Gameology 2.0
We study videogames.
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If you are still looking, i would suggest playcrafter. It is very easy to deploy. Game quality is also high. By the way, it would not be a best option if you want to practice and learn any programming skills. just my two cents.
I think it's just a matter of time. South Korea has the fasted broadband and highest Internet uses rates in the world (interestingly it also has the highest rates of internet and gaming addiction). Even so I think competitive gaming will spread, I mean the StarCraft board game is doing pretty well, and the video game is wayy more popular still.
Varun Nair is coming this February to India's first and independent annual summit for the game development ecosystem - India Game Developer Summit (gamedevelopersummit dot com) and will talk about designed sound and their uses, foley and real world sounds and its importance in enhancing and adding depth to game play. He will teach dialogues, learning and adapting from other media and forms of entertainment such as films, theatre & music. He will also cover common queries on making a brief and time and asset management. The talk will also cover technicalities and their creative applications including choosing the 'right' sound, and space, perspective, timbre and pitch, quality, delivery and working formats.
India Game Developer Summit 2010 – First, Independent Event on Game Programming, Business and Careers
Bangalore, February 08, 2010: It is common among writers, story tellers and even the audience/game players to believe that visuals alone can tell a story well. While visuals can bring life to the story and connect to the audience actively, sound can connect to the audience passively and most unobtrusively, says Varun Nair who is coming this February to India's first and independent annual summit for the game development ecosystem - India Game Developer Summit. Sound - a combination of music, dialogues and sound effects - is very important in story telling & enhancing realism in game play. Visual without complimenting sound is like a story told with no emotions.
At Indian GDS Varun will talk about designed sound and their uses, foley and real world sounds and its importance in enhancing and adding depth to game play. He will teach dialogues, learning and adapting from other media and forms of entertainment such as films, theatre & music. He will also cover common queries on making a brief and time and asset management. The talk will also cover technicalities and their creative applications including choosing the 'right' sound, and space, perspective, timbre and pitch, quality, delivery and working formats. Varun will cover the common equipment and tools used to create sounds before wrapping the talk by demonstrating the use of contrast and the power of silence.
Varun Nair has dabbled in most areas of sound - from the music industry, post production for commercials & feature films to game sound. He has created assets for Indian developers & some international projects like the ICC Cricket title for EA.
Attend IGDS to get inspired, learn from the gurus who have gamed their way to success, and join a club that seeks competence to grab a share in the $43 billion global gaming development pie.
About India Game Developer Summit
The highly individualistic nature of the Indian Software Developer, coupled with their tolerance for divergent personalities make them a natural fit into the Game Development culture. With the mission to build a robust community, advance the careers and enhance the lives of game developers, IGDS 2010 (Lite Ed) is being organized with the mission to pump the blood of Indian Game Developers and re-invigorate the ecosystem at large. The summit will cover industry leading methodologies in game development, design, production, programming, visual arts and writing.
India GDS (IGDS) is the quintessential Indian game industry event focused on inspiring, connecting and educating the Indian game developer ecosystem. Featuring top-notch keynotes from luminaries, visionaries and gaming gurus on various subjects from mobile and indie games to MMOs and AAA games, IGDS will also provide a hub for business and networking opportunities in the Indian industry.
With support from the International Game Developer Association (IGDA), the gaming industry at large and academia, the summit's intent is to build a robust community, advance the careers and enhance the lives of game developers. IGDS will see participation from Adobe, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Ubisoft and Playdom among several others. For complete details visit: gamedevelopersummit dot com
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I definitely noticed in playing this game that the demonic nature of every element seems believable in a way that it isn't in most games. When I run around with a sword and slice demons, they simply become high-level goblins, but the demons in Solium Infernum don't have to compromise any part of their demonic nature for the sake of the game.
I've been looking all over for this book, and since you don't like it all that much, could you please send me your copy? :) Send me a personal message on my website and I can get back to you with shipping details. Please! None of the stores seem to have them anymore!
I am intrigued by this article, this opens up the possibility of using twitter in open courseware for distance learning pathways.
I believe that you make a a valid claim, Doom is a more culturally resonant work than, let's say, Catacomb 3-D (Romero & Carmack's early venture into FPSs). However, consideration must be made for mechanics and aesthetics within a given genre. Doom made the FPS a huge success; but Wolfenstein had all the basic genre conventions in place. I would argue (and I have) that Wolfenstein is a valid compromise because even though it was not the first FPS, it set the groundwork for the innovation that would come later. WoW may be more relevant and may be dramatically better than Everquest, EQ does deserve a place in digital game canon. EQ was not the first graphic MUD, but it made huge strides in realizing an immersive, real-time MUD experience. Everquest, in the same way that Wolfenstein is important for the FPS genre, really paved the way for WoW, Guild Wars and countless others.
I will concede that this may be a case of comparing apples and oranges as FPSs and MMORPGs are fairly different. I still hypothesize that digital games should be analyzed within the context of their given genres. I also write this coming from a position of viewing digital games as text, excluding paratext. With this view, I agree with your last point on your comparison to literary canon. Finding out how to do this, however, is why we are all here having these discussions.
Besides convincing me to buy wedding dresses and jewelry, this string has got me thinking about how we would want to approach a video game canon. I am currently working on a couple of scholarly projects involving sports games, so I was deeply disappointed to see a total lack of sports games on most of the lists (though Sensible Soccer seems like a uniquely bizarre choice to represent sports games in such a list). I think the reason these lists seem frustrating, though, is that the lists tend to be structured on mechanical development, rather than cultural importance. I guess what I'm saying is, just because a game was the first of a particular subgenre (i.e. Prince of Persia, Dune II, etc.), does not necessarily make it canonical. Thus, I would argue that World of Warcraft deserves a place in the canon due to its immense cultural effect, rather than Everquest, a game that is generally unknown outside of fan communities. Similarly, the entire Madden series deserves a place in the canon for its role in the mainstreaming of video game culture and multiplayer gaming. Now, I am not saying that merely the most popular games are the most important, and therefore the most canonical. Yet, when we study video games, we study not only the formal development of game mechanics, but also the development of a larger video game culture.
Perhaps the most apt way of putting this is to revert to the literary canon. Books enter the literary canon due to a combination of innovation, popularity, and skill. Similarly, we should consider each game for what it provides to the critical discourse, be it a massively popular game or a deeply innovative simulation.
The fact that the list is N64-heavy may have to do with the fact that most undergraduates and new graduate students first really engaged with games in a meaningful way on the N64. In 1996, when it was released, I was 9 years old; most undergraduates were between the ages of 4 and 9. This is the first console that they remember. Even I, who can remember the SNES and Sega Genesis very clearly, only got to play one or two games on those consoles (Sonic!) because I was so young and didn't have nearly the interest level or ability to really enjoy more. I've had to really go outside my element to play earlier games, seek out emulators (and, where possible, seek out the old consoles themselves - but that isn't always possible).
I've noticed that this is something that not everybody keeps in mind: the young people who are working on video games today may be interested in and excited about video games before the N64, but they didn't encounter them as early, and almost certainly aren't as familiar with them.
The fact that the list is N64-heavy may have to do with the fact that most undergraduates and new graduate students first really engaged with games in a meaningful way on the N64. In 1996, when it was released, I was 9 years old; most undergraduates were between the ages of 4 and 9. This is the first console that they remember. Even I, who can remember the SNES and Sega Genesis very clearly, only got to play one or two games on those consoles (Sonic!) because I was so young and didn't have nearly the interest level or ability to really enjoy more. I've had to really go outside my element to play earlier games, seek out emulators (and, where possible, seek out the old consoles themselves - but that isn't always possible).
I've noticed that this is something that not everybody keeps in mind: the young people who are working on video games today may be interested in and excited about video games before the N64, but they didn't encounter them as early, and almost certainly aren't as familiar with them.
I do agree with the rest of the opinions regarding the canonization of creative works. It's audacious of a small group to dictate their standards to others. However, creating a list of recommended works makes a medium much more approachable for burgeoning scholars and the general public. As with other media, especially film, recommendations are usually made with certain criteria in mind. Films such as Vertov's "Man With a Movie Camera", Eisenstein's "Battleship Potempkin" and Griffith's "Birth of a Nation" are selected on the categorical, historical, and technical benchmarks that they have set. Other lauded films are selected based on their narrative merits. These were considered when I began my research on First-Person Shooters and Performance Theory.
It's useful to have prime examples in a given medium that work well, they should however, be flexible and open to constant revision. I also ask for others to consider the possibility that for Digital Games, that any attempts to create a list must be made at the level of genre. A sharper focus may create a more definitive and academically sound canon.
R.
When will they come out with a gaming console that is wireless to your TV, your favorite Stereo, and your Desktop?
That is what I am looking forward to around the home office. The ability to walk around the house, listen to my favorite tunes, play a game or two in the living room and then back into the office to work....All with the same sounds and games playing throughout the house.
Check out what we do at http://www.zenergyworks.com
-Bryan Fikes
If I had to describe top ten lists made by an institution or group of people rather than the opinion of one individual in one word, that word would be "bad." This opinion may just stem from the very top ten list I helped create for Mary Washington's own The Bullet, which I was more than unsatisfied with (http://tinyurl.com/ylqyhw8). For some reason, and this goes for myself too, everyone is sort of fascinated by these lists, whether it be for games, film, music, or any sort of art. Theorizing on the spot, I'd say it has something to do with confirming one's own beliefs, but I'm no psychologist so take that with a grain of salt.
The initial top ten list presented here, the scholarly one (I am only familiar with Warren Spector here, DeusEx4LYFE) is probably great, though out of the list I've only played Super Mario Bros. 3, Tetris, and Doom. I've played SimCity 2 and Civilization IV though, if that counts. The main problem with a list comprised of old games like this is that it undermines more recent games, even if they are also old by today's standards. I have a sneaking suspicion that they are the games that inspired the people that were making the list. Regardless, using important people to make lists like this, especially ones so short, is arbitrary. You need way more games to get any sense of the landscape of video game canon. In film, the equivalent is AFI's top 100 movies list, which is silly in its habit of completely removing films rather than moving them down the list, and not actually a good example. Plus having #1 be more presitigious than #100, and indeed having numbers on your list in general makes the list mean less. "Oh, it's too bad The Godfather got #2, I was really rooting for it."
Regarding your class list, I have to express my disappointment with the lack of strong narratives, with the maybe-exception of Half-Life, but that is only notable for the way the narrative is presented (exceptionally) rather than the narrative itself (kill the aliens/dystopia), but even for this it certainly does deserve to be on a list like this, as the ways in which it changed stories in video games are around all the time, especially the calm and friendly interactive intro. The merit of having a class compile a list like this is in seeing what students think are the most important. The downside of teaching a class on video games is in how long most video games are, ranging from 10-100 hours if it's a single player experience, sort of forcing the students to draw upon previous knowledge. Then again, I suppose many books take just as long to read, and for many classes students are forced to buy them, so I guess there isn't really a problem. Did your students have to play the games in the original list or just study second-hand accounts?
Also, most kids will present mainstream games to the class without any knowledge of the lesser known, but much more impactful games, in addition to the problem you mentioned with kids just picking their favorite games. I don't know if this is a problem that can be corrected with anything except assigning various games to play...which would just bias them further, now that I think of it. I don't know, it's a hard thing teaching a class on canonical games when your classes have only played the video game equivalent of the Harry Potter books rather than Catcher in the Rye or The Man Who was Thursday. Not that the Harry Potter books are bad, but you know what I mean. I hope.
As a subjective side note, I am also disappointed that Planescape: Torment is not mentioned. Despite it being my favorite game, I insist that it has the deepest narrative of any game ever made (to my knowledge). I could teach a class on that game like classes are taught about the Divine Comedy.
I have an issue with the very idea of cannon, but I still want to play. Here's a personal cannon of personal computer games, in ludic response to Zach's class' N64-heavy canon
(in a very vague semblance of chronological order:)
1. Zork
not the 1st, but almost certainly the most played and best remembered text adventure, and the genre of Interactive Fiction lives on
2. Rogue
created the top-down dungeon genre that games like the Diabo games have mined so profitably - and, like IF, roguelikes are a "technologically surpassed" genre that is still alive, due to Nethack and other open-source and freeware titles
3. Wizardry
graphical 1st person dungeoncrawlers more-or-less start here - if you love or hate the Elder Scroll games, look here for roots
4. King's Quest
there was a time when graphical adventure games ruled, and this is where they all began - in many ways, Roberta Williams presided over the rise and fall of the genre
5. Prince of Persia
probably the first significant side-scroller for the PC, and the first motion-capture game that I know of
6. Wolfenstein 3d
the basics of FPS gameplay, and most of the nuances, haven't changed since ID's breakthrough title - not the first FPS, but the first one that everyone took notice of
7. Dune II
all the early RTS games have interface problems and weak AI - Dune II is no exception, but I think it precedes Warcraft (not sure, not going to check right now), and is the only one I've ever played in which the wonky RTS resource-collection scheme (raw goods = instant money?) ever made sense
8. UFO: Enemy Unknown (US title: X-Com)
simultaneously one of the crowning achievements of turn-based strategy gaming and an original challenge to the assumptions of the genre (especially for those unfamiliar with the previous work of the Gollup brothers)
9. Civilization
definitive of large-scale turn-based strategy
10. Everquest
not the first MMORPG, but boy did they get the pavlovian formula right
...as you may have noticed by now, this isn't a list of personal favorites. The only game on this list that I personally love is X-Com, and the more I think about it, the less I can justify it being there (perhaps it SHOULD have founded a genre, but it didn't).
Without intending to, I've betrayed why I distrust canons so much: they tend to uphold and justify the status quo, as if the present state of things was desirable. The history of gaming, like that of literature, is largely one of unrealized potential and discounted brilliance, or at least it will be, once the field matures a bit (give it a generation).
you are an i-d-i-o-t - learn some english
It's OK to discuss these lists, since that's the whole point of the seminar! In fact, the very difficulties you point to (how to prioritize influence over popularity, avoiding bias, an arbitrarily short list) are exactly what give it pedagogical traction. Even if our final list does reflect some Americentric or console-centric bias, that's OKl. None of us (certainly not me or my students) has a broad enough view to avoid someone else's accusation of bias, which is the whole problem with canon anyway, and a big reason why we don't typically think of canons to inform the same cultural-gatekeeping they used to.
Anyway, for more on Guitar Hero and all of the other games proposed, you can view the complete set of proposals here (click the thumbnail). And keep in mind that the primary audience for these documents is other members of the class. In other words, they're attempting to recruit votes for the games from their peers, who likely share similar assumptions (which you might call biases, for example).
Consoles definitely, though there were a few strong PC-gamer voices. Among consoles, many seemed to be Nintendo fans, generally speaking.
I didn't mention any demographics in my original post, so maybe it's worth noting here that the female:male ration was 11:19, out of a Freshman class with a balance skewing more 6:4. Most of my students identified as gamers (girls included), or at least acknowledged that gaming (again, typically console) was a significant part of their lives for some reason. Finally, most if not all were born after 1990, so that necessarily gives them a different perspective from me on qualifiers like "classic." Given that, I think it's actually encouraging how many games on the proposed list (the original 10) dated from the 80s or 70s.
I made a similar experience in a game studies class I attended. Almost everyone was having problems going beyond what they know are their favourite games. For such a small canon (have you seen a ten most important movies list?) I think it's best to focus on landmarks. In what way exactly did the game change the industry or what we expect from future games. Which leads me right to my first question. I know one shouldn't discuss these lists too much but I still have to wonder why Guitar Hero was included, especially as I can't find good reasons on the exhibit page either.
- It is not the first bemani game, not even close
- It also wasn't the worldwide breakthrough for that genre, that would be Dance Dance Revolution
- It is not the first party music game to reach a wide audience either, that would be SingStar
- It is not even the first guitar based bemani game too
- It is not the first game to expand beyond one instrument, that's Rock Band
Which landmarks exactly are the reasons for including it? I'd be very interested in them :) It can't just be current popularity, that's not good enough for a 10 game canon, is it?
A few more remarks rather than questions:
- GoldenEye should be either "GoldenEye", "GoldenEye 007" or "007: GoldenEye"
- Legend of Zelda (besides missing the "The") should be renamed "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" judging by the exhibit page. Otherwise the name refers to the first Zelda game on the NES.
- there's nothing one can do about it but this list has the same problem as all of them, it's focusing on the American market too much. I'd be very interested in a canon which was created by western gamers and Japanese ones
- do you have any idea what the students favorite gaming platform is? The list seems to have a slight bias towards console games rather than computer games. With just ten games it's hard to avoid though!
Hey Zach, I'm sure you already know about the Game Studies article Novices, Gamers, and Scholars: Exploring the Challenges of Teaching About Games by José P. Zagal and Amy Bruckman, but I thought I'd mention it here, in case it's new to some of your readers. Zagal and Bruckman wrestle with the same problem you mentioned: that students' notion of videogame expertise does not necessarily translate over into scholarly or critical expertise.
The most useful part of the article is Zagal and Bruckman's rundown of what constitutes a "naïve understanding of games" (this comes toward the end of the article, just before the conclusion). For my videogame studies course in Spring 2010, I'm intending on bringing in their list to my class, and sharing it with my students. And maybe even (and here I'm planning my course off the cuff as I write) tasking the students with developing their own exercises for fellow classmates. The assignment would challenge students to address specific problems identified by Zagal and Bruckman, and then create pedagogical activities that would shift a naïve/artificial/superficial understanding of games to a more critical understanding.
You're not the only one who hasn't been posting much lately, but that's OK! I'm glad to hear you're blogging at PTT. They're a regular feature in my RSS so I'm surprised I missed your name before.
Anyway, keep the juices flowing indeed!
This does look awesome, it's an amazingly creative idea. I think I like the Morro Castle best. Since I just stumbled upon this Im wondering if there are going to be any more exhibits in the near future?
Hello! Art Games is online at http://patrick-lemieux.com/artwork/Art_Games/
Right now the collaborative scoreboards are not networked but you can still play the six games as they have been exhibited in the Southeast. I'm hoping to show this work more in 2010 and possibly develop an Art Games iPhone application in the near future. Thanks for your interest in the project!
I completely disagree with you. I think you have never played the best games in the history. Have you seen the plot of Soul reaver - Blood omen? this is a huge plot, about 5 games, and is excellent from the beginning to the end, It has nothing to critic about. Have you played mafia? The most exiting and amazing game plot. The final reflection shock me and most of my friends. Max-Payne, fallout, torment, etc. The list is huge!. I know the plot only won't save any bad game, but it is an importan part. A good plot will bring a new life, and a new point of view.
An not restricting plot will make the game longer and more playable. I hate when I reach a limitation of the game, for example an invisible wall at the end of the map. At least be creative and hide the end with trees or something. Another thing I hate, is when you are teached to used something and inmidiatly you are asked to use that. I think that's toooooo predictable, and boring. Let me discover how to use things, and let those things free in the game, or at least, make the plot follow that change. Don't let a new weapon over the floor being so obviously. I hate that!.
I think the most important part of the game is it's dynamics, and how playable is it. If I feel confortable with a game, I'll play it a lot of time, even if the plot is awful, either the graphics, and everything else. A good dynamic will save everything else. But a good plot and a bit of thinking will make it better. For example, the game "Marshmallow Duel". A DOS game that I still play with friends, just because it's fucking hilarious. It has no plot, it has no 3d graphics, but it's easy to play, dynamic, and over those things, FUNNY. I spent hours playing without being bored. It might take you a little to get used to and old game. We are used to ultra graphics, so, we are not very confident to an old game, but when that barrier is broken, you won't stop playing.
Just my humble opinion.
Hey your site looks good. But I really want to know why people choose drupal. I am having a blog powered by wordpress. I am find using it.. Is there any major difference with Drupal and Wordpress ( though I havent tried Drupal)
I will face my dissertation in the January so your blog helped me a lot. First of all thanks for those links to D. Travers Scott's blog and David Parry's blog. Those blogs are extremely useful for exam preparation. I see that this entry was written over a year ago, so I think that you have passed your exam and dissertation successfully because I see you are a clever one :) Thanks one more time for posting it here. I have bookmarked your blog and will be waiting for other interesting entries from you. Thanks!
Sincerely,
Brad Kallson from software development services