Stuff

Trusting those trusted by someone I trust

In my master’s thesis on The Architectures of Trust (2MB) I discussed techniques for establishing trust among strangers in online communities such as virtual worlds (around page 61). I said things like:

Another possibility is to give users access to the implicit verdicts of friends. Systems that employ buddy lists (see Figure 3) may let users see the verdicts of their ‘buddies’. For instance, Bob is wondering whether to trust Alice, but being on the buddy list of Eve, he is entitled to the information that Alice is also on the list. Since Bob trusts Eve and Eve trusts Alice, Bob can trust Alice. Such features provide internal verification.

Although the topic of reputation systems in game worlds has been discussed since the dawn of code, implementations have been rare. One reason is that gamers often have an interest in undermining the system (an incentive far more modest in systems like eBay). But recently MonkeyModulator announced the near-future arrival of an interesting WoW add-on enabling players to evaluate each other and to share these evaluations.

I’d be quite interested in news on how that works out for you WoW die-hards.

Via TerraNova

TL Taylor: Play Between Worlds

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I’m late to the party, but let it be widely known among all readers of this blog that my supervisor, TL Taylor’s book Play Between Worlds is out in the wild. I’m sure it’s excellent and I’m looking forward to reading it.

From the description:

In Play Between Worlds, T. L. Taylor examines multiplayer gaming life as it is lived on the borders, in the gaps–as players slip in and out of complex social networks that cross online and offline space. Taylor questions the common assumption that playing computer games is an isolating and alienating activity indulged in by solitary teenage boys. Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), in which thousands of players participate in a virtual game world in real time, are in fact actively designed for sociability. Games like the popular Everquest, she argues, are fundamentally social spaces.

Taylor’s detailed look at Everquest offers a snapshot of multiplayer culture. Drawing on her own experience as an Everquest player (as a female Gnome Necromancer)–including her attendance at an Everquest Fan Faire, with its blurring of online-and offline life–and extensive research, Taylor not only shows us something about games but raises broader cultural issues. She considers “power gamers,” who play in ways that seem closer to work, and examines our underlying notions of what constitutes play–and why play sometimes feels like work and may even be painful, repetitive, and boring. She looks at the women who play Everquest and finds they don’t fit the narrow stereotype of women gamers, which may cast into doubt our standardized and preconceived ideas of femininity. And she explores the questions of who owns game space–what happens when emergent player culture confronts the major corporation behind the game.

Digra 2007 in Tokyo

Full papers, no abstracts this time. This is quite an interesting development as it will include fields in which only full papers count as worthy (the case for many computer scientists).

The announcement:

DiGRA 2007 First Circular
We, the DiGRA 2007 Local Organizing Committee, are happy to announce
that the third DiGRA (Digital Games Research Association)
international conference will be held in Tokyo, Japan in September
2007. Scholars of digital games from around the world are encouraged
to submit a paper and to participate in the conference. Held in the
world capital of videogames, this conference will be an event that no
game studies scholar can afford to miss. We are working hard for
DiGRA 2007 to be truly special.
The theme of this conference is “Situated Play.” Game play does not
take place in vacuum. For play to be possible, certain social,
cultural, economic, and technological conditions need to converge.
Digital games, therefore, require truly diverse approaches to
illuminate their extremely multi-faceted nature. The goal of this
conference is to shed more light on these various kinds of
situatedness of games. In particular, the conference aims to bridge
professionally and geographically diverse scholars and practitioners.
We therefore welcome panel proposals and papers that describe various
facets regarding the situatedness of digital games and attempt to
combine a range of approaches in innovative ways.
For our participants’ convenience, the dates of the conference will be
set close to the Tokyo Game Show so that participants can take
advantage of both events. The selection of papers will be based on
full papers instead of abstracts, and the deadline will be in February
2007. A second circular revealing more details about DiGRA 2007 will
be issued in late May or early July.
We hope to see you in Tokyo!
– DiGRA 2007 Local Organizing Committee
Akira Baba (Chair), Kiyoshi Shin, Akinori Nakamura, Kenji Ito

Fascinating stuff

The latest issue of SIMULATION & GAMING has an interesting article by Zagal, Rick, and Hsi: Collaborative games: Lessons learned from board games.
It seeks to explore collaborative games, focusing on board games in order to extract principles which can be used by video game designers.

The article makes interesting points, and a few debatable ones (here I’ll just quibble about theory, without adressing the content).
The article starts of by delivering the “good news” that the number of single-player games will probably soon decrease. A rather odd normative statement. Continue reading Fascinating stuff

Looking for game examples

I’m looking for a game (preferably a board game or card game) in which all players start out with full knowledge of the game state but where, in the course of the game, things happen which do not become known to all players.

By “full knowledge of the game state” I mean that the position and type of every “unit” is known and that the exact goals of all players are known.

In Risk, for instance, the players don’t have full knowledge to begin with (they draw secret mission cards) and things happen which are not revealed. In Chess players DO have full initial knowledge AND are informed of all events/changes.

All help is appreciated.

(in economic game theory terms I’m looking for a game of complete but imperfect information)

Addendums:
1) Players have “perfect recall”, they don’t forget what they saw happening in the past just because things get complex.
2) By “start out” I mean the state of the game just before the first player does anything, i.e. before the players start interacting.

UK gamers dissected

The grandfather of Public Service broadcasting, the BBC, just published an impressive report surveying the habits, preferences, demographics etc. of UK gamers.

It contains bundles of well-presented facts. Like:
– Young age and chance of being a gamer correlate positively (not surprising)
– 48% of respondents were “heavy” gamers i.e. they play at least once a week and up to daily, whereas only 7% are “medium” and 4% are light. This seems to indicate that if you play then you are likely to play more than a little (it also indicates, of course, that the categories might not be entirely intuitive)
– Gender has extremely limited influence on frequency of playing
– 6-10 year olds “prefer” the PC as a platform (over individual consoles etc.) while for other age groups the PS2 takes over (although I’m not entirely sure how”Preferred device” is measured here)

Also, the report sums up interesting findings on genre preferences and gender:

Simulations and MMOGs perform equally well with males and females, while RPGs and Strategy fare only marginally better with males. Females then show strong approval for Music/Dance, Puzzles/Board/Quiz, and
Classic games. Males show strong approval for Action-Adventure, Racing, Sports, and First Person Shooters. Simulations and MMOGs seem to be key to attracting audiences of both genders equally: Sports and Shooting category games generally hold the lowest appeal for females, although it should be noted that this doesn’t mean they have no appeal: 12% of females play First Person Shooters.

Via BoingBoing

Know a game like this?

There is a scene in Babe – The Gallant Pig where the pig protagonist is informed of a password which may be used to entice sheep to give crucial help in terms of dire need.
Okay, this introduction is going the wrong way, so just forget it.

My problem is this. I’m looking for an example of a game where:

– One player does not fully know what the other player can do or where one player does not know the other player’s goal (i.e. what he wants to do)

AND

– The players are not informed of all choices made by the other(s).

An example of not knowing the other player’s goal would be the secret missions handed out before a Risk game begins. An example of not being informed of the actions of the other player would be being unable to see the other player’s section of the gamespace (as in Civilization, Age of Empires etc.).

Is there such a game?

Vivid metaphor

Sure, everyone’s ranting about the sad state of game journalism. But good researchers like to take one step back and rant about the ranting. Superb ones, it follows, talk about others who rant about ranting. Here’s what Bryan-Mitchell Young wrote:

"Complaining about horrible videogame journalism is like complaining about someone staining the couch cushion when the couch is sitting in the middle of a garbage dump. It may be accurate and a valid complaint, but it is kind of missing the point."

And I just thought that was pretty funny.

History of soccer rules

Kasper wisely informed me that soccer tournament rules regarding points awarded (to defeat, draw, and victory) were revised some 20 years ago creating stronger incentives for aggressive play (3 points for victory instead of 2). That’s a wonderful example, which certainly managed to make the thesis section I’m writing on game sum types even more confusing.

But does anyone have a reference to this rule change? Someone know a good history of soccer rules? Or a few more details to help me google?

Update (July 2006): Ah! I got it. With the help of resident soccer sage Olli Sotamaa. It’s all here.

More fun

Check out Wired’s Game Year in Review: 2010 . The game biz does sort of lend itself to satire.

"As for the current generation of video games, the big news was the long-awaited release of Grand Theft Auto: West Bloodbath. Gamers were appalled by the violence, specifically the wussiness of it. "Wait," they said. "I’m still limited to shooting, beating or running over hookers? Kill Death Die Hurt Maim let me chop off their fingers one by one while they begged for mercy, their cheap eyeliner merging with their tears and darkening the pools of blood at their feet. Are you sure Mario isn’t in this wimpfest?""