Everkvetch

Parenting moment for the day

I was walking around the block with my daughter on my shoulders.  On the street behind our house I was overtaken by a mother carrying a small dog and her little seven or eight year old son proudly carrying a dvd or game box.  As they passed I noticed that it was a copy of Grand Theft Auto 4 that she had just purchased for him.

What can you do?  We try to police ourselves....

When is a game not a game...

I wasn't going to blog about this one, but as I climbed in my car yesterday morning I caught the tail end of Marketplace on my local NPR station.  As the show was ending I heard the announcer say "Try our new game, Consumer Consequences  (available at http://sustainability.publicradio.org/consumerconsequences/ )

And I shouted out in frustration.

A very nice post had come through on the socialissuegames listserv asking the members to check out this game.  Sadly, there was no game there.

In effect, it was a survey of your current lifestyle coupled to a numerical model that shows how many earths it would take to sustain that lifestyle if everyone on the planet lived that way.  Now, I do think this is a useful site.  It is interesting to see how my lifestyle has an impact on the planet.  But the authors of this tool obviously looked at games, said that they make noise, have graphics, and allow people to customize an avatar, and ended there.  They never even looked at the core feedback loop that makes up gameplay.

And that is my main issue.  The 'game' doesn't encourage playfulness with the topic.  The feedback loop exists in one major iteration.  That's it!  Then give us your info so you can see how you ranked compared with other people who have filled out the survey.  (I can't even bring myself to say "played the game.")

Anyway, check it out for yourself and let me know if you think I'm over-reacting or if you agree with me.

Maybe we aren't as big as we think we are

Ok, I know that the title will send the less sophisticated readers to the SPAM folder of their inboxes to send me messages of dubious claims of enlargement processes, but I am talking about the claims that the video game industry is bigger than the movie industry.

If you've been following the debate at all, you know that video game developers, designers and game academics like to tout the numbers that video game sales have out stripped Hollywood's domestic box office receipts.  But I've only heard about this for one year so far.  What are the trends? 
And as this article on Slate indicates, are we comparing our selves to a metric that is in decline?

http://www.slate.com/id/2123588/

Sith happens...

OK, I admit it .  I saw it.  I liked it.

I went in a skeptic.  George Lucas owes me a lot for ripping my fond childhood memories from my heart, dashing them to the ground, dancing a jig upon them and then pissing all over them.   OK, maybe he doesn't, but I know I left the first two movies disappointed and more than a little bit angry. 

But this one left me thinking.

It is the first Star Wars movie of this trilogy that left me pondering the story at all.  In fact, when I attempted to dredge up memories long repressed in disappointment of the first two movies  I could barely find the major plot points.  But the manipulation of Anakin by those around him culminating in the ultimate decision  to turn against what he believes in, what he hopes to be, while not genius, was very effective. 

Yes, the dialogue is terrible in places.  OK, in most places.  Yes, Lucas takes great pleasure in his catch phrases.  (Feelings, reach out with your feelings, trying to forget my.... feelings of love.  Barry Manilow as Darth Anakin Vader Skywalker.  I've got a bad feeling about this...) but at least they are used to season the dish rather than be the main course.  And yes, I would have more passionate chemistry with a mannequin than Anakin(Hayden) and Padme(Natalie) were able to wring from their roles.  But perhaps to Lucas these are just set pieces for him to tell a larger cautionary tale.  Perhaps...

{{Potential Spoiler Alert }}

The focus of the story was not the political transition of the republic to the Empire, but the similarity to current events could not go unnoticed.  We are all Anakin.  We are beset by true believers who focus on the supremacy of their ideology.  We want to hold on to our nobler selves, but we are pulled to and fro by those from both sides who claim to have the answer.  And in the end it is not the pull of a grand ideology that draws us, but the desire to protect that which we hold most dear that causes us to compromise the good inside ourselves and the safety of the whole to stave off the uncertainty and dread of a possible painful future event.

Still, the man is no Joss Whedon.

For those of you looking for a more nuanced view of the political arguments present across the first trilogy I suggest giving this a read.

Serious Games getting some positive liberal press, so why am I upset?

A piece about serious games was just posted in Katrina vanden Huevel's blog at the nation and I am at once thrilled and dismayed. 

First, the thrill.  It looks like she spoke with the right people about this issue.  Dave Rijeski has been instrumental in the serious games movement.  Ben Sawyer is always mentioning the impact that Woodrow has on the serious games space as a whole.  She mentions the controversial game adaptation from real life, Escape from Woomera, which puts a player in the role of someone seeking political asylum and finding herself in a terrible situation.  She briefly mentions Chris Crawford's excellent geopolitical sim from days gone by, Balance of Power.  [side note - isn't it a shame that the only way to play this is via emulator.  Is Chris still working in the Java port of this classic?].

She also mentions Frasca and Bogost's "I love Madrid" game which is more an experience of solidarity than a game.  The mechanic is simple, keep clicking on candles, keep the hope alive.  If you get tired and cease to play, the screen turns dark and reminds you "You have to keep trying."  This is the power of this game's experience.  I don't believe the game has a win condition.  Pain in my wrist wouldn't let me test this idea.  But in order to fight back against terrorism, you have to keep trying, keep attempting to understand one another, keep fighting back the darkness, keep remembering those who died, and keep the perspective that it is, sadly, a global phenomena.

So including this in the list doesn't trouble me.    It is just of a different nature of game.

So what has me less than thrilled.  The inclusion of the Meatrix in an article about serious games.  Don't get me wrong.  I loved the Meatrix.  I thought it was a brilliant parallel to the Wachowski brothers' original.  There is only one problem with including it in this article.

It is NOT a game.  It is an animation.

Why is this a problem?  It's something that has been bothering me for a bit. I recently had an opportunity to sit down and meet with a couple of my colleagues from Rutgers who produce a website teaching teens about sex health.  They had been pointed to me as someone who understood games and gaming.  When they showed me what other sites in their space had posted as 'games' to train students I had a fairly violent reaction.  They were rather unimpressive animations followed up by a serious of T/F questions.  We worked together to brainstorm some better ways to get the message across while providing real player agency, and hopefully there will be some new features on the sexetc website soon.

So just to summarize - Kudos to Ms. vanden Huevel for getting most of it right.  It was a really excellent article in many respects.  And Please everyone, let's try to educate the public so that they don't confuse everything that moves within a web window with a game.  Games are more than that.  They are bigger than that.  They are better than that.