The Ludologist

Richard Bartle has a really amazingly wonderful opinion piece in the Guardian with the above title: We’ve won: get over it

I’m talking to you, you self-righteous politicians and newspaper columnists, you relics who beat on computer games: you’ve already lost. Enjoy your carping while you can, because tomorrow you’re gone.

According to the UK Statistics Authority, the median age of the UK population is 39. Half the people who live here were born in 1969 or later. The BBC microcomputer was released in 1981, when those 1969ers were 12. It was ubiquitous in schools; it introduced a generation to computers. It introduced a generation to computer games.

Half the UK population has grown up playing computer games. They aren’t addicted, they aren’t psychopathic killers, and they resent those boneheads – that’s you – who imply that they are addicted and are psychopathic killers.

Next year, that 1969 will be 1970; the year after, it’ll be 1971.

Dwell on this, you smug, out-of-touch, proud-to-be-innumerate fossils: half the UK population thinks games are fun and cool, and you don’t. Those born in 1990 get the vote this year.

(Via the Gamesnetwork list.)

I have just had a “riposte” published on EBR for the Second Person anthology.

In response to James Wallis’ article “Making Games That Make Stories”, my short piece is “Why Make Games That Make Stories?“:

Wallis makes a number of excellent observations about story-making games, the type of story-game where players explicitly create or co-create a story. He discusses story games that make only very broken stories and shows how the genre knowledge of players can be instrumental for actual game play.

So let me ask the “ludological” question: Why?

More

Waxy.org has unexpectedly posted the story of the unknown sequel to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy text adventure – Milliways.

You can even play it.

Hitchhiker’s is probably my favorite text adventure of all time and the blog post has comments from a large number of old Infocom employees. This is a special occasion.

Title: What Makes Casual Games so Appealing, so Attractive: Looking for ‘the Casual’ in Casual Video Games

Abstract: Given that video games are as wonderful as they are, why would someone choose not to play video games? It seems that video games for a long period of time have alienated a large part of the population by way of their themes, their assumptions about the player’s familiarity with video game conventions, and by the demands games have placed on the player’s time. With the Nintendo Wii, Guitar Hero, and downloadable games like Diner Dash, however, video games appear to be reaching beyond the traditional game audience. In this talk, I will discuss why many people do not play video games, and identify the broader appeal of today’s casual games.

Details:
Thursday, April 10
06:00 PM to 08:00 PM
Columbia University
2960 Broadway
New York, NY – 10027
Room: Thompson Hall, Room 510 at Teachers College, Columbia University, between Broadway and Amsterdam on 120th Street. Check in with security (located in between Broadway and Amsterdam on 120th) and they will direct you the correct room.

The Italian airline Alitalia is floundering, so let me kick them when they’re down.

I was flying with them last summer, and to my surprise the cabin crew informed me that I was not allowed to use my Nintendo DS for the duration of the flight. Lo and behold, the safety instructions specifically illustrate that you can’t play Gameboy. Why? Who knows?

I tried to get into a philosophical discussion with the crew regarding their definition of games, the distinction between playing a game on a PDA (which they allowed) and on a dedicated device, and whether the ban only concerned games played with a D-pad. They did not bite.