Category: Computer Games

Espen Aarseth gave the closing plenary at the Gothenberg ALLC/ACH 2004. His talk was a masterful tour through the field of computer games research leading to thoughts on what the humanities have to offer. Espen reminded us that he used to go to the ACH/ALLC but didn’t find it appropriate to his interests.
What follows are some notes from his talk.
Continue reading Espen Aarseth: (What) Can the Humanities Contribute to Game Research?

My colleague Andrew Mactavish has started a Games Research Blog. He does neat stuff on games and culture, check it out.

Wired News has a peice on The Quest to End Game Addiction. It is mostly anecdotal, but mentions two Yahoo groups of EQ widows, one of which apparently has more than 1000 members.
The most touching part is a link to a confession by a 17 year-old Ontario boy on how he suffered from computer game addiction. (See Re: Computer Game Addiction.) Could this be a spoof?
Is game “addiction” a significant problem? Could it be a reflection of a gap between those who play and those who don’t – non-players convinced that there must be something wrong with the player.

bad kitty designs is a site that sells designs for the online game There. You can buy clothing designs for men and women, furniture, and so on. It has nice interface for looking at the different designs. The designs are on the Victorian naughty side.

In the current The Walrus there is a good (cover) article, “Game Theories“, by Clive Thompson. The article starts withy Edward Castranova’s online papers on online game economies and moves from there cover some of the emerging economic phenomena. The closing question is whether players really have ownership rights to their virtual property and what would happen if a game closed down rendering that property worthless (as may be happening to There.) Would/will people sue for lost income/value or do the game companies own it all, despite the underground economies that have emerged?
Continue reading The Walrus: Game Theories

Armchair Arcade! is an online journal and discussion forum on classic gaming. They are onto their third issue. I like the retro look to the issue “covers”. The articles so far seem mostly written by the site’s authors – they need to widen the pool of authors. What is not clear is how submissions are reviewed which may discourage academics (not that academics, with our strange rituals of promotion, are good writers for such venues.) They model themselves more on a magazine than a journal.
Continue reading Armchair Arcade

Computer games, media and interactivity by Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen and Jonas Heide Smith is an English translation of a part of their book that appears in the Game Research site.

The beginning is really good raising the question Aarseth asks as to whether interactivity is meaningful any longer. The paper then wanders off into various hot topics like violence and gender. I’m not sure of the coherence, but this is an excerpt.

Ludology Meets Narratology is an essay on the “similitude and differences between (video)games and narrative.” He argues for a theory of games (ludology) as games, and discusses play and games in terms of narrative.

Toward a Theory of Interactive Fiction by Nick Monfort (2003) is an excellent and thorough paper on Interactive Fiction. A lot of what it does is define terms.
Continue reading Interactive Fiction Theory

The Walrus Magazine | Game Theories is an article about Edward Castranova, the researcher who studies the economies of online game communities like EverQuest. What is interesting about the article is that he got offered tenur on the basis of articles only published online. Is this true?