Category: Computer Games

Montreal attack and video games

Another horrible shooting at a school and once again there is a reported connection to a mix of blogs, goth culture and videogames. The Globe and Mail has a story about how the Blog of accused killer reveals dark character (Scott Deveau). The blog, which is still (as of posting) accessible, now has 233 comments on the last entry posted an hour before Kimveer went.

As for the videogame connection, Montreal gunman called himself ‘angel of death’ is the title of a CBC story that quotes the blog,

“Work sucks ‚Ķ School sucks ‚Ķ Life sucks ‚Ķ What else can I say?” he wrote. “Metal and Goth kick ass. Life is like a video game, you gotta die sometime.”

The Globe and Mail article quotes more from the blog on the subject of videogames,

Among other things, he says his likes were: “First Person Shooters” and “Super Psycho Maniacs roaming the streets.” He also says he likes his knife, guns, and “Crushing My Enemies Skulls.”

Among his favourite video games are several first-person shooting games, including Super Columbine Massacre RPG, which has players mimic the infamous high school killings in Columbine, Colo., the morning of April 20, 1999, through the eyes of the teenage killers. The shootings at Dawson College on Wednesday are a chilling echo of those events.

Mr. Gill also lists Postal as another of his favourite games. The purpose of that game is to get through as much of the game as possible without going berserk and gunning people down, or, failing that, to avoid getting caught and being thrown in jail.

He also complained that Postal 2 was “too childish.”

‚Äúi want them to make a game so realistic, that it looks and feels like it’s actually happening,‚Äù he wrote in his blog.

Setting aside the question of who would create a game like “Super Columbine Massacre RPG”, I find it hard to believe that videogames didn’t let Kimveer model his violent fantasies.

Now I’m going to go back to the 233 comments on that last post. A snapshot of reactions from anger to concerns about how goth culture will be portrayed.

Second Life Activities

I’ve noticed a number of interesting activities that are using Second Life as their virtual site. The Infinite Mind in Second Life is a web page about interviews with people like John Maeda and Kurt Vonnegut that were broadcast (took place?) in Second Life. (You can see photos and read agout it also at The Infinite Mind blog.)

CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion is a law class about argument outside of court and on the net. The class is by Harvard prof Charles Nesson and his daughter Rebecca Nesson. There is a trailer video that explains the class and how you can join through Second Life. There is an interesting moment when you shift from the video of Nesson to video of his avatar in a recreation of the same space.

Note how video is the way virtual encounters are being documented.

Thanks to Johnny for the Infinite Minds link and Peter for the Harvard link.

GAM3R 7H30RY

GAM3R 7H30RY 1.1 is a networked book in progress by McKenzie Wark. It is hosted by The Institute for the Future of the Book as a “thinking out loud” project. They have an interesting interface for creating a structured book (chapters with paragraphs as cards). There is a syndicated version, search, comment area and documentation on the interface. I’m not sure why they didn’t use a wiki with plug ins and will have to think about what is missing from wikis other than a stack of cards look.

Most Influential Gamers?

MTV News has a nice story about the Most Influential Gamers? (June 21, 2006) by Stephen Totilo. The news story assembles 10 influential gamers for debate like U Michigan prof Peter Ludlow who was kicked off the The Sims Online for running a newspaper in the game. Another is Patrick Wildenbord who found the sex-game buried in Grant Theft Auto: San Andreas which causes a fuss.

Are top gamers becoming the sport stars of the net?

Thanks to Jean-Guy for this.

Perron: Cognition of Gameplay Emotions

A Cognitive Psychological Approach to Gameplay Emotions is a paper that Bernard Perron gave at DIGRA 2005. He adapts discussions of how viewers respond emotionally to cinema to understanding the emotions of playing computer games (specifically story-based ones.) I think he gets it right.

But inasmuch as you can make your avatar act, you have to make him take action. If not, there will be no game. Otherwise, as Iíve often stressed with regards survival horror games, it is certainly not the avatar that is meant to be scared or have emotions, but rather the gamer [19]. The avatar, incidentally, generally stays expressionless, whatever the situation. We saw that emotions depend on the gamerís appraisal of a given game situation. This individual appraisal will consequently produce subjective emotional reactions.

In many ways the mission style of certain games provides the overall motivation (you are just following orders) and it is in the achievement of the assigned task and overcoming the problems that the emotions of playing lie. Few games are sufficiently open ended that you can choose the general attitude to take to playing/living in the game-world. It would be much harder to program a game that was so open ended. By choosing the play a mission you suspend your choice of life goals in order to take pleasure in the goals set by the game. What does this say about levels of (free) will?

Study of RuneScape Game

How gaming is all work and no play (Marcgh 14, 2006) is a summary of a study by two Brunel University academics about online playing on RuneScape. Simon Bradford and Nic Crowe explain their findings from their 3 year study in the BBC story:

The stark fact is that many young people spend as much time playing video games as they do doing their homework.

Concerned parents reading these statistics may have a sharp intake of breath. To them, this is proof that their children spend too much time being “anti-social” in front of a screen.

It is not that simple. Having researched gamers for three years, we have found that it is far from an anti-social activity.

Continue reading Study of RuneScape Game

Could Microsoft lead in gaming?

Microsoft may change gaming with their “Live Anywhere” plan that lets games be played across Xboxes, PCs (with Vista) and mobile devices like phones. At the E3 conference today Bill Gates pitches “anywhere” gaming at expo according to a story by Daisuke Wakabayashi and Kemp Powers (May 9, 2006). This service (?) could change the site and pace of gaming by allowing people to start games on an Xbox and then keep up with their cell. Tamagotchi style caretaking games could be played “live anywhere”. More likely my son’s fanatic gamer friends will use it to keep their Orc avatars busy during the slow period in the day when they have to be in class. (Hi David)

The next generation of consoles is unfolding one press conference at a time at the E3Expo (Electronic Entertainment Expo). See the E3Expo – Reuters Newsblog or the E3 Blog from GameSpot. (I’ve noticed that time-limited blogs can provide effective summaries of conferences. Longer than an article, broken in to key announcements and impressions, they can give one a good overview.)

Internet Gaming – Gambling

What’s the most popular form of online gaming? Surely one of the answers has got to be Internet Gambling which according to the American Gaming Association the Justice Department in the US considers “illegal under existing law.”

What is amazing are the facts from the AGA:

  • The first online gambling site launched in August 1995. It is currently estimated that there are well over 2,000 Internet gambling Web sites offering various wagering options, including sports betting, casino games, lotteries and bingo.
  • Internet gambling revenue in 2005 was estimated at $11.9 billion and is projected to double by 2010, according to Christiansen Capital Advisors (CCA).
  • CCA estimates that nearly 23 million people gambled on the internet in 2005. Approximately 8 million of those gamblers were from the United States.

Keep in mind that gambling revenue for 2004 according to the AGA was $78.6 billion across everything from Card Rooms to Lotteries. (See Fact Sheets : Statistics.)

There is a 2006 State of the States (PDF) report which includes a section on Gambling and the Internet (and a spotlight on poker.) 4% of the US population gambles online, but that is a doubling from the year before. A greater percentage of online gamblers are men (68% men to 32% women) while among casino customers the numbers are close (53% to 47%.) There are differences in age (online gamblers are younger.) More online gamblers have a university education and they are affluent. They use the net heavily for things like online banking and 49% of them have posted to a blog in the last year! They like online gambling because it is convenient.

For a summary article that led me to this report see the Reuters story from May 8, 2006, Online gamblers doubled in 2005: study by Paritosh Bansal.

You wonder whether Canada is different. Its hard to find a comparable study but, the Canadian Gaming Association has some stats at Canadian Gaming Association. The rhetoric of the site is, if anything, less balanced. They talk of creating “a better understanding of the gaming entertainment industry and the issues that affect the thousands of businesses across the country that depend on it for their livelihood.” Defintely an advocacy group.

One site that does have critical information is the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre which, unlike the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario actually has information about the effects of gambling. For example, they have an abstract and links to reports like, Gambling@Home: Internet Gambling in Canada. The following is one of the Key Findings:

Online gambling has unique potential to increase the social cost of gambling and problem gambling because it combines the acknowledged double threat of high speed and convenient access with a technology that appeals to youth. Unregulated Internet gambling also has a potential for criminal involvement.

Mark my words, despite how the gaming associations try to spin it, gambling is coming back as a social issue. It will play out differently now that governments are addicted to it in order to raise revenue. Note, the final page of 2006 State of the States (PDF) shows a marked rise in the number of people who think gambling is “Not Acceptable for Anyone” (from 15% to 18% between 2005 and 6) and a corresponding drop in those who think gambling is “Perfectly Acceptable for Anyone” (57% to 54%). This is after years of stable numbers. Why the change? Is it a blip or is it indicative of a new wave of prohibition? What would trigger such a wave? According to Gambling in California (CRB-97-003), a 1997 California Research Bureau report by Roger Dunstan, in the second chapter on the “History of Gambling in the United States” (last paragraph),

The first and second waves ended in part because of a resurgence of public concern about morality and scandals in gaming. People can live with adverse odds but not cheating. What kind of events could lead to scandals today? If lotteries were plagued by fraud that would probably have an impact on people’s perceptions.

Could poorly regulated offshore online gambling trigger a reaction? If online gambling overtakes taxable or government run gambling, and if there are a couple of scandals involving cheating by online gambling sites, we could see the mood swing rapidly towards prohibition (with all the problems of prohibiting anything online.)

Do we need a public gaming corporation?

David Rejeski in Why We Need a Corporation for Public Gaming argues that the USA needs the gaming equivalent to PBS.

However, serious games, like serious TV, are likely to remain a sidebar in the history of mass media. Non-commercial television floundered, despite millions of dollars of investment by the Ford Foundation, until the government stepped in and created a viable and long-lasting alternative. With similar vision and foresight, and a relatively small amount of funding, this could happen with video and computer games.

Interesting idea. What would the Canadian equivalent be? The “Canadian Gaming Corporation”?