Category: Games

In the Aftermath of a Shooting

Posted on Posted in Games1 Comment

Aside from a brief comment in an earlier post, I haven’t written anything here yet about the Virginia Tech shooting. This is because the actual event involves a lot of victims in a crime that seems to have nothing to do with the content of this blog, and real death is something personal, uncomfortable, and often very awkward to discuss. I have had to deal with real death recently myself, and it’s not something I want to talk about right now, so I can’t imagine that the victims’ families appreciate all the attention. Whether we like it or not, this isolated incident has become a national story, and the cultural and political implications of major events are my business. Before I go any further, then, I just want to extend my condolences to anyone affected by the recent tragedy.

That’s all I’ll say about the event itself. Today, I want to talk about what the news had to say about it.

Continue reading “In the Aftermath of a Shooting” →

Good News!

Posted on Posted in Computers, Games

The New York Times reports that PCs running Windows Vista with DirectX 10 graphics cards are going to be the future of gaming, surpassing consoles for their superior graphics. (Alternate headline: New York Times article reads like it was written by a PR firm.) Mind you, this is the same newspaper that reported not too long ago that people want wild gesticulation more than better graphics, which was at least born out of sales figures.

Thoughts on Entertainment Advocacy and Activism

Posted on Posted in Comics, Games2 Comments

Video game fans can be pretty vocal on blogs and in casual conversation about how gaming doesn’t get the respect it deserves—people think games are for kids, have stupid plots, make you lazy, make you violent, etc. Video game fans have slowly begun to follow the example of comic book fans, however, in practicing grassroots activism and advocacy to change such perceptions. See, for example, the recent news about a gaming advocacy/protest rally in New York:

Empire Arcadia Inc. will gather as many gamers as they can in New York City at Bryan Park on Saturday May 5th, 2007 at 1pm. There we will protest, morn [sic] and show how real gamers play videogames peacefully and responsibly. This demonstration is to show that gamers will not take the blame of this tragic matter but we will do what we can to help put an end to terrible events like this. We reiterate and urge that all leaders of gaming communities, organizations down to the last gamer to set aside 10 hours of this day to pay respect and come together not just as gamers but as HUMAN BEINGS for peace.

Empire Arcadia calls for gamers to unite! Official NYC Gathering:
Fellowship of the Gamers

I’ll get back to the issue of offering this event as a response to a tragedy. For now, I just want to comment on how this relates to gaming fandom more broadly.

Continue reading “Thoughts on Entertainment Advocacy and Activism” →

Another Kind of War Gaming

Posted on Posted in Anime & Manga, Conventions, Games

The Ping Pong room will be set up for RPGs (Role-Playing Games, not to be confused with the rocket propelled grenades which share the same acronym), and the DVD Movie room will be playing Anime Movies all day in support of the event.

Ziggurat Con, Iraq, 2007: quite possibly the world’s first war zone game convention.

Mario T-Shirts vs. Corduroy Jackets

Posted on Posted in Games, Research

I find it interesting that the recently-linked Joystiq article about a game club at Harvard seems so openly suspicious of (if not hostile to) the idea of academics discussing video games. This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed that kind of reaction, either.

When I was doing participant observation research in arcades, a lot of the people I chatted with (mostly the younger guys) seemed impressed that I was getting graduate credit to write papers about video games. People I chat with at video game conventions seem less impressed. When I told one game developer at the Penny Arcade Expo that I research video games in grad school, he replied, “I’m sorry.” I’m not sure I convinced him that it’s actually a pretty good gig. Perhaps “living the dream” is, for adult gamers, to actually be making games full time, whereas the young gamers who feel stuck in school indefinitely are more likely to see my career path as an acceptable compromise.

That said, I’ve been impressed by how many academic game researchers and critics attend the same conferences as game designers, not to mention those who do some design of their own. Part of what I find appealing about academia is the flexibility to work on a variety of projects, without a corporate master breathing down your neck and diluting your best ideas. Also, I find corduroy jackets very comfortable (best if worn with a fun t-shirt underneath).

I Don’t Want to Belong to Any Club That Would Accept Me As a Founder

Posted on Posted in Comics, Games, School Culture1 Comment

Joystiq links to an article in the Harvard Crimson about the University’s Interactive Media Group. I can thus add Harvard to the growing list of schools hosting neat clubs I can’t attend. My old stomping grounds even hosts the Hi-Score Game Development Club and a newly revived UMass Comic Art Society (which I founded my senior year before seeing it run into the ground within a couple years of my graduation).

I’d love to find something like these at Penn; a game development group seems particularly plausible, considering the growing number of interested parties majoring in Digital Media Design and working on masters degrees in Computer Graphics and Game Technologies. On the other hand, maybe it’s tougher to get club-style groups together in places that already include game design as part of the curriculum. Sadly, given my own research schedule, I’m unlikely to start another club up anytime soon.

Notes on Combat and Spectatorship

Posted on Posted in Games, Movies

To some critics, a movie with cardboard characterization, fetishized violence, and unsubtle themes must be like a video game. As noted in a recent article in Variety, the film adaptation of Frank Miller’s 300 has been unfavorably compared to video games for just these reasons. This Variety writer is joined by some game bloggers in calling foul at the unfair characterization of games, a medium with so much more potential and some excellent examples to the contrary.

I certainly agree that games can indeed be more artful and intelligent than some film critics recognize, though I think it’s important to note two things: first, that 300 is still a record-breaking box office hit, despite being pretty vapid; and second, that intelligently written narrative games are still probably rarer than the action-driven hits. The Variety writer, for example, cites Shadow of the Colossus as a game that breaks stereotypes, and this is indeed a unique and thought-provoking game. Critically acclaimed though it was, however, God of War certainly moved more copies, and even seemed to rank more frequently as “game of the year” among online reviewers. As much as I enjoyed God of War, I can’t say that the plot, themes, or characterization are its selling points. It’s a fun game, more fully realizing the long-held game industry vision of action-packed epics than games before it, but it’s not exactly thought-provoking.

Let’s assume, then, that there is something else about such movies and games that people find enjoyable. For some movies and games, a combination of striking visuals and visceral thrill may be what people find most attractive, and so much the better if there is something thoughtful in there to boot. Given that this kind of draw seems particularly relevant to game sales and reviews, however, I find it interesting that games have not gone even further in exploring the visual style of fight scenes. As a longtime gamer and moviegoer, I’d still argue that game designers stand to learn a lot from how combat is portrayed in cinema.

Continue reading “Notes on Combat and Spectatorship” →

I’ve Seen the Lite

Posted on Posted in Games

Looking at the travel schedule detailed in that last post, I’m starting to think it’s about time to pick up a Nintendo DS Lite. I’m thinking this not just because of time spent on the plane, but because that seems to be a major method of interaction between people at certain cons. At PAX in particular, people whiled away time between events, at boring panels, and sitting in lines, playing DS games on Wi-Fi. So many people were playing, in fact, that the wireless connection started lagging. A friend of mine commented that it was the first time he’d ever seen people actually using Pictochat. A fellow I met at South by Southwest, meanwhile, realized he was seated on the plane with a fellow SXSW-attending “nerd buddy” when they both pulled out DS’s (and subsequently played together).

I wonder, though, how people play with handheld systems when not attending special events. I once saw a guy on a bus here in Philly on a DS, and I once saw a woman in an arcade playing on a PSP while a couple of her friends played pool nearby, but that’s about it for my actual sightings in the wild, as it were. I’m interested in DS Buttons, a site that sells little pin-on buttons to invite the world to play DS with you, but I have no idea how often that actually leads to interaction with strangers.

Video gaming may have a reputation for discouraging social behavior, but the DS—which has dominated video game sales numbers for some time—may be on the road to being the most successful (non-PC) gaming system ever. Interesting that this title could be bestowed upon a handheld device rather than the consoles with massive processing power that the industry has pushed toward for so long.

Which Blogs and Cons Should I Be Visiting?

Posted on Posted in Comics, Computers, Conventions, Games, Movies, Television3 Comments

As of now, my dissertation will probably be focusing on some of the various cultures surrounding computers, video games, comics, and sci-fi TV/film. I’ve definitely had interviews (or have them lined up) with appropriate people for these topics, but I need to stay more continually plugged in to these industries and cultures than a few interviews allow for. That means attending some conventions and following some blogs, hopefully including the best trafficked of each.

In terms of cons, I’ve already attended the Penny Arcade Expo, the San Diego Comic Con International, the Big Apple Con, the Come Out and Play Festival (where I shot a short movie), and the South by Southwest Interactive Festival (no movies or music for me.) Depending on how certain things shake down, my travel plans for this year potentially include Wizardworld Philly (June), another trip to San Diego for Comic Con (July), Defcon in Vegas (August), the Tokyo Game Show (September), and the Small Press Expo (October). If some of that falls through and I could actually afford to go to PAX again, that’s another possibility. (I’ll also be going back and forth to Boston to visit friends and family, heading to San Francisco in May for the International Communication Association 2007 Conference, and doing research with Annenberg’s Summerculture program in Lisbon, Portugal for about half of July.)

As for web sites, I regularly sift through feeds from Joystiq, Kotaku, Game Politics, The Comics Reporter, and a number of sites maintained by academics I admire, such as Henry Jenkins’s Confessions of an Aca/Fan, Nancy Baym’s Online Fandom, and Jane McGonigal’s Avant Game. More recently, I picked up the feed for Slashdot, plus subscriptions to the print editions of Wired and Geek Monthly. I occasionally visit a number of other sites, including The Escapist, Journalista, and MacUser. (And that’s all on top of the design sites, traditional news sites, and web comics, which I won’t even get into here.)

Clearly, though, I’ve been more deeply involved with the comic book and video game scenes than the others. So I turn to you: got any suggestions for cons and web sites I should visit to get a better angle on what’s geeky about TV, film, and/or computer culture and industry?