Fashion in World of Warcraft

My old colleagues Lisbeth Klastrup and Susana Tosca have published a study on the role of fashion in World of Warcraft, “‘Because it just looks cool!’ Fashion as character performance: The Case of WoW“.

Findings: WoW players care about the way they look, even when the look has no effect on stats – and that goes for men as well as women.

Abstract:

“This paper explores the neglected area of clothing and fashion in computer games, particularly MMORPGs, which we claim is an important aspect of game aesthetics and player performance. Combining knowledge from the cultural studies of fashion with a study of the function and importance of clothing in the gameworld World of Warcraft (WoW), and drawing on qualitative methods, we argue that fashion in an online gameworld like WoW is a vehicle for personal storytelling and individualization.”

This also gives me the opportunity to mention the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, another interesting academic journal on games.

Obama on the Check Mii Out Channel

Behold one of the top characters on the Check Mii Out Channel (that’s the Mii Contest Channel for some of you).

I haven’t been following the channel that closely, but I think Obama is the first politician to be voted a top Mii.

Obama Mii

This post is therefore not your everyday “look how far video games have come”-post, but “look how far politics has come –  it is now so popular that we have politicians made into cute game characters”.

Global Game Jam Finished!

Back from the Global Game Jam at the GAMBIT offices.

This was a superbly productive weekend – I am happy about my team’s game, The Beat, which is really a two-player puzzle-rhythm game.

(The current download is little rough – I will post a new version with an installer in a few days.)

All the games can be tried from the Global Game Jam site. I am looking forward to seeing what teams came up with in the other locations around the world.

Thanks, and thanks to all the organizers!

Here’s a photo of the final playing of the games:

Global Game Jam Boston