Writes Charles Authur of The Guardian:
It’s an emerging rule of thumb that suggests that if you get a group of
100 people online then one will create content, 10 will “interact” with
it (commenting or offering improvements) and the other 89 will just
view it.
That’s very fine and interesting, of course. But does anyone know of a credible analysis of motivations for contributing? What makes those 1% tick? What incentives do they face which the silent majority do not?
Via Kollaborativ
Didn’t succeed in wasting your childhood in the arcades? Despair not, but check out KiLLerCloWn’s Pac-Man Guide in HTML or 27-page PDF.
And always remember:
“What you have to learn first is cornering. yes, there are differences in how quickly you corner and every Pac-Man pattern out there relies on you cornering quickly consistently without getting stuck. If you get stuck for as much of 1/10 of a second or less, hardly perceivalble to the eye your timing and pattern will be off, you will have to readjust and in the later levels will in most cases not be able to recover!
One basic rule applies: Corner before you get to the corner. The corners are round and if you only start twisting your joystick when you get to the corner you’ve already taken a wider line. This is almost invisible to the eye but it really makes a difference and you’ll notice whether your cornering has been clean when you reach certain key points in the patterns.”
Via Lifehacker
Pascal Boyer, in his Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought
notes (loosely rephrased) that there are questions which, to appreciate their importance, require years of dedicated study. A good point, I think.
(The context is Boyer wondering about how we are able to move our limbs by willing them to do so – a question which few people lose much sleep over; it seems unimportant)
I have a puzzling result of my study. Do you have a suggestion for an interpretation?
I am testing the effectiveness of a “rational agent” model in explaining player behaviour. In other words, do players actually adopt the game goals as their own?
It turns out that
– YES: In terms of the gamespace (i.e. on-screen) they do. While playing the three games in my study, players conformed to what you would expect if they were simply trying to win.
but
– NO: In terms of their verbal interaction and behaviour outside the gamespace (i.e. in the couch) they do not. The players gave help and advice in ways that did not obviously improve their own chances of winning (e.g. they helped others a lot in a competitive game).
Is this surprising? And do you have any idea why this split occurs?
The Danish Social Democrats suggest ambitious changes in the state’s attitude towards games.
In particular, they suggest that video games be equated with film in terms of opportunities for cultural funding. The party’s cultural spokesperson notes how “I find it completely obvious that we need more state funding in this area”.
His arguments are perhaps less than entirely compelling: “We give support to all sorts of other things when it comes to culture, and we talk a lot about how to counter US culture.”
He also proposes increased funding for games research.
These ideas have circulated in various forms for years, but this time round someone seems to really mean it. Of course, the idea of actually equating film and games would mean a funding revolution that would create considerable opposition in some circles. Also, this debate is likely to lead to a heated discussion of what types of games deserve support. Bald assassins, anyone?
Source: Computerworld (Danish)
BBC NEWS | Business | Women lead rush to mobile gaming
(Of course, if anyone finds the actual survey, please post a link below…)
Nordic Game 2006 – Research Program – Open Call
Call for presenters for an academic symposium “Understanding the Player” at
Nordic Game 2006. 19-20 September. Malmö, Sweden.
These days, Danish universities are in a high state of alert (or ’emergency’ in some cases). The government has proposed drastic structural reforms in the form of mergers between various institutions (we have 13 university level institutions of various sizes. Or is it 14? Anyway…).
Particuarly interesting is the suggestion that the IT University of Copenhagen (us!; 1500 students) be subsumed under the vastly larger University of Copenhagen (33.000 students).
Problem (for merger fans) is that the ITU resists these plans, now backed by the largest opposition party and IT labour organizations.
In a discussion thread at IT news outlet Computerworld.dk, one participant makes a statement which probably causes brief episodes of smugness around the house:
I’m having a hard time seeing the problem – after having been a student in both places I feel that it would be greatly beneficient for the University of Copenhagen to be subsumed under the IT University of Copenhagen.
We’ll see what happens…
Update: Lisbeth also comments
A Discovery Channel special. Fun footage from early Pong days, among other things.
Have you noticed that sometimes during video game play, players try to redefine the goals?
This can happen verbally or it can happen through actions as when a player starts shooting his team-mates for the heck of it.
Often, I think, it is related to certain future defeat. The losing player tries to redefine the goals to signal that he wasn’t really playing that game after all. When he loses, he will not really have lost.
Do you agree? Do you recognize the phenonenon?
Anyway, I wrote a brief section for my dissertation on the topic. Continue reading Like Hell I lost, I was trying to feed the mushroom creatures!