Seems I’ll be visiting the (surely) fair city of Sanda not far from Osaka and Kyoto in September for the ICEC 2005 conference. This will also mean being forced by the pleasant circumstances to attend the fabled Tokyo Game Show.
Tips regarding lodging in Tokyo will be much appreciated.
Category: Stuff
LEEROY!
My glorious WoW days are over, and I’m sure you’ve all seen this, but it’s just hilarious: The Leroy Jenkins incident.
There’s a website as well, of course.
Garrg makes the front page
An article (intro article) in today’s Politiken describes the development of real-world markets for virtual world items (and such) including statements from yours truly, Espen, Miguel, Edward Castronova and Julian Dibbell (website down).
Among the more noteworthy features, well-known orc warlock and my former WoW avatar Garrg lights up the very front page of today’s newspaper (see picture above).
First rule of methodology club
One of the few universal rules of methodology club is that you are not allowed to say that all studies within a specific area must conform to a certain methodological approach. I’ll refrain from mentioning names here, but please believe me: You REALLY shouldn’t. If tempted, please recall your first methodology lesson where they told you that the “correct” methodology is a function of the research question. In this particular case “they” were right.
Dr. Egenfeldt I presume?
In 20 minutes Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen will be defending his PhD dissertation (preliminary version) here at the ITU (Auditorium 2).
All are welcome.
Update:
As we see here the candidate assumed a rather laidback position, a position not really changed throughout the event.
The panel consisting of David Buckingham, Jørgen Bang, and Espen Aarseth convince the candidate that they are really nice guys after all.
Addiction news
News24.com fears rapid increases in video game addiction.
“There are few long-term scientific studies on video game addiction… But the reach of the video obsession is borne out by the popularity of one online game Halo 2. By early 2005, one million players, had staggeringly clocked up nearly 100 million hours on the game, according to industry figures. ”
Each Halo 2 player doing 100 hours of game time? Must be a really good game.
Say/do
Many communication studies casually mention the “say/do conflict” i.e. the fact that interviewed people do not always respond in a way compatible with the empirical truth (even if not lying in a techincal sense).
We know that to be the case. It is commonplace.
But what are the most thoughtful/precise references/books/studies which try to explain and/or document the extent of the conflict in different contexts?
Games not art, not media
Said senator Deanna Demuzio recently: “Video games are not art or media… They are simulations, not all that different from the simulations used by the U.S. military in preparation for war.”
There you have it. No more “What is a game?” papers needed, then.
Devil in the detail
Did you ever notice how some annoyances are so miniscule that everyone would be ashamed to actually voice their disapproval over something so tiny? A problem arises when these little details are repeated through sufficiently large series of instances. Also, this is a blog. There is no shame in ranting. In fact, “the rant” is a defining characteristic of “the blog”.
Henceforth, let the following practices be knows as Highly Annoying Little Things (HALTs):
– Double-spaced formatted papers manuscripts (unsuited for print and quite ugly)
– Endnotes
– Endnotes grouped into sections each covering a part of the actual text (highly unacceptable, much worse than endnotes in themselves)
– Using the term “ethnography” as a label for über-eclectic/unfocused methodology slightly prioritizing qualitative techniques
– The fact that many do not quote original emails in their replies.
– Gmail showing emails as “conversations”.
What else?
Life-long learning
I did not appreciate the fact that the verb “nerf” (that is: the downgrading of a character class or object in an MMORPG) refers to a particular brand of US plastic/foam toys. I guess I learned something today.