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.
Tag: Computerspil
Oh, the media…
Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at a public library as part of the nicely idealistic “Day of research” (where researchers meet “the public”). I spoke about media panic, public perceptions of games and of games as media/art.
Business-oriented Danish daily newspaper Børsen was there covering the event. Let me quote one of the funnier captions in this Tuesday’s edition: [Below a portrait of yours truly, worthy of early German movie expressionism] “PhD student Jonas Heide Smith of the IT University has no problem with violent and crime-glorifying computer games like ‘Grand Theft Auto’ which is about stealing cars“.
The article itself has a few confusing points and a Jonas Heide Smith quote that initially made me sigh deeply: “Discussions about giving government support to computers is far more serious than it was five years ago”. Now, of course I said computer games, not computers. But on second thought, is it so outrageous? After all, the poor machines are slaving away day after day under our desks – are they not in fact entitled to government support? Where is the minister of equality in all this?
Considering the number of individuals entitled to government support in this country the thought is hardly outlandish. If Blade Runner had been made in this country, the big question would of course had been: If entities have memories and emotions, how can we then deny them government support?
Studies on player behaviour?
OK, here’s a small challenge.
I’m looking for studies of video game player behaviour. The gamers should preferably be physically together and the study should focus on their behaviour/interaction/communication.
In other words I’m interested in out-of-game (or around-game) behaviour and not in-game behaviour.
Any tips?
Seminar this Friday/Saturday
Workshop at IT-University of Copenhagen
Friday 20th and Saturday 21th of May 2005
“THE THIRD PLACE” – COMPUTER GAMES AND OUR CONCEPTION OF THE REAL
Computer games have become a dominant influence in modern culture, and are set to gain an ever increasing importance in the years to come. This development gives rise to a number of questions. Among these is the question how computer games challenge and affect traditional conceptions of what it is for something to be real.
The aim of the workshop is to initiate a discussion between computer games researchers and philosophers on this question: What is the ontological status of the objects and events in a computer game, and how do they relate to objects and events outside of the game? On the one hand, an answer to this question must recognize that objects and events in computer games are real in some sense. On the other hand, it must also recognize that they are not real in quite the same sense as objects and events outside of the game are. To accommodate the reality of these objects and events, we need to consider our conception of the real as such.
Distant sounds of…
Speaking of distant sounds, my semi-trusty laptop has just supplemented its usual ‘distant sound of autumn leaves caught in ventilation fan’ with a ‘distant sound of low-flying swans over placid summer lake’.
Those poor MAC users out there just don’t have those kinds of unexpected pleasures.
This new-fangled book thing
Science writer Steven Johson interestingly imagines the response of cultural critics commenting on the recent invention of the book in the light of centuries of experience with video games:
Reading books chronically understimulates the senses. Unlike the longstanding tradition of gameplaying—which engages the child in a vivid, three-dimensional world filled with moving images and musical sound-scapes, navigated and controlled with complex muscular movements—books are simply a barren string of words on the page. . . .
Books are also tragically isolating. While games have for many years engaged the young in complex social relationships with their peers, building and exploring worlds together, books force the child to sequester him or herself in a quiet space, shut off from interaction with other children. . . .
But perhaps the most dangerous property of these books is the fact that they follow a fixed linear path. You can’t control their narratives in any fashion—you simply sit back and have the story dictated to you. . . . This risks instilling a general passivity in our children, making them feel as though they’re powerless to change their circumstances. Reading is not an active, participatory process; it’s a submissive one.
Quote from recent review of Johnson’s “Everything Bad Is Good for You ” in The New Yorker.
Technically different
You’ve made your way to the sparkling new WordPress edition of my blog. The principle is something like if you have no fascinating new content the least you can do is switch CMS once in a while.
But of course, Blogger was getting really slow and WordPress is a really excellent piece of (free!) software.
GUI history
For the so inclined Ars Technica has a sensible-seeming article up on the history of the graphical user interface.
Luditics
The promising new blog Game Politics has a great post on “HOW BAD INFORMATION GETS SPREAD ABOUT GAMES“. Read it and think.
DIGRA paper wrapped and delivered
My paper (“The problem of other players – in-game collaboration as collective action”) for the upcoming DIGRA conference now resides on some benign Canadian webserver. The brief abstract runs as follows:
“This paper explores the development in game design of collaborative relationships between players, proposes a typology of such relationships and argues that one type of game design makes games a continuous experiment in collective action (Olson, 1971). By framing in-game conflict within the framework of economic game theory the paper seeks to highlight the importance of already well-developed models from other fields for the study of electronic games.”