreciation of those who do spend hours of time working on these games and perfecting every little detail to perfect their games.

Even though creating your own games from scratch is very time-consuming, the nice thing about Sharendipity was that I was able to take someone else's game and make it my own. I didn't have to spend tedious hours creating every single aspect of my game from scratch, I could use what others have already created in the Sharendipity community. I decided to borrow an Asteroids game and put my own personal twist on it. Being a big Badger fan and after seeing Greg's gravity Big Ten game, I thought it would be cool to have a Big Ten Asteroids game. So I went on Sharendipity in search of an already created Asteroids game in which I could edit to make my own. After finding one, I went online and found images of all the Big Ten mascots and used them as my asteroids and ships. Of course, I used Bucky as the rocket ship to blast the other mascots. Switching the components in the game (ex. the rocket ship to a Bucky logo) was very simple, which was nice. Finally, my game was complete.

Unfortunately, borrowing other's games and using them leads to everything not being exactly the way you want it to play. For example, Bucky doesn't shoot lasers from the top, he shoots them from the left side I believe, which is inconvenient. So there are definitely draw backs in personalizing other's games, but it is awesome if you just want to create a simple game in a hurry for others to enjoy.

The game isn't the best by any means, but hopefully you all get a chance to play it a little and enjoy it (whether it be having fun or making fun of it). Here's the link: http://apps.facebook.com/sharendipity/assets/1333/

Sharendipity

2008-06-26T20:26:00.000-05:00

After seeing Greg Tracy’s examples of Sharendipity in class I knew I was going to have to try to create a simple game. My plan was to create a classic Breakout game, but trying to make a ball bounce off a rectangle proved to be very difficult. I struggled for around half an hour, messing with detail after detail until I finally gave up. The last thing I wanted to do was write a page about my failures, so I decided to create a lame alien shooter game. I also chose to cheat and use many of the objects/behaviors already shared in the community.

First, I needed to find my shooter, something I could have shoot lasers. I decided to take the default spaceship object they had and change the picture on it. I’m not going to share what the picture is, you’ll have to play the game to find out.
The main idea of the game I created is to just shoot things until they are gone. I imported an animated gif as the enemies. They randomly fly around and make an explosive sound when shot. The enemies also spawn every .7 seconds so if you slack the game FPS will kill your computer and your browser will probably freeze.
It took my awhile to get everything working, and even when I started the same up today the enemy picture was messed up. I tried to get music in the background but didn’t succeed. Hope you enjoy the game, or at least get a pity laugh out of it.

Here is the link: http://apps.facebook.com/sharendipity/assets/1328/

Maybe the violent video games had an effect...

2008-06-26T20:21:00.002-05:00

Having spent the last few days playing with Sharendipity I have a number of comments. The first relates directly to some of the other comments posted on the blog, namely issues with existing games and the interface. There were a number of interesting games I wanted to explore, such as the "Gravity Ball" within the physics section, but was unable to make it work on all occasions. It appears that, despite the fact that Sharendipity uses a Java applet which should be supported across platforms and browsers, some of the controls (specifically those relating to the keyboard) do not all function properly. The only combination which I could make work on a regular basis was IE7 on Windows XP. At this point my blood began to boil...

Which may explain the game concept I attempted to develop. I really enjoyed the "Hunting Season" game ("I can't believe you shot Santa!") and was really interested in the "Facebook Fishbowl", where images of your friends on facebook populate the screen and move about randomly (it's also supposed to display their status, but that didn't work for me). I'm guessing you can see where this is going... I decided to attempt to combine these into a "Friend Hunter", allowing you to take out your frustrations and disagreements in a safe, online environment (ie. catharsis).

Unfortunately, or fortunately if you are one of my facebook friends, this is where the plan fell through. Though I was able to locate the function which imports friend pictures, I was unable to make sense of it for two reasons: 1) I could not have the help documentation (or any other internet window) open in conjunction with the editing space and 2) I was unable to resize the editing space in order to see all of the code at once. I will admit that this failure may also have to do with my overambitious idea, but given that it should have required no additional coding, consisting soley of gobbing together existing functions....

Regardless, I do recomend trying out the "Hunting Season" game, and will continue to play with and explore the possibilities offered by the Sharendipity platform.

Wherein I Fail...sorta (re: Sharendipity)

2008-06-26T18:22:00.002-05:00

I just spent the last little bit goofing about with Sharendipity, too. I attempted to come up with some sort of game or interaction among the objects I created, but I ran into a few stumbling blocks. The first one was that every time I tried to view another webpage in a separate tab from the Sharendipity-in-Facebook app (Firefox 2.x, Mac OS X 10.5.3), the Flash screen featuring Sharendipity blurred out all other content. This means that when I tried to open up the tutorial pages, I couldn't do so while still working in Sharendipity at the same time. This resulted in me twice losing work when I had to close the window.

The real problem, though, is that I realized that I really have no concept for a game. This is what Jasun mentioned in class today - design before you develop! While it's fun to play around with a sandbox/construction set, that is really only going to take me so far. I decided to mess about with the Sharendipity games already out there, and played the flower bloom one. I played it for _ten_minutes before I glanced at the clock again, and probably could have kept going. I'm actually going to give it another spin in a second here.

So while I can't fully endorse Sharendipity as either easy enough or fun enough to grab my attention, I think if I actually had an idea for a cool kind of game that I would actually want to go somewhere with, to have a toolkit at my avail would be excellent. God knows I'm no programmer.

(The thing I did have the idea to make was some sort of bullseye/target shooting game, but not only did I lack in concept, but I think some of my art ideas were also falling well short of the mark. Then I started having operator errors, so to speak, with Sharendipity itself.)

Sharendipity

2008-06-26T16:26:00.001-05:00

At first I was really excited to try out some games the users created and explore the limits of what people have discovered. Unfortunately, I encountered two things that prevented me from doing this. First, my web browser was missing a necessary application to use this program or it was that this certain application wasn’t enabled. After ten minutes or so of screwing around with my web browser I finally got it working. So, I decided to try out some games. To my dismay, the controls just weren’t responding. I told the ship to go right…it didn’t’ go right; instead it got pounded by rocks until I died every time. I tried out a couple of other games and the same problems occurred. I don’t know if this is computer specific--I hope it isn’t cause then this company is going nowhere. But, I’m sure it is just me.

As for editing I was able to mess around with that a little. I tried to keep things simple and mostly tweaked the images in the game and once I messed with the force applied to an object. It was fun being able to manipulate and personalize certain games, but I could not play them. It looked good, but the aesthetic value is meaningless without game play. Once again it probably is just my computer, but it’s all I have at the moment. When I got back to Madison I will try it out on some other computers and hopefully the games will start responding to the controls listed in the instructions.

Violent Video Games - Jeffrey Goldstein

2008-06-25T20:48:00.003-05:00

Starting off with a snapshot of Mr. Goldstein to put a picture to his words.

The first thing I noticed about this article was its “encyclopedia like” style and that it is full of a ton of good information and quotes. Goldstein begins the article stating his goal of looking critically at definitions and empirical studies dealing with the video game violence issue. He also lists a few questions that he hoped to answer by the end of the chapter. They are:

What is a violent video game?
How does its violence differ from other media violence, and from real life violence?
How do consumers of video games perceive the violence before them?

Since there is so much information and references in this article, I’ll go through some of the things I found most interesting in each of the sections.

In his first section, Meanings of Violence in Video Games introduces a couple interesting ideas. First he talk about the Third-Person Effects in Media Research, which is the idea that media affects others, but not oneself. This effect has even been seen in older children talking about younger children. We have also seen this effect in a number of media pieces from class. Additionally in this section he proposes the idea that the exaggerated use of violence in video games, film and other media is a product of the American society. This is interesting because I know I’ve heard before that there have been studies where non-Americans watched sessions of American television and after surveys it has been shown that they saw the world as a scarier and meaner world.

Goldstein introduces three research strategies mainly used when studying the effects of violent video games; correlational studies, experiments, and meta –analysis.

First he goes into correlational studies and addresses right away that there is little causal information that can be pulled from these. Any study he mentioned, he quickly said no significant relationship could be concluded.

His experiments section has the more detail and information. I’ll go into a few of them because I think they are interesting. First, the study conducted by Craig Anderson and Karen Dill where they tried to find two video games similar in everything but violence. They chose Wolfenstein 3D and Myst. Even though the experiment found some interesting things, it was criticized because the games, which were supposed to be similar other than violence, were not.
He goes through multiple experiments and for each of them presents their flaws. Even in the meta-analysis, which is when you take the data from many studies and try to find conclusion with all of the data clumped together.

At the end of the article he concluded that, “the research is too inconsistent and insubstantial to allow any conclusion to be drawn.” Overall the article is an excess of information and experiment about video games and violence, but it draws no conclusions.

Leisureville

2008-06-25T15:19:00.002-05:00

"Imagine what America might look like if a sizable minority of its elders secede into their own communities. That’s just what’s happening, except until now no one was talking about it. It’s called age-segregation and it’s an increasingly popular form of societal secession. More than 12 million Americans aged 55 and older are expected to live in these gated playpens in the next decade or so, and that’s a very conservative estimate..."

David Williamson Shaffer and James Paul Gee Reading Summary

2008-06-25T14:32:00.001-05:00

Reading Summary
“Before Every Child Is Left Behind: How Epistemic Games Can Solve the Coming Crisis in Education”
David Williamson Shaffer and James Paul Gee

The Crisis
In the wake of the 21st century and all her advancements, the environment for businesses’, workers, governments and states are quickly evolving (Shaffer & Gee). As “old [American] capitalism” crumbles beneath the pressures of a system predominated by a need for American innovation, the endless quest for ownership over the term “new” moves perpetually forward—undermined only by a major flaw inherent to capitalism. American’s have reached a juncture where the laws of capitalism no longer favor the red, white and blue. No, in fact, a high standard of living comes at a heavy price. “Commodity jobs” and labor favors cheaper job markets. The jobs, much like water, travel from high to low behind the whip of capitalism—from the First to the Third World—acting like gravity in this familiar equation.

What actually defines a “commodity job,” argues Shaffer and Gee, is simply the jobs vulnerability to be outsourced. This includes anything from high to low end jobs according to all normative and societal accounts. From the family doctor to the guy that screw’s on J.I. Joe head’s at the factory, any job outsource-able will inevitably be outsourced (Shaffer & Gee).

The New Crisis
The “new wrinkle” that has formed on the blueprint of American capitalism has elevated the ‘crisis’ of old to the status of ‘new’: namely, that highly skilled positions—those once safeguarded by geographical constraints—can now also travel across seas.

Moving on Up!
America has responded to this crisis by orienting training and education in America towards occupations demanding skill and innovation. America looks to hew itself into the image of the cutting edge of the 21st century. America, however, is not alone in this race, as Third World countries also want to become the place of technological dominance. Thus, Americans must “work and learn smarter” to continue to compete in the race towards innovation and discovery.

Schooling and De-Innovation
Cut backs, however, in funding for the sciences, the arts and any fields on the forefront of innovation have stunted the evolution of the American educational system towards this promising direction. Instead, America continues to produce more commodity workers in a nation without a sustainable commodity production job market of its own. As “standardized testing… [produces] standardized skills,” the average Joe America is being cheated out of an applicable educational curriculum, leaving many children behind despite governmental efforts.
Key Insight: “China has 300 million skilled and educated workers, more than the entire population of the United States… Inspired by the goal of leaving no child behind in basic skills, [America is] leaving all of our children, rich and poor, well behind in the new global competition for innovative work.”

As we attempt to approach the “highest levels of the value chain,” American’s in general, which have been focused as a whole on in improving proficiency in reading, have failed to gain other, more pertinent skills—such as the ability to understand a complicated technological symbol system.

Preparing for Innovation
The skills necessary for achieving innovation don’t start in college, but instead, begin as early as kindergarten (foreign language metaphor—better to learn at a younger age). This includes immersing children in technology from a young age. This also includes immersing children in complex conversation even if they don’t fully understand, even at a young age. This type of speaking should be “school based” and not simply vernacular. This school based conversation, in ideal circumstances, would resonate from school to the home. Public schools, however, are not holding up their end of the bargain.
Example: “The Age of Mythology”: Video game dealing with complex problem solving, decision making and spatial skills, being able to modify any component of the game as pleased.

The New Equity Gap
Children’s pop culture, argues the authors, is more advanced than ever before. This represents an avenue of opportunity for educators, as any number of games and technologies that kids might be using in contemporary America generally have more advanced use of technologically relevant subject matter.
Key Insight: This leg up, however, can hinder those American public schools on the more barren side of the digital divide. Without technology being present in many inner-city schools, already disadvantaged students are only hindered more. Overall, Americans are investing more time and labor in get-rich quick areas such as law and business, shying away from more Asian dominated technological fields.

The Solution
With liberals and conservatives equally contributing to, rather than diminishing, the growth of this crisis, the solution doesn’t just lie in economic reform, but in Epistemic games. A good example of an epistemic game is Madison 2200 in which student ‘urban planners’ design a city that will function healthily, to the best of their capability. This requires a deeper understanding of societal, scientific and economical issues (Remember the MIT guy from The Video Game Revolution when he taught is son how to budget on the Sims.) This game has been used with success when applied to “at risk” students.

Epistemic Frames
(1) MUST NOT be standardized. (Madison 2200 versus standardized tests in sociology, economics, psychology and other arts and sciences)
(2) Madison 2200 (game) taught students how to understand the complexities of city planning, and more importantly, how to carry over that knowledge to other situations. Digital Zoo represents another game detailing other disciplines (Biology and Physics).
(3) These games, above all else, are highly fact-oriented to improve their external effects after the game is over.
(4) Yield innovative thinkers because they are opened to this range of thinking well before college and the professional years.
(5) From Assessment orientation → Epistemic orientation = an improvement. Just because a student can memorize and regurgitate Newton’s Laws of Motion does not mean he can apply them to practical life.
(6) Overcoming the “fourth-grade slump” when children have a problem going from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.”
(7) The new model for learning in a global society rich in culture and digital culture.

Mizuko Ito, "Education vs. entertainment: A cultural history of children's software

2008-06-25T08:12:00.007-05:00

Mizuko "Mimi" Ito is a scholar and researcher at USC's School of Cinematic Arts. Her article, "Education vs. Entertainment: A Cultural History Children's Software," makes up a chapter of the recent MIT Press edited volume The Ecology of Games.

Ito's contribution stems in great part from work she did on her dissertation and is largely ethnographic in nature, just the type of research that Goldstein and Williams called for in yesterday's readings. In this piece, Ito endeavors to map the landscape of software developed for and marketed toward children over the last 30 years, making some interesting observations and delineating certain features in so doing. She is careful to point out that the commercial nature of much of this software places it and a "boundary zone" between education and entertainment - an issue for many types of materials consumed by young people, but perhaps particularly acute in the digital realm. For purposes of this article, there seems to be no great differentiation made between computer games and more traditional video/arcade-style games; in fact, most of the titles Ito invokes have been traditionally played on a home computer.

Ito begins by identifying three "genres" of children's software: academic, entertainment and construction, and goes on to state that she plans to examine the genres from the points of view of their "production and advertising...design...and at sites of play." This is approach seems as though it will cover issues pertaining to children's software in a comprehensive way.

In this dense and complex academic article, Ito makes several excellent points. First, she notes that new technologies (children's software included) do not emerge in a vacuum; rather, they are cultural byproducts and artifacts like any other, subject to a variety of stages of acceptance - a period known as "interpretive flexibility." She cites the bicycle as another innovation that went through this same period; for anyone interested in learning more about that, check out a book entitled The Adman in the Parlor for hilarious turn of the 20th century ad copy about bicycles - it is quite instructive.

Ito also cites the importance of how other media interrelate with new technologies. She pays special attention, for example, to examining ad copy, thinking about distribution and in what contexts the game is adopted (introducing these notions as a concept called the "circuit of culture").

After providing this framework for her discussion, Ito then gives a detailed historical account of how educational and children's games came into being, through a variety of pathways (via educators, via commercial means, etc.) Ito also discusses how these games were then targeted not only to children, but also to educators, parents and other children's culture gatekeepers. Here, again, she denotes three types ("genres") of games: academic, entertainment and construction. Each one of these genres has played out slightly differently as children's electronic/computer gaming has developed, and Ito gives a history and example for them all. Briefly, games she denotes as "educational" include early titles such as Rocky's Boots and Oregon Trail; many of these games and their companies can trace their roots directly back to academe or to K-12 institutions. Games deemed "entertainment" include the types of things produced by traditional toymakers (e.g. Mattel) using branded properties (e.g. Barbie). Construction games are a wide gamut that range from Will Wright's Sim City titles to, interestingly, the programming language known as LOGO. LOGO is a particularly interesting case, because one of, if not the primary, learning outcomes of that software is to teach kids computer literacy. It may be one of the first examples of software created with that sort of intentionality and with those goals in mind.

The last portion of Ito's article is consecrated to sharing and discussing the results of on-site interactions and observations of youth playing a variety of computer games in an afterschool club setting. These 5th Dimension computer clubs, interestingly, also exist at an intersection between leisure and instruction/education.

The anecdotes from the play recorded at the club suggest that even in ostensibly linear educational games, kids will find ways to develop their own play methods and mechanisms for problem-solving and will "freestyle" within the game, if given the chance. Often times, achieving an outcome is prized over the methods.

Also interesting about the sequences is the fact that the kids' play seems to always include adults interacting and mediating the game experience. Ito also cites the importance of "the element of spectacle," which often runs in contrast to what authority figures (e.g. supervising adults, game designers) think the outcomes should be.

Ito has the highest hopes for the construction genre of gaming in an educational context, citing their tool-mastery aspect and the creativity and individuation they inspire.

WHAT’S IN A VIDEO GAME? REGULATION OF VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT

2008-06-24T16:51:00.000-05:00

On March 29, 2006 the United States Senate, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary met to discuss possible regulations and the constitutionality of prohibiting video game sales to minors. The Chairman for this proceeding is Senator Brownback from Kansas. The goal of this meeting is to discuss the recent developments in state efforts to restrict the sale of violent video games to minors and, as put by Chairman Brownback, “to try to get and to build a factual basis of why there as a legitimate state interest in legislating on violence in video games and their targeting and marketing toward children” (3). This whole proceeding is mostly centered around a group of two panels. In the first panel the discussion is mostly related to effects of video games on children and in the second it concerns the constitutionality of regulating video games.

The first witness is Reverend Strickland whose brother was shot by a teen that is reported to be an avid player of video games. He talks about how his brother was a police officer and the teen age boy took his gun and shot him as well as two other officers. To this the boy replied, “life is a video game everyone has to die sometime” (6). He talks more in depth about how simulators relative to cop killing games create such behavior.

The next witness is Ms Carll is far more concerned with the way violence is portrayed in video games as well as sexual and racial themes. The sort of aggression against women especially in violent games is “depicted as humorous and glamorous and is rewarded” (9). Her recommendations for helping to alleviate worries is: 1) teach children about media literacy and 2) link violent behaviors with negative social consequences. However, Dmitri Williams from U of I believes that we should take more skeptically to the video game violence epidemic. The studies so far have been way too short and inconclusive to decide whether or not regulations apply.

Now, the constitutionality issue around violent video games arises because of the first amendment. One comment that I think puts the issue best is this, “our Constitution mandates that the Government regulate behavior, not speech that is perceived as likely to cause undesirable behavior among listeners or recipients” (27). Since the science is lacking quite a bit in these issues it may be too soon to impose government regulations on video games. Kevin Saunders, Professor of Law at MSU, believes that the first amendment issue can be resolved by: 1) argue sufficiently that violent material, when presented to children, is obscene or 2) is that video game activity is not an activity protected by the first amendment. Whether or not these to strategies will work I believe that more long term studies should be conducted first and the focus should be on the parents obligation to filter and teach their kids about inappropriate forms of media.

Nina Huntemann CV

2008-06-24T14:16:00.002-05:00

Assistant Professor, Communication & Journalism, Suffolk College. Ph.D., Communication, February 2005. University of Massachusetts Amherst. Dissertation: "Policy and Culture in the Digital Age: A Cultural Policy Analysis of the US Commercial Radio Industry".

Feminist Studies Certificate, Women's Studies, September 2001. University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Other info available on the site. Note the name of her website, too - "mediacritica.net."

I do NOT promote playing this game, but it does seem relevant

2008-06-24T14:06:00.002-05:00

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/439144

And here's a "news" story about it:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25337373/

Civilization... sorta

2008-06-23T13:59:00.003-05:00

For those who haven't played Civ before, here's a link to an open-source replica. Stiil being developed (like all open-source software) and can be a little buggy, but worth the cost :)

http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

UCC and video games: a double edged sword

2008-06-23T09:28:00.003-05:00

The ugly side of the Spore Creature Creator:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25272162

Summary of “Open-ended video games: A model for developing learning for the interactive age” by Kurt Squire

2008-06-22T23:02:00.000-05:00

This article focuses mainly on discussing the possibility for open-ended games to become tools for both educating and interacting with people, be it strictly as a way to build skills or as a tool for evaluating society. This is done through looking at open-ended games as possibilities for a “designed experience.” Kurt Squire begins by pointing out several properties of open-ended simulations or “sandbox” games. He claims that the games allow players to develop “productive literacies,” meaning that they are able to use the game to “produce both meaning and tangible artifacts” (168). In this way, these games can be used to foster development in certain areas. By creating “targeted games,” programmers can try to teach new concepts, skills, or ideas to the players. In effect, they teach the gamer new ways to develop specific ways of thinking about the game, or the subject of the game. He continues to explain that these games utilize several different methods of game play to support learning.

From here, Squire move onto actual examples of using open-ended games to first learn about the way that game play can describe personality and differences views of society, and then as a method of education. This is possible, he claims, because these games are “more about inhabiting a world from a general perspective, which the player can play out in whatever manner suits his or her taste” (171). To this end, he also argues that these games say more about the players because of the extended timescale that these games are (on average) played for.

First, Squire describes the results of his testing of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Squire seems to be looking for reactions involving the way that race, gender, and class are depicted in the game. He describes three different reactions and methods of game play, from three different groups. First, there is Honovi and his friends from an African-American community; then, a group of white kids from a working class neighborhood; finally, a group of high school age, economically poor African Americans. Each group produces its own concerns and methods of game play. Honovi enjoys customizing cars, and the culture of hip-hop represented in the games. However, when in front of his friends, he cares more about violent chases and jumps. The working class white kids say that they find the game to be a bit offensive in its racial stereotypes. And the final group says that the game presents an unrealistic idea of class mobility, and that the idea that a video game could cause the violence they see in their neighborhoods ignoring larger social issues. From these results, Squire concludes that the there is no one true experience for playing GTA: San Andreas, but instead that different versions of the game exists for different players within different sociological groups. He writes that in essence “Players learn the rules of the system, using them as a backdrop to play off of, a context to perform within, rather than as a stable system of meaning that they’re ‘inculcated’” (178) with. The game becomes one of “possibility spaces,” for both the intellect and identity of the player.

Squire’s second subject for testing is the educational value of historical open-ended games, such as Civilization. He uses the third game in the series as a tool for teaching students about geography, politics, and history. First, he notes that the play style of the players, like in GTA: San Andreas, cause an individual experience of game play to exist for each student. After his tests, certain students took away from the experience different things than others. Many gained a better knowledge of world geography. Others walked away believing that all of civilization has acted according to a series of patterns, based upon lines of money, imperialism, geographic location, and natural resources. Judging on what each student walked away with, one could begin to understand where a person’s true interests lie.

The last section of his article centers on the Apolyton University. The school, run by students for students, where the core mode of education takes place using games like Civilization. The school claimed that these games foster the student’s abilities to analyze situations and come up with creative ways of solving problems. From here, he moves to his final conclusions about the way that these games turn “players to producers” (187). The games become individual exercises and experiences in learning, identity, and assessment of values. The players find themselves more interested in certain aspects of the games, such as Jason, who went so far as to study the culture of Scandinavia so as to better understand their role in the game Civilization III. In the end, he cites that open-ended games are still in their early stages, and as such we remain in the early stages of finding ways to analyze ways in which these games can be used as tools for growth and learning. He however cites the hope that eventually they will help students, teachers, and players in general better reflect upon the ways that they can “teach themselves to learn” (193), which was the overall goal of the exercise involving Civilization.

For those of us frustrated with MAME

2008-06-20T15:52:00.003-05:00

Here are some free Internet games...the "50 best on the internet" in fact...just in time for the weekend. I would suggest bookmarking this page if you are interested, or if you have a lot of time to kill.

http://www.gamesradar.com/f/50-free-games/a-2008060695425559009

Atair 2600 Emulator Hands-on Assignment

2008-06-20T14:40:00.001-05:00

For our hands on assignment for the week I choose to use the Atari 2600 emulator instead of the MAME program because MAME was way too confusing. The ROMs I got for the emulator were Pong and BMX Air Master. I could not figure out the BMX game controls, but it was just a biker in a half-pipe. Was it fun? I could not tell you, but I’m sure it could’ve held my attention for ten minutes had I figured it out. Pong worked though, and what a time it was. The colors and the game structure are so simple, but make for such an enjoyable experience. Surprisingly I sucked at the game. I think most of it had to do with the difference between an actual Atari controller and a keyboard, but I’ll admit I wasn’t good. Being accustomed to well defined graphics, Pong does leave me with a feeling of wanting more, but seeing everyone obsessively playing on their blackberries is a testament of Pong’s timelessness.

I really wish MAME would have worked for me because there are a bunch of games for it that I really would have enjoyed playing. However, there are a ton of games posted on the website where I found the ROMs for the Atari emulator. So as time frees up or as I step away from xbox 360, I’ll have to check more of them out. The website where I found all the games is as follows if anyone is interested: http://www.atariage.com/system_items.html?SystemID=2600&ItemTypeID=ROM

Double Fisted MAME troubles…followed by some NES action

2008-06-20T14:36:00.001-05:00

Having just spent a good hour trying to get MAME running, and having finally done so, I am not surprised at all that the Wii Shop does as well as it does. For anybody who wants the opportunity to play the old classic NES games, or other older games, but wants to smash their computer after 15 minutes of this, 5 bucks a game doesn’t sound so bad (if you’ve got the money).

My main problem was that once I got the ROMs (which I downloaded from either romnation.net or romworld.com) and had them in my MAME folder, I would click on the game it would tell me that I was missing some required files to play the game. So I went to their FAQ section, which was no help at all. Then I finally found a web forum that was supposed to help out with problems like this. It took me a long time to navigate through other questions to get to mine. Pretty much the problem turned out to be that the ROMs I was downloading were not complete, and that there were missing files. This sent me back to the sites I previously mentioned, where I then had to just do trial and error until I found some ROMs that were complete. This was frustrating too because I didn’t get to play the games that I really wanted to.

Once I got some games running though it was really fun. I have always been a fan of emulators and ROMs, ever since my friends first started downloading them in middle school. It was great not to have to bang on my old NES or blow on the cartridges just so I could play Double Dragon 2. In this way I think that the online technology is great…however it is very frustrating. After this experience I will probably still play games on the MAME system, but once they are up for download from on the Wii I will probably just get them there. Which is unfortunate, because it means I will be paying money, but if the money is going to Nintendo I don’t mind quite as much.

More MAME and Marble Madness

2008-06-20T12:55:00.001-05:00

I found this cool youtube video of someone clearing the entire game. I thought some of you guys might want to see this game if you hadn't before. I posted my experience as a comment on this entry.

MAME Hands-On Assignment

2008-06-20T10:57:00.000-05:00

During the process of attempting to get MAME to work and to actually play a game on it, I became increasingly frustrated with the complicated process one had to go through just to play a game on it. It also didn’t help that there wasn’t a place to go for directions (for those who aren’t good at figuring some things out technologically) or anything. The whole program seemed to be geared more towards the person who would be easily able to figure out how to use it on his/her own and that definitely isn’t me.

After giving up on trying to figure out the MAME program, I decided to do some searching of my own and was able to find a site where you could download RealArcade and play some classic Atari games for free for 60 minutes, then if you wanted to have unlimited access, you had to pay $10. The six games that I was able to play were Pong, Asteroids, Centipede, Super Breakout, Missle Command, and Tempest. So I played the various games for an hour and this is what I observed.

I first started with Pong because I had played it before. However, the computer was very good and I proceeded to get beaten very quickly. What was cool about this, is that the screen replicated what you would see at an arcade with the yellow incasing around the screen. The next game I played was Tempest, which was like Asteroids, but the controls were horrible, which immediately turned me off to the game. My next adventure was Missle Command, which was surprisingly fun. I had to shoot down enemy fire with missles to protect the city from being destroyed. It took like 2 games to learn the controls, so I could see how this could be successful in the arcade because it was easy to learn and fun. Centipede was up next, which was another game that was easy to pick up. However, this game really didn’t appeal to me so I didn’t play it very long. I played Asteroids for like 5 minutes, then became hooked on Super Breakout. I played this one for like half an hour and had a blast. There’s something about this game that appeals to me, I think it’s the challenge of trying to improve. It’s a very simple game, but has lasting appeal much like some of the other games that Atari made back in the day. Overall, I had a great time and definitely see how some of these games became so popular in arcades. Most are easy to pick up, but difficult to master, leaving you wanting to keep coming back for more.

MAME and such

2008-06-20T00:06:00.002-05:00

Maybe it's that I'm doing something terribly wrong, but I just can't seem to get the MAME application to do much of anything. I downloaded it, and installed it as a .exe, and then… mostly sat there unsure of what to do next. I looked for a README file, but none was to be found, and so a quick travel back to the website and hitting up the FAQ, I managed to be able to get Robby to load, but I couldn’t get it to go beyond the opening screen without getting vertical grey bars of death.

I’d be curious what the game plays out like, especially when I think about it in comparison to one of my favorite sites, virtualapple.org. In some ways, the problem of virtualapple is the same – you need to rely on the quality of the ROMs that you have. Further, how do you actual go about having a proper interface? It isn’t standardized via MAME, unless I’m missing something. I stopped by the FAQ and learned that it seems as though the control can often be specific to the game’s setting, though you can set them.

I stepped through this process, but was still unable, even with help from FAQs to actually even see what the game played like. The process became so frustrating (it was a third attempt), I eventually just gave up, and went and found Oregon Trail. This satisfied me immensely. Life was good again.

MAME Help

2008-06-19T20:48:00.001-05:00

Being the not so tech savvy person that I am, I'm having great difficulties in figuring out how to actually play the ROM after downloading it. I'm on Windows if that matters. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Celia Pearce "Sims, BattleBots, Cellular Automata God and Go: A Conversation with Will Wright"

2008-06-19T17:42:00.001-05:00

Celia Pearce's article "Sims, BattleBots, Cellular Automata God and Go: A Conversation with Will Wright" talks about how interactive entertainment and simulation are what gamers want. They don't want a game that tells them what to do and offers little alternatives in the decisions the player can make, they won't wide open situations that the player can structure themselves. Their conversation discusses a lot about how Wright, the creator of the Sims video game, feels about the interactive and simulation characteristics of games and how that makes them so fun to play. Wright goes on to talk about what draws him to video games and that's the interactive environments that allow the player to be creative. When players see what they have created and it's unique to them, they invest in it emotionally. Wright talks about the inspiration behind Sim City, a game called Pinball Construction Set where the player created a pinball game and then could play it. He also talked about a flight simulator game where he would test out what would happen if he crashed or did certain maneuvers. He would experiment with the game because he was free to do so. Then he talks about his favorite board game Go, which is a really abstract game and how it brings people's different mental models into agreement as the game progresses.
Wright also starts to talk about how people personify and identify themselves with the characters in The Sims. Like when planning what job the players are seeking for their character and what relationships they seek, they refer to the character as "I." But when the character fails or rebels, the character is then refered to as "He". This is a real interesting dynamic in that it applies to other situations. For example, when the Badgers win the football game on Saturdays, the fans usually say we won. But if they lose, I usually end up saying they lost. Like I'm putting it on them when they lose, but in a pseudo way accepting credit when they win. Kind of interesting.
They go on to discuss how people pursue different goals and how they're working on a multi-player version of The Sims so you can use the help of other characters to accomplish you goals.
Then, Wright talks about how he wants players to appreciate how connected things are through space and time. His goal is to make the possibilities to be as wide as possible, with as much space as possible. I immediately thought of GTA here, because even though you have missions to complete, you as a player are free to do whatever you want. You choose to do missions, so if you don't want to, you can simply roam about the environments trying new things and doing whatever you want.

Then Wright starts to discuss the blurring of the consumer and the producer which Greg Tracy talked about yesterday with regards to Sharendipity. Wright thinks that there are media like the internet where the interaction between both is a "smooth ramp." The Sims has that same blend in that you create your character and are the audience and you can put your storyboard and what you've created and put it on the web.

The final big topic of discussion is that in games time isn't always linear. You can always go back and load a saved game, etc. He compares it to films like Run Lola Run, which is pretty good, I suggest you check it out. Basically, the film replays the same scenario in which Lola is trying to get money for her friend Manni who is in trouble and needs it. The whole scene replays with things being different every time. It's a good example, because the entire scene starts with Lola waking up to an alarm and goes from there playing the whole scene, instead of just rewinding and starting from a specific spot in the story.

Legend of the Last Toymaker - backposted...

2008-06-19T15:01:00.001-05:00

Shigeru Miyamoto - Legend of the Last Toy-Maker

His tale is told much like a fairie tale (note even the titles), and its tone is given higher precedence than the actual content that it is sharing, though it does give us that content. The authors seem most interested in imbuing this store with a kind of mythic weight. Shigeru Miyamoto isn't just the man that brought us Mario, he is an artist, he is the ever-wide-eyed toymaker, the man who can imbue childlike joy and imagination into his games.
Clearly, the way that the authors tell us this story wants to impress this upon us. We are given an omniscient narrator (who also tells us of Miyamoto's many handlers - have those handlers, perhaps, had their fingers in the telling of this story?), we shares with us the journey of Miyamoto from childhood into early adulthood and then through the adventure that is there in Nintendo.
Miyamoto goes to Nintendo during an era of change - the video game is just being ushered in and the current patriarch of the company Yamauchi, really wants to leave a legacy on the company's history. In this time, Miyamoto is hired, and given the task of packaging Radarscope for a US Market.
A (supposed) conversation between the two highlights Miyamoto's general philosophy:
- memorable characters
- artistic products
- less reliance on violence and more on larger themes.

In Radarscopes place, he creates Donkey Kong, much to the skepticisim of Nintendo's sales force. It ends up being a smash hit. In follow up, he creates Super Mario Brothers, to be bundled in with the Nintendo Entertainment System (the American version of Japan's Famicom). Super Mario has several interesting developments: a boss, a world to explore (giving it epic scale), easy skill hurdle to enter the game, high hurdle to master the skill.
As we follow Miyamoto in the aftermath of this we see a little more of his philosophy. Rather than start with a monster/weapon/spectacle, Miyamoto's game often start with a location, and then the idea: "Where is the fun here?". Philosophy matters, here. Like an old-fashioned toy, many Miyamoto games are largely open-ended, and can just be played ad infinitum, to the hearts content of the player, much like a toy soldier. Who cares about realism, Miyamoto asks, if the fun isn't there to be found. In the modern era, it is interesting to see how current designers have begun to view this as an "old-fashioned" outlook, even though they owe much of the ways that they explore this space TO Miyamoto. In the end, it is very similar to Miyamoto's conflict with Nintendo's early salespeople, looking for the tangible, and Miyamoto, championing the intangible: fun.

MAME OS X?

2008-06-18T23:42:00.000-05:00

Has anyone succeeded in actually running games under MAME OS X?

Thanks.

Free Donkey Kong web version

2008-06-18T15:21:00.000-05:00

Play Donkey Kong here.

The unending quest for high score

2008-06-18T13:10:00.003-05:00

Yesterday in class we talked about how some classic arcade games actually benefit from not having a narrative and being solely about bettering your score. This really reminded me of a documentary that came out last year called "The King of Kong." The movie centers around the battle for who really owns the highest score in the original Donkey Kong. I'm sure that some of you have heard of this movie, probably even seen it, but if you haven't I highly recommend it. It manages to be both funny and compelling. Plus the whole thing centers around a classic arcade game. Below are some links about the movie.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_kong

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/king_of_kong/

http://www.billyvssteve.com/

MAME Hands-on Assignment for the Week

2008-06-17T23:55:00.000-05:00

The world of ROMs and emulators is familiar territory for me. In middle school I found out about them and thought it was unbelievable that all of these games were available to download. I started out with some of the classic consoles like Nintendo, and had hundreds of ROMs. After a couple of months my collection grew to thousands including games across many different consoles. I knew what the MAME was but never really tried it out before because the console games had my attention.

While the games on the site Downey gave us looked interesting, I was looking to find some popular arcade games. Just by searching Google I found a massive list including games such as Galaga and Space Invaders. I downloaded the MAME OSX and figured it would be just like the other emulators I’ve seen, but instead it was a bit confusing to set up. Most emulators I’ve used give you the option just “Open ROM”. The MAME OSX had a unique way and finally after making a .zip file and placing it in the ROMs folder (which was tucked away in a place I never expected) I started playing. I figured out the keys by basically pressing all of them and seeing which caused a reaction. After a couple levels I was satisfied with my progress, but itched to play some of the games from my childhood. Many of my trips to Chuck E. Cheese ended up with my brothers and me glued in front of the TMNT game so I searched the site for it and loaded it up in a flash. It was just like I remembered and wasted a chunk of my night—luckily I still had time to write this up. Both emulators and ROMs are easily be found by searching Google. I highly recommend trying some out from all of the old consoles.

I found the ROMs on the site below but remember only download the games you own!

http://www.rom-world.com/dl.php?name=MAME

Origins of an Industry: Cold Warriors, Hackers, and Suits 1960-1984

2008-06-17T23:41:00.003-05:00

In the chapter entitled "Origins of an Industry, Cold Warriors, Hackers and Suits 1960-1984," authors Kline, Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter provide an excellent overview of and context for the development of the video game industry over the past almost fifty years. The authors quickly dispel an apparently commonly held belief that the creative, profit-driven entrepreneur (think the Silicon Valley of the 1980s) has been the primary innovator in the computing (and, thus, the video game) industry.

Rather, the authors make the case that these dual industries (which I'll refer to simply as the computing industry) were products of a generation before, a direct result of Cold War preoccupations (e.g. the nuclear arms race; the technology push symbolized by what came to be known as the "Space Race") that brought together the military, academia and industry in a collective R&D team the repercussions of which were eventually felt in the popular culture via the innovations spurred by this collaboration.

Within the walls of academia, a group of hitherto mostly unnoticed technology geeks who had both a special interest in the emergent field of computing and access to the multi-million dollar, room-filling machines began to come out of the shadows and into prominence within the new paradigm of the military-academic-industrial partnership ("complex," as the authors perhaps more polemically term it). Primarily young men, these "hackers," as they came to be known, possessed a technical prowess that was combined with a larger-than-average dose of curiosity and desire to be hands-on with technology, and their experimentations became critical in the quest for innovation that, curiously, happened largely outside of the confines of the traditional scientific research paradigm. The authors do point out that much of this innovation, funded by governmental defense concerns in so many cases, came at the cost of an uneasy alliance, for many of the original hackers were stridently anti-establishment in the sense that their ethos demanded an adherence to an ethic that ran contrary to one that had the country embroiled in Vietnam, for example.

The authors go on to explore how a variety of elements commonly considered to be fringe cultural phenomena, such as science fiction, various types of non-mainstream gaming, an interest in problem-solving, and so on (what I like to collectively refer to, sans judgment, as "nerd culture") began to move from the margins and influence the mainstream, largely due to the hackers now engaged in influential technological innovation in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In particular, the introduction of role-playing games (particularly of Dungeons & Dragons) had a massive impact on nerd culture, in general, and hacker culture, in particular, and variations on both the theme and the nature of those games quickly appeared on mainframe computers at universities across the countries, a portent of gaming things to come.

Meanwhile, post-war America had developed into a prosperous land of suburban plenty, creating a fertile ground for the gaming industry to come in that it provided the physical space (e.g. malls), the youth culture (the post-war baby boom generation and one generation beyond) and the disposable income that put a TV in every home and the leisure time to watch it. As many former hackers migrated beyond the walls of academe and into industry (and here we see the rise of the Silicon Valley that many must think of when they think of the computing industry), these factors began to synthesize in such a way that the country and the culture were ripe for the new forms of entertainment that video games would soon provide. The authors identify three key "paths," or inroads used by video games to entrench themselves into the fabric of American society. They were:

Arcades: Atari (with Pong) first made it big here. Arcades grew up quickly in the 1970s and malls, also exploding at this time, provided the perfect place for them.
The Home Console: A number of gaming consoles for the home were created in the mid-1970s, blending in seamlessly with that other ubiquitous technology device, the television. A home version of Pong made a bit of an early smash, but it wasn't until microchips could be placed inside swapable cartridges that the home consoles really took off.
The Home Computer: Initially, market differentiation, technological limitations and price meant that home computers were not seen as a gaming device, yet it did not take long for game-eager home computer users to begin to use the machines in this way.

The chapter closes with a discussion of the major players in the video game world of the early 1980s (what is widely considered video gaming's "Golden Age"). Already discussed, Atari became a leader in video gaming via several arcade hits but also with its hugely popular home console and its arcade games ported into cartridges for home play. The advent of the 1980s also saw the introduction of Pac-Man, the game that changed everything and spawned a cultural revolution that saw crossover from video games into just about every other realm of media and consumerism imaginable. This also marked a point in time, the authors note, in which development of the gaming experience and its entertainment value became just as important (or perhaps surpassed) as improving technological aspects of the games. The authors also describe the game developers themselves, who sound surprisingly like the hackers of MIT from just fifteen to twenty years before.

As early game innovators like Atari sold out to larger media conglomerates, new upstart companies rose in their wake, and Activision, Electronic Arts and others stepped in to take their place. These new companies were often set up as game design houses solely, breaking from the old model that saw hardware companies with an in-house cadre of game developers working to sell more of that company's hardware via successful games. It was at this time that the game developers themselves, often fiercely individual hacker types, began to forge their own identities as game designers, introducing easter eggs into their creations and becoming reflective about their work such that issues of aesthetics, virtuality, and artistic merit began to come to the fore. Designers also began to place a great deal of import on the seamless intersection of graphics, interface and software. In short, games became more and more sophisticated.

Improvements in graphics, networked play and other game innovations thrilled developers but also did not escape the watchful eye of the military, who saw in games an opportunity for training of its personnel, the ability to run extremely nuanced simulations, to try out tactical strategies, and so on, and who continued to implement video game-like environments as training tools throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The authors point out that this interplay between the military and gaming industry was "a sophisticated way of getting the entertainment sector to subsidize the costs of military innovation and training."

The authors then discuss another merging of sectors; in this case, the video game industry with larger corporate America (media companies and the toy industry, in particular). In today's marketplace, it is common to think about large media conglomerates and the synergies between video gaming and, for example, movies or other media. But in the 1980s, these notions were new and, ultimately, very risky. For a number of reasons, the game industry experienced a severe slump in the mid-1980s, and many corporate giants that had eagerly gobbled up game companies ended up losing a great deal of money on the deals. Some companies disappeared altogether during this period.

In sum, this first rise (and subsequent fall) of the video game industry had many long-term and lasting effects. It served as a conduit for the emergence of hacker and nerd culture from the shadows into the mainstream as a major cultural and economic force. It whetted the American public's appetite for entertainment media delivered to them in their homes in an electronic format. It created demand for ever-increasing, exponential technological innovation. It also upheld a longstanding (and perhaps ominous, to some) partnership between entertainment, technological and military development. The many outcomes of gaming's early days can be clearly traced through this article, which offers an interesting and extremely comprehensive introduction to the socio-cultural history of video games and suggests that their implications go far beyond a bit of light entertainment and are deeply entrenched in many important aspects of American society and institutional structure.

Musical interpretations of 8-bit

2008-06-17T15:54:00.001-05:00

Today in class the classical guitar version of Mario Brothers reminded me of this band...they are called "The Advantage" and they only play old Nintendo themes. As in...that is all they do. I know there are a few other bands out there like this, but The Advantage is my favorite.

Here is a link to their myspace and to their official website...they are pretty awesome.

http://www.myspace.com/theadvantage1

http://theadvantageband.com/

Cool Versions of Old Games (for the Mac)

2008-06-17T15:42:00.000-05:00

Ambrosia makes some cool games; here are a few that are takes on old classics:

Centipede:

Apeiron

Galaga:

Swoop

Um...games where you shoot stuff in space and stuff (Meteor?):

Maelstrom

Herz, JC

2008-06-17T08:50:00.000-05:00

Joystick Nation
Chapter 4
A la re Cherche du Arcades Perdu

This chapter traces the history and development of the videogame parlor, from the advent of coin-op amusements of the 1890s to the 20 year heyday of the videogame arcade in the 1970s and 80s, to its subsequent decline and replacement with the brightly-lit, ‘family entertainment center’. The author, JC Herz, then addresses the migration of the gaming community to the online world.

Herz begins her study of arcade history at the beginning of the 1900s with the appearance of penny arcades, nickelodeons, phonograph machines and the kinetoscope. From the very beginning, there was concern that cheap coin-op entertainment would ‘drive the arousable masses to riot and iniquiety’. The rise of these amusements corresponded with and catered to the influx of blue-collar working-class into the cities. The invention of the ‘parlor’ in the early 1890s accommodated a mixing of working class with upper class individuals, primarily young and male. Herz quite reasonably points to this blurring of class distinctions as the real ‘threat’, rather than the amusements themselves. The early arcades were a great equalizer in that anyone with a nickel had access to the latest and greatest technology.

Another point the author makes in the ‘some things never change’ department, is the concept that ‘new’ means ‘improved’. As the x-ray and fluoroscope (oops….sorry ‘bout those feet!) machines migrated to the medical office, phonographs and gramophones are replaced with the kinetoscope and mutoscope. Each machine has a new feature, making it an improvement over its predecessor. Herz makes the point that ‘automatic’ became the buzzword back then, much like ‘virtual’ is now.

We move on in time, and the kinetoscope is relegated to the seedier peepshow, while pinball becomes popular. It it still seen as a threat by the status quo, due in no small part to Marlon Brando and James Dean and the corresponding “Rebel Without A Cause” imagery.

In 1956 the first enclosed mall was built, and by 1974 there were 13,714 of them. By 1982, that number increased to over 20,000 in the US and Canada. The rise of the shopping mall corresponded to the development of the microchip, which paved the way for mall-based videogame arcades. The early games were innovations, the likes of which had never been seen before: Pong, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Battlezone, Defender, and Pac-Man. By the early 80’s game quality was declining as the arcades were becoming seedier.

This led to what the author calls the ‘arcade sanitation crusade’ or, in this reviewer’s mind, the ‘Chuckie-Cheesification’ of the video arcade. The arcades were getting grubby, only attracting 15-year-old boys, and there were no good videogames coming out. It was then that arcade proprietors noticed the steady appeal of skee-ball, followed by the crane machine and the kiddie coin-op, ticket-spitting ‘redemption games’, such as those found locally at Chuckie-Cheese’s and in the Wisconsin Dells. These places are very heavy-handed in their attempts to appear safe and secure, so as to reassure parents, who then whip out the credit card.

At present, the egalitarian, merit-based world of the video arcade has moved online, where a person’s grades, paycheck or social class means nothing if their avatar just got its butt kicked.

Patricia Greenfield Summary

2008-06-16T22:18:00.000-05:00

Patricia Greenfield’s chapter on “Video Games” focuses on the downsides to video games and the possible solutions to such problems. The main arguments against video games seems to be the lunch money teenage boys appropriate for arcades, their “apparent” addictiveness, and associated aggressive behavior. However, studies have shown that families with gaming consoles spend an average of 42 minutes a day as opposed to an average of TV habits which double time spent on gaming. Another concern is the price of such a habit, though, it is shown that kids spent only 5 dollars a day and skill is rewarded with increased play time. But what is the attraction?
It can be most closely associated with the everyday use of TV and its dynamic visual imagery. Games that see more users usually possess a higher level of dynamic visual imagery. Also, games provide of interaction with the visual imagery. Being able to actively control what occurs on the screen has an attraction to children because they make a personal connection to what is going on.
Violence in video games has been associated with aggression of the player, but other factors are important in this subject. Video games that involve the presence of two players, whether cooperative or competitive, seem to act as catharsis for users instead of provoking aggression. Also, the popularity of games does not depend on violence. So, instead of creating games with undesirable social themes, game manufactures should aim at action games without violence because popularity will not be at a loss.
Another benefit to video games is the skills involved with them. Gamers are presented with obstacles, but not just static physical ones. They have to account for the computers programmed movements. Two primary skills are hand-eye coordination and parallel processing, especially in action games. Some games, such as fantasy games, involve creation and a multi-dimensional character structure. If the benefits of games are employed correctly they can be transferred to actual life skills.
Vital to gaming is the challenge it puts forth. Having a series of levels greatly determines the amount of interest and time a player will spend on one game. Having a series of levels may be responsible for addictiveness, but it can better be described as long term appeal.
Video games definitely have a function in life, though bad does come with good. If game manufactures design games wisely then the skills learned from them can be carried over into other aspects of our lives.

Introductions

2008-06-15T12:38:00.000-05:00

As an exercise to see if everyone in the class can post comments to the weblog, please write a comment to this entry introducing yourself to the rest of the class!

Readings are online

2008-06-03T15:17:00.000-05:00

The required readings for our course are now online here as PDFs (you'll need your UW-Madison NetID to get to the page). I expect students to buy the printed reader as well; these are made available as a backup.

Wii would like to play

2008-06-02T11:07:00.001-05:00

Our class Wii system has arrived, and looks to be in good shape.

Web site is live

2008-05-29T10:02:00.000-05:00

We have a web site! It's still under construction but should give you an idea of the readings and topics for the class.

Welcome to J676!

2008-05-22T13:59:00.000-05:00

I'm still building the web site, reader, and syllabus, but the weblog is now online.

J676: Video games and mass communication

Schools out!

Second Life

All Bow Before the Accordion Thief

Kingdom of Loathing

Vodka Martinis and Saucerors

The End of the World...of Warcraft!

Daily Life on a Synthetic Earth

Hermit Permits and Earning Meat

Lots of Moxie have I

Sharendipity in the news

More evidence of videogames in culture

Retrogamers rejoice

Whose Game is this Anyway?

Rise and Fall of Infocom

Things get a little more interesting.

Racism and Zombies!

Bogus Author

A Rape in Cyberspace (or TINYSOCIETY, and How to Make one) by Julian Dibbell

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Game

More Pop Culture

Square Pegs, 1982 - Pac-Man Fever

Monroe St. Library, Madison Public Library System

Mifflin St. Branch

Union South Arcade/Games Room

Leaving the Library Behind

My Adventure to the Kress Family Branch Library

Hands-on Assignment: Week 3

Hands-On Assignment: College Library Video Games

Yet More from Billy Mitchell

Smart Bomb

J.C. Herz, "The military-entertainment complex," Joystick nation: How videogames ate our quarters, won our hearts, and rewired our minds

"The Frag Dolls" [America's Army]

Where did that Memorial Union video game arcade go?

games and gender by diane carr

Games and libraries (and research money)

The Power of Play: The Portrayal and Performance of Race in Video Games

A touch of the confused at the Madison Public Library

Fireworks

Summary of “Chess for Girls? Feminism and Computer Games” by Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins.

"Media Analysis in the High-Intensity Marketplace: The Three Circuits of Interactivity" Article

An interesting, if flawed, take on interactivity

Speaking of video game competitions...

Sharendipity Issues

Sharendipity-doo-dah day

Nightmare on Share Street - Sharendipity- Marlon

Cross Video-Game marketing

Pocket Monsters

Sharendipity Hands On Assignment: Big Ten Conference Asteroids

Sharendipity

Maybe the violent video games had an effect...

Wherein I Fail...sorta (re: Sharendipity)

Sharendipity

Violent Video Games - Jeffrey Goldstein

Leisureville

David Williamson Shaffer and James Paul Gee Reading Summary

Mizuko Ito, "Education vs. entertainment: A cultural history of children's software

WHAT’S IN A VIDEO GAME? REGULATION OF VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT

Nina Huntemann CV

I do NOT promote playing this game, but it does seem relevant

Civilization... sorta

UCC and video games: a double edged sword

Summary of “Open-ended video games: A model for developing learning for the interactive age” by Kurt Squire

For those of us frustrated with MAME

Atair 2600 Emulator Hands-on Assignment

Double Fisted MAME troubles…followed by some NES action

More MAME and Marble Madness

MAME Hands-On Assignment

MAME and such

MAME Help

Celia Pearce "Sims, BattleBots, Cellular Automata God and Go: A Conversation with Will Wright"

Legend of the Last Toymaker - backposted...

MAME OS X?

Free Donkey Kong web version

The unending quest for high score

MAME Hands-on Assignment for the Week

Origins of an Industry: Cold Warriors, Hackers, and Suits 1960-1984

Musical interpretations of 8-bit

Cool Versions of Old Games (for the Mac)

Herz, JC