The emergence of rules

The other day my (nearly) two-year-old daughter invited me (“ordered” is of course more like it) me to participate in a game called “Ku-kuu”. She has yet to start forming sentences so the rules had to be sort of discovered as we went along. Essentially, the game seemed to be about me hiding somewhere and her coming looking for me. Unfortunately (perhaps) she couldn’t stand the excitement of waiting while I found a place to hide but instead followed me around as I tried to hide. In a sense, this kind of spoiled the game of hide-and-seek if we take it to be based on the skill involved in searching. But I got the clear sense that her version of the game was much more directed towards combining losing someone from sight and being delightfully surprised when that person emerged from behind a door etc.

It will be interesting to see how her gameplaying evolves and in particular how her rule-system preferences change over time.

Models of self

Increasingly, I have come to believe that proposing general models for the analysis of video games, while potentially fruitful, are nearly always rather convoluted ways of revealing your disciplinary background.

That is not necessarily sinful. But game scholars not explicit about the arbitrariness of whatever variables their upbringing has taught them to focus on are treading on truly swampy ground.

Grand Theft Evil

“Children are playing a game that encourages them to have sex with prostitutes and then murder them,” she said in a statement on the issue. “This is a silent epidemic of media desensitisation that teaches kids it’s OK to diss people because they are a woman, they’re a different colour or they’re from a different place.”

The “she” in question is senator Hillary Clinton now out to bash violent games. Interesting how the above mentioned game mechanic is probably the most famous is recent video game history. Interesting also how one of the best designed games on the form-side also turned out to be the most provoking on the content side. Birth of a Nation, anyone?

Via Nick.

Big questions

I pitched a few memes related to online gaming through the radio show “Mission” last night.
Mainly I was asked whether interacting in game worlds could be considered “natural” and comparable to RL communication.
The show also dealt extensively with another question: Is visible female pubic hair extending over the panties line natural or gross?

Seems to me I got the more boring question here…

BTW, I was also interviewed about similar issues in URBAN recently (in Danish).