Author: Jonas Heide Smith

Danish computer game use is predicted by…

The frequency of use of PC (computer) games by Danes is predicted by three variables: Gender, age, and occupation. Men play more, young people play more, and unemployed, students, and “lønmodtagere på grundniveau” play more. Not sure what “lønmodtagere…” means – people with blue collar jobs perhaps…

Significant differences were also found regarding genre preferences in relation to gender. Paraphrasing a bit:
Men display an interest in more types of games than do women. The three most popular genres for men are action games (28%), racing games (22%) and card- and board games (21%). The three favorite genres of the women are card- and board games (23%), puzzle games (11%) and adventure games (8%).

The spreadsheets have spoken.

Source: The very interesting Danskernes kultur- og fritidsaktiviteter 2004 – med udviklingslinjer tilbage til 1964

Jack Thompson does a Godwin

A part of me refuses to believe that anti-game crusader Jack Thompsom really exists.
But it would appear, according to Game Politics, that he just pulled a Godwin in a letter to Senator Joe Lieberman:

I think Doug [Lowenstein] is a liar… Doug Lowenstein, in my opinion, is personally responsible for a number of deaths. He is paid well to spin like the worst propagandists in history. I don’t need to tell you the harm that propagandists can cause, the lives they can cost. The Third Reich was founded upon propaganda as surely as it was founded upon armaments. When Doug Lowenstein says the industry wants kids not to buy these games, he is lying. When he says there is no proof that these games hurt kids, he is lying. Dave would not say so. I say so. I’m not nice, and I don’t pretend to be.

The Third Reich? Isn’t that a bit mild? What about the dark lord Sauron himself?

Post-aesthetics

Back from sunny Bergen, I can report that the Aesthetics of Play conference was most succesful. Presentations were competent and varied and the organizers impressively organized.
One thing that struck me as oddish was the strong focus, in most presentations, of issues related to realism, mimemis, representation (as opposed to, say, rules). Guess I just figured that general interest had veered away from such things, but the conference did of course focus on “aesthetics”.
No-one (else) spoke of games as competitive or of players as optimizers/achievers but that just proves my point that game studies represent a radically different theory of the player than does game design (how’s that for a generalization?).

Tourist pictures on Flickr.

Oh, and this site has been down for a few days due to the server-threatening behaviour of a WordPress plug-in.

The triumphant return of… media studies

Okay, here’s an excerpt from a chapter I’m writing on the importance of how one chooses to conceptualize the “player”. I start (more or less) by pointing to the implications of various user/audience views in other fields. Here’s my draft take on the issue in media studies. Comments shall be welcome, here or by email. Continue reading The triumphant return of… media studies

tDSoT takes a new direction

Deeply buried beneath theoretical arcana, I hereby proclaim that this blog shall henceforth mostly be concerned with my dissertational scriblings. At random intervals I will raise a topic or post paragraphs/sections from my manuscript in the vain hope that someone (that’s you!) will take it upon him/her-self to think along and perhaps to comment should some sequence of words strike you as discussable, unreasonable or just plain nuts.

Quote of the day

The Danes are somewhat defensive and reluctant towards using the possibilities of technology as we often fear the coming of a “control society”. But at the end of the day, the technology can give us a more secure society.

Author of report based on “recommendations” from government authorities (source)

So the control society will be really safe? Wow, that solves everything, doesn’t it?

List of things that are poorly named

Some things are just poorly-to-exceptionally badly named:

1) Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species had almost incomparably important things to say about a wide range of phenonemena, but it said next to nothing about speciacation (the origin of species, that is)

2) Reeves and Nash’ Media Equation is pretty much the idea that people treat things as if they were people. It’s not an equation and it’s not about media.

3) (Economic) Game Theory is not really about games (although sometimes it is) and it’s not a theory.

Should we award special consideration to things that seem to succeed despite being so uninformatively named?
(Other examples?)