I’ve just returned from a 2 month research stay with Macquarie University‘s Dept. of Computing (Sydney). It’s been most productive and inspiring being around Anders Tychsen, Michael Hitchens, Manolia Kavakli and others.
Time to adapt to the so-called climate here and for trying not to miss the Manly sunsets too much.
New games book out: Gaming As Culture: Essays on Reality, Identity And Experience in Fantasy Games
From the description:
Since tabletop fantasy role-playing games emerged in the 1970s, fantasy gaming has made a unique contribution to popular culture and perceptions of social realities in America and around the world. This contribution is increasingly apparent as the gaming industry has diversified with the addition of collectible strategy games and other innovative products, as well as the recent advancements in videogame technology. This book presents the most current research in fantasy games and examines the cultural and constructionist dimensions of fantasy gaming as a leisure activity. Each chapter investigates some social or behavioral aspect of fantasy gaming and provides insight into the cultural, linguistic, sociological, and psychological impact of games on both the individual and society. Section I discusses the intersection of fantasy and real-world scenarios and how the construction of a fantasy world is dialectically related to the construction of a gamer’s social reality. Because the basic premise of fantasy gaming is the assumption of virtual identities, Section II looks at the relationship between gaming and various aspects of identity. The third and final section examines what the personal experiences of gamers can tell us about how humans experience reality.
The latest issue of SIMULATION & GAMING has an interesting article by Zagal, Rick, and Hsi: Collaborative games: Lessons learned from board games.
It seeks to explore collaborative games, focusing on board games in order to extract principles which can be used by video game designers.
The article makes interesting points, and a few debatable ones (here I’ll just quibble about theory, without adressing the content).
The article starts of by delivering the “good news” that the number of single-player games will probably soon decrease. A rather odd normative statement. Continue reading Fascinating stuff
All signs indicate that I’ll be spending February and March of 2006 as a visiting research fellow at Macquarie University, Sydney. I’ll be associated with a group of game research-oriented people there. Among other things I’m excited to learn more about a project they’re doing on multiplayer game-play analysis (central to Anders Tychsen ‘s PhD).
Also: That leaves a nice 3 room Copenhagen apartment for rent in February and March 2006. So if you – or someone you know – need Copenhagen housing in that period, don’t hesitate to drop me a line.
A part of me refuses to believe that anti-game crusader Jack Thompsom really exists.
But it would appear, according to Game Politics, that he just pulled a Godwin in a letter to Senator Joe Lieberman:
I think Doug [Lowenstein] is a liar… Doug Lowenstein, in my opinion, is personally responsible for a number of deaths. He is paid well to spin like the worst propagandists in history. I don’t need to tell you the harm that propagandists can cause, the lives they can cost. The Third Reich was founded upon propaganda as surely as it was founded upon armaments. When Doug Lowenstein says the industry wants kids not to buy these games, he is lying. When he says there is no proof that these games hurt kids, he is lying. Dave would not say so. I say so. I’m not nice, and I don’t pretend to be.
The Third Reich? Isn’t that a bit mild? What about the dark lord Sauron himself?
