Sorry, but You Can’t Do That: Talk at University of California, San Diego, April 18th

When

Date: Wednesday, 18 April 2007
Time: 12:00 ? 2:00 PM

Where

University of California, San Diego
San Diego Supercomputer Center Auditorium
10100 Hopkins Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093?0505
Visitor Information

Sorry, but You Can’t Do That: How We Make Sense of Video Games

“We have yet to see a Citizen Kane of video games.”

In this talk, I will argue that there have been many Citizen Kanes of video games. By this, I mean video games created with a deep understanding of the medium, while simultaneous pushing the boundaries of what video games can be: Examples such as StarCraft, and the Legend of Zelda and Grand Theft Auto series fit in that category. These are, however, also Citizen Kanes in the sense that they are hard to play, and that they speak primarily to a specialized market of players with prior experience with video games.
Compared to other media, video games are really missing The Da Vinci Code or Night at the Museum: somewhat shallow but easily enjoyable games that require no specialized knowledge to use or understand. The question therefore becomes to understand gaming literacy: to identify the conventions and cues that trained gamers understand, but which are incomprehensible to the uninitiated.
By playing games with the audience, I will illustrate what it means to be literate in video games, what happens when you pick up a game, how a player makes sense of a game, how small changes in a game design can radically change the gameplay of the game, and how the player changes his or her understanding of the game over time.

Thinking Outside The Game Box

Judith Faifman, an educator and codirector of the Digital Cultures Research and Design Group, will follow with a discussion on the impact of video games on modes of thought. Faifman will also discuss how literacy in new media can promote social inclusion for students from low-income and minority families.

Faifman has sought to integrate new, digital cultures into existing educational environments. Her group is collaborating with the National Ministry of Education in Argentina to develop youth-media production. She is seeking to provide solid, theoretical foundations for digital, pedagogical practice for social inclusion.

Speaking at How They Got Game Workshop, Stanford, April 17th.

Speaking at a How They Got Game workshop on Tuesday the 17th of April 2007 from 3pm – 4:30pm on the 4th floor of Wallenberg Hall at Stanford University.

Abstract:

In 1977, there were no “hardcore” players of video games: Every video game had to be created with the assumption that players had no understanding of video games, genres, and controllers. Thirty years later, video games are primarily designed for players with extensive knowledge of video game conventions. This is how video games gained a specialized audience, but lost the general public. In this perspective, video games have long ago become a developed “art”, created for connoisseurs, by connoisseurs with a deep understanding of the medium. Using examples, I will discuss the rise of the hardcore gamer market, and how video games are once again opening up to new players via new platforms like the Wii, and via casual games.

These workshops are open to all interested parties with a strong interest in topics surrounding new media, technology, and design. They offer the chance to hear talks by industry professionals and seasoned academics, but also offer the rare opportunity for one-on-one questions as well as collaborative work.

How They Got Game is a research project at the Stanford Humanities Lab dedicated to the historical investigation of computer games and other related interactive technologies. Its diverse membership possesses varying academic interests ranging from machinima, virtual worlds and interactive storytelling.

Talk today: The Sun Always Shines in Casual Games

I am giving a talk at the IT University in Copenhagen today.

The Sun Always Shines in Casual Games:
Cloning and Innovation in a Brand New Field

Time and Place:
Thursday April 12th, 16:15-17:30. Auditorium 1, ITU. Rued Langgaards Vej 7, 2300 Copenhagen S.


About the talk:
During the past 5 or 6 years, casual games have emerged as an important factor within video games. These are small games, easily learned, and usually distributed over the internet. The corresponding appearance of a new casual game audience demonstrates that video games for a long time have failed to speak to a large part of the population. In this talk, I will discuss how casual games differentiate themselves from other game types, and in perspective, show how “hardcore games” have acquired a set of codes and conventions that requires a level of gaming literacy to navigate.

Consequently, the field of casual games put strong conflicting pressures on game developers: Innovate enough to differentiate, but make the game sufficiently like other games that players find it easy to pick up and play. By illustrating the history of matching tile games, and by discussing games likes Zuma, Bejeweled, and Diner Dash, I will show when and how innovation does happen in casual games, and how developers try to assert their original contribution in a field of clones.

Juicy: Using Game Design to improve the Email Experience

During GDC I played Peggle, and I picked up the design term juicy from Chaim Gingold: A juicy interface is one that gives excessive amounts of feedback for all of your actions – particle effects (you can’t have too many), halos, sounds, things that glow, bounces, echoes, and so on. Juicy interfaces are usually incredibly satisfying, and it is one of the things that PopCap excel at creating. Juicy interfaces are generally quite addictive, in the positive sense.

So I realized that my email program for years has been set up to make me addicted to the wrong thing: There is a bell when a mail comes in, which gives me your old variable interval reinforcement “ah, yes, that’s the stuff”-feeling. So I get addicted to checking my mail, which is completely unproductive.

I want to be addicted to replying to mail, so I removed the sound for when mail comes in and I’ve set up a sound for when I send an email. Now, sending a mail is much juicier than it used to be, and my email experience is much better.

Technically, I would like the mail program to provide extra feedback for when I reply to a mail vs. sending a mail (can’t see how to do that in Eudora). Why not particle effects, halos, sounds, things that glow, bounces, echoes?

I want a really juicy email experience.

[Update: I now realize that Kyle Gabler, Kyle Gray, Matt Kucic, and Shalin Shodhan discussed juiciness a while ago on Gamasutra.]

Little Bragging, but Playing to Win

To follow up on my previous post about the Metagame at GDC: It would have been out of line to openly brag.

“It was all about creating discussion”, but as a member of the losing blue team, I did see some smugness in the eyes of the winning red team (Jonathan Blow, Tracy Fullerton, Warren Spector).

And afterwards, I did keep returning to how we might have rephrased our final question. But I tried to hide it.

There you have it: a real-life negotiation of the border between what is in the game and what is outside the game.

The MetaGame: Are we allowed to brag? To be sore losers?

I am on my way to the MetaGame session where we are to play a video game discussion game.

And I realize that I am in a position that I have written about theoretically: Since we haven’t played the game before, not with these people, and not in this context, I don’t know how much bragging is allowed. Can I sulk if we lose? Is it about discussion, or is about winning? What is the balance?

What is the lusory attitude of my own team? What is the attitude of the other team? What is the attitude of the audience?