Computerspil

Like Hell I lost, I was trying to feed the mushroom creatures!

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!

Star Craft television

If, like me, you’ve wondered how South Korean televised Star Craft actually looks, here is an example. It shows Lim Yo-Hwan take on another player on a custom-made map with inserted Pringles ads.
Not something I see often on Danish television, I must say.

How to write about girl gamers

Richard Cobbett delivers rather scathing observations on the old “Girls in Games” journalism template.

Via Game Politics

The public has spoken

There’s no longer doubt as to which of my Flickr photos draws the largest attention. There’s a lesson there somewhere.

Might we somehow combine games and the paranormal…? :-)

I think that you think that I think

Deadlines are looming. Which means I have a chapter on the relationship between game theory and video games. This chapter is longish.
But if anyone has an interest in this eternally fascinating topic I would love some critical comments. So let me know.
Here’s the brief summary of the chapter: Continue reading I think that you think that I think

Games and violence, looking on the bright side

The ESA has an interesting overview of research which they happen to agree with, i.e. research which questions the games->aggression idea. Unbiased it is not, but hey…

New statistics problem

At least one good thing can be said about my data analysis: I’ve now specified the actual question which needs to be tested. But I’m still not entirely certain how I should test it. Suggestions much appreciated.

I’ve done a study of what players talk about when playing different types of video games.
An example: One group played three games and each spoken statement was coded YES/NO on a number of variables. For instance, a statement could be: “Critique of other player” YES or NO.

One group made 481 statements playing Game 1, 670 statements playing Game 2, and 328 statements playing Game 3.
In this case “Critique of other player” occured 0 times in Game 1, 0 times in Game 2, and 7 times in Game 3 (i.e. 0%, 0% and 2,1%).

The hypothesis is that game type affects (verbal) behaviour. Thus, the null hypothesis is: The percentages are the same for all three game types.

How do I test this?

(I have various resource persons working on this and will post any solution that they come up with).

Table of contents etc. here

Update: Seems the publication date has been postponed to early 2007.

Tag: Computerspil