The Ludologist

The Nobel prize being awarded to Thomas Schelling and Robert Aumann.

According to BBC online:

Professor Aumann’s work has centred on a different element of game theory, the question of whether co-operation increases if games are continually repeated.

He showed that co-operation is less likely when there are many participants, when interactions are infrequent, when the time horizon is short or when others’ actions cannot be clearly observed.

Does say a thing or two about online games, no?

After the rants about the problems of the game industry, Greg Costikyan is now forming a company with the goal of promoting indie games:

And its purpose, of course, will be to build what I’ve been talking about: a viable path to market for independent developers, and a more effective way of marketing and distributing niche PC game styles to gamers.

Manifesto Games.

Following what I have commented previously, I think a crucial part is building public awareness that there is a special set of unique, interesting experiences to be had from “indie” games. Players need to know that they want it.

Best of luck to Greg, who promises to blog the process.

Aki J?rvinen has released his game about games, the GameGame.

The GameGame is a crazily recursive idea of Aki’s, to make a game about game design, where the cards of the game represent ideas and components in the game design process. It does make sense, and I completely believe it can work as a teaching tool.

• The objective of the game to collect cards which make up a design for a game.
• The Best Design Wins!
• The cards represent game elements, i.e. ingredients a game.
• You as a player collect generic elements and improvise your own game based on them.

Get your GameGame here.

I used to think you’d never see it, but here it is: Hamlet as a text adventure.

It does sort of work as far as I’ve gotten, but probably because the juxtaposition between the play and the text adventure is so jarring as to be fun.

> n
Balcony
A ghost is here.
An exit leads south.

> tell ghost “hello”
“Hey Dad,” you say cheerily. “What’s up?”
“Hamlet,” says the old man after a sigh, “you remember how I was found mysteriously dead in the orchard a couple of weeks back? Well… it’s like this. Your uncle Claudius poisoned me so he could become king and marry your mother. I’d be awfully grateful if you could kill him for me.”
“All right,” you say, “I’ll do it!”
Your life suddenly seems to have purpose.

Update: The game has been relocated to http://rdouglasjohnson.com/hamlet/

Greg Costikyan presents a new rant at the Escapist.

The problem is that once something becomes technically feasible, the market demands it. Gamers themselves are partly to blame: Indie rock fans may prefer somewhat muddy sound over some lushly-orchestrated, producer-massaged score; indie film fans may prefer quirky, low-budget titles over big-budget special FX extravaganzas; but in gaming, we have no indie aesthetic, no group of people (of any size at least) who prize independent vision and creativity over production values.

And this I think is true – consumers share the blame … The game audience must mature in order for the game industry to mature.

Word is that the Chinese government is working on regulating MMOGs so anybody playing more than three hours in a row will be punished in-game.

BBC story.

The server administrators will be happy (less server load).

The scary thing is that because MMOGs are managed at central servers, they are also the ideal cultural form for any totalitarian state: The committee has decided that you will only play three hours per day, young one.

Imagine if the authorities could set time limits on your reading, listening to music, or anything else …

Slate has a short article on Islamist video games.

If you ignore the titles of the Ummah Defense games and the occasional in-game messages?”Alhamdulillah, You Destroyed the Command Ship!”?it’s impossible to tell that you’re playing an “Islamic game.” When I destroyed the third of the four command ships controlling the “Flying Evil Robot Armada” in the first Ummah Defense, I didn’t ruminate on whether my real-life allegiance should be with the robots. I just thought, only one more ship to go!

Same old problem: It’s hard to place or identify a clear message in the game mechanics, but in many game forms, the player eventually only really cares about the game mechanics.