The dissertation. Turned it in today.
The title is “Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds”, will post more about it another day.
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My name is Jesper Juul, and I am a Ludologist [researcher of the design, meaning, culture, and politics of games]. This is my blog on game research and other important things.
I’m getting the feeling that it’s about the use of realistic metaphors occasionally dictating game mechanics when that may not actually be the best course of action for the game play as a whole? Hmm. Ages ago, when I was an angrier, younger, manlier man, I wrote something for PlanetQuake along the same lines.
Even if this isn’t what the dissertation is about, I’m looking forward to reading it! Congratulations on a job well done!
Sounds interesting and topical to an discussion I’ve had recently (and many times over)… self-defined “realistic games” that force you to find a key to open a wooden door, when you’re armed with explosives (which, obviously, do not work on a wooden door).
I can think of no word used more arbitrarily in all of game-dom than “realism”. Realism is whatever the developers think is realistic. Sometimes it’s little graphical touches, sometimes it’s blood loss algorithms, sometimes it’s just a bullet point on a box that sprang from a publisher or marketroid’s head.
Kinda raises some deeper questions about the inherently imperfect, arbitrary nature of simulation – all simulations involve some degree of abstraction (the concept of play, especially, values safety and stylization of “too complex” elements over accuracy) and that separates them from the Simulated Thing. And of course part of that “imperfection of simulation” comes from the perspectives of the simulation’s creator(s), which was the central issue in the recent discussion of the September 12th game.
Anyhoo, congratulations on finishing the dissertation, Jesper! Relax and play some good games.
Congratulations! Now you can take a break from all that hard play and … do some work?
congrats! I look forward to reading it when it’s ready for public consumption.
Congratulations!
Gratulerer!!
Look out, kids, doctor ludology is out among us!
Congratulations Jesper!
Keep on your excellent work!
…still waiting for the “another day” ;-)
Dammit, Jesper! It’s a good thing I’m writing my BA Thesis and not my dissertation, because you would have just stolen my thunder and forced to find a new project. I just explained to my advisor last week the “machinic experience” versus “diegetic discourse” continuum (dialectic) that I’m working out, with HL as the perfect midpoint synthesis. I suppose that’s what the “as confirmed by” footnote is for… BTW, we met briefly once, at the Digital Genres Initiative conference gaming panel here in Chicago. I asked about game versus narrative. I would be really interested in reading your dissertation. Any chance I could get a pre-press?
Well done, beat me by about 2 weeks (I hope!)