Det Danske Filminstitut søger en spilredaktør til at stå for spilordningen under New Danish Screen. Det er et 1-årigt halvtidsjob, helt sikkert superinteressant, og ansøgningsfristen er… på onsdag!.
Tag: Computerspil
Talk on user-generated content in virtual worlds
These are my slides for a panel talk on virtual worlds I’ll be giving today at the ECREA 2008 conference in Barcelona.
Understanding Video Games now in stores
The video games text-book which I have co-written with Susana Tosca and Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen has now left the printers and reached the virtual shelves of Amazon.com.
The book is so interesting that it actually has a (somewhat rudimentary) Companion Website featuring the book’s brief introduction chapter.
If you’re in Denmark, here’s a list of fine web book stores that will be happy to ship the book to you.
If you’re in the UK, you can get it directly from Routledge.
It’s 16.99 UK Pounds / 29.95 USD, took some time to write, and we do hope you buy it :-)
Playful politics
A parliamentary election is almost upon is here in modest-sized Denmark. The current right-of-center government, supported by the nationalist Danish People’s Party, is being challenged by a left-of-center axis. With Christian Democrats unlikely to reach the (non-taxing) cut-off of 2% and our most left-wing party balancing on that same edge. Also, Helle Thorning-Schmidt – leader of the Social Democrats – could theoretically be the country’s first female prime minister.
Anyway, much has been said (not least in my course on Digital Rhetorics) about the esteemed candidates’ use of online media (for instance by knowledgeable colleague Lisbeth Klastrup). So let us instead focus on that less-dominant genre the political game.
We know how Howard Dean laid the foundations, and how former colleague Gonzalo Frasca helped the president of Uruguay (if we don’t know, we may want to read Ian Bogost’s recent book Persuasive Games).
In present day Denmark, however, political video games do not exactly overwhelm the politically curious citizen. But I have found a couple of specimens:
Overbudsbold: Made by a team of ITU students for DR. The player chooses a leader of a political party and an opponent to engage in a type of tennis in which the “ball” is a money bag growing bigger each time it is pushed over the net. The game comments on the tendency for candidates to attempt to top one another in promises. The idea, I believe, is that this practice is nothing but a silly game. Overbudsbold stands apart from the crowd in my opinion by being actually fun to play in its own right.
Så’ det ud: The youth branch of the Liberal party (in government) have published a game in which you (as current minister) place opposition leaders in a catapult and fling them as far as you can. No political statement is being made, to put it mildly. It’s slightly odd that the “heroes” are as caricatured as the opposition here, since no other attempts are being made at fairness.
Kampvalg is a game made by game developers Press Play. Here (as in Overbudsbold) two party leaders face of. But Press Play have exhanged Pong for Tekken in terms of inspiration. The player must attack the opponent using a small selection of aggressive moves.
Finally, ValgSpil ’07 is another developer showcase. Here you, as the player, must “survive a press meeting”, answering questions from reporters in an attempt to keep the general opinion on your side. The argument seems to be that party leaders face difficult a difficult challenge of presenting their policies without estranging voter groups.
In summary, only one game (“Så’ det ud”) with a political stance. The others hint/claim that politics is war – and, in the case of Overbudsbold, a rather silly exercise.
A somewhat underwhelming collection, perhaps. Did I leave out anything worthwhile?
Happy voting tomorrow, and may the best candidate obtain the highest score!
Persuasive Games reviewed
I’ve published my thoughts on Ian Bogost’s book Persuasive Games over at game-research.com.
Briefly, I found the book a bit light on theory but excellent as a survey of the explosively growing field.
Action game boosts spatial skills
Researchers at the University of Toronto report that action game play increased players’ spatial skills, also over time. Female players get the biggest boost. Professor Ian Spence notes that
Clearly, something dramatic is happening in the brain when we see marked improvements in spatial skills after only 10 hours of game playing and these improvements are maintained for many months
That does seem a very considerable effect…
More in The Economist
Game rhetoric
I didn’t see it coming a few years back but I’m taking an interest in the persuasive powers of games (but then who isn’t? :-))
In that regard, I’ve strewn a few thoughts across my research group blog.
Advanced Game Theory guest lecture slides
I just guest lectured for Espen and Ollis Advanced Game Theory class on Game Theory (appropriately). And just to fortify my position on the cutting edge of technology, here are the slides:
A longing for subversion
I have, at times, questioned the extent to which actual players tend to subvert games to rebel against the goals. Probably I have crossed the line into polemics a couple of times with (I have thought or hoped) controversial statements that players simply tend to play games the way they are intended.
The reason for my childish behavior is not any great desire on my part for orderly, predictable play. I simply dislike the kind of progressive awe that tends to accompany the idea of the “active player”. Some people seriously want this to be true.
Crawford and Rutter in a chapter of Rutter and Bryce’s Understanding Digital Games write (in an off-hand remark, but still):
Kline et al. (2003) highlight the importance of an active audience model in considering digital game players. For instance, they cite examples of how gamers will subvert the preferred readings of games such as Civilization and SimCity.
Interesting. Let’s consult our Kline et al. (2003). On page 44 they write:
“For example, there have been valuable analysis of how ‘strategy games’ such as Civilization or Sim City can be played in ways that subvert the preferred readings of game designers.”
Kline et al. footnote their statement with references to
Bleeker, J. (1995). Urban Crisis: Past, Present and Virtual. Socialist Review, 24(1-2), 189-223. [Link to draft version]
and
Stephenson, W. (1999). The Microserfs Are Revolting: Sid Meier’s Civilization II [Electronic Version]. Bad Subjects from http://bad.eserver.org/issues/1999/45/stephenson.html.
I’m willing to examine these two references in a positive light. But even so, they really, really don’t – even to my most constructive reading – describe subversive, oppositional, or even active actual readings/playings of these games. Kline et al. are right, the papers discuss how the games in question can be played subversively – some curious slippage has occurred in Crawford and Rutter’s version.
The examples used don’t work.
My players-accept-the-game-goals polemics are quickly becoming tiresome – please supply them with just a little bit of opposition…
David Shaffer lectures at DPU
Recently, I attended a rather interesting talk by David Shaffer of Wisconsin on designing ‘games for learning’.
It took place at the Danish School of Education – University of Århus who (as an example to be followed, I think) have put the talk online. Here it is.