On Friday I attended the first Canadian Game Studies Association meeting at York University. It was organized by Jennifer Jenson and Suzanne de Castell.
In the morning I heard two great papers, Martin Picard spoke on “Machinima: the New ‘Machinations’ Behind Video Games.” One question raised was how machinima is different from animation and what does it have to do with games. The second paper by Derek Noon, “Sneaking Mission: Technoculture and Metal Gear Solid” was a short documentary on Metal Gear Solid prepared for a media studies class at Western. The documentary showed how MGS played with the fourth wall, addressing the player (as player) and raising questions about what was real or not in the game.
In the afternoon there was a workshop on “Cooperating With AI” organized by Bernard Perron, Bart Simon, Carl Therrien, and Dominic Arsenault. Simon started the workshop talking about how the others we play against are designed to lose and to make us feel superior. Often they are not really controlled by what a computer scientist would call AI – they are often scripted to seem intelligent enough. Perron and others showed short video clips of game play and collaboration between the player and buddies. Perron pointed out how, if the design works, you really form an attachment to the buddy AI that collaborates with you.