So Microsoft is doing a contest to encourage people to raise their Gamerscores.
But somehow, it feels like they have the incentive wrong.
The Gamerscore challenge
(Visited 6176 times) Game talk
Feb 062007
Ganking, meaning, and playing as you are
(Visited 18252 times) Game talk
Feb 062007
Thomas Malaby has an interesting post on ganking over at terra Nova in which he suggests that ganking isn’t a game, because there’s no challenge, and that gankers are effectively “ducking the question” by not really participating in the game structures. (Ganking is defined as “someone powerful attacking someone weak.”) The article seems primarily influenced by the sort of ganking that occurs in World of Warcraft.
I’m speculating that ganking happens when a player who does not want to be challenged to play a game (i.e., encounters where the outcome is contingent), instead opts to do something where the outcome is a foregone conclusion: kill a player that is vastly lower in capabilities. If meaning is found at the meeting point of inherited systems of interpretation (cultural expectations) and the performative demands of singular circumstances (something I talked about here), then ganking is a denial of that meaning. It is a retreat from the demands of the new, and it signals a disposition that does not want to be performatively challenged. Ganking lower level players is, then, a somewhat pathetic attempt to feel, well, something.
GameGum: YouTube for games #27,462
(Visited 10473 times) Game talk
Feb 052007
Nate Wienert alerts me to his project GameGum, another “YouTube for Games” site. It’s been around for a year, aggregates Flash games, and most interestingly, does revenue sharing with those who upload games by splitting the AdSense revenue from a given game’s earnings. Up to 50% can go to the most popular games. The suite of community tools seems fairly complete: ratings, reviews, favorites, and so on. The now-ubiquitous Digg-like “fresh list” is right there on the front page.
At this point, the whole Flash game sharing site thing seems to me to be getting a little crowded. 🙂 What’s interesting to me is that so many of these seem able to sustain a viable community.
The Sunday Poem/Song: Longitude
(Visited 9935 times) Music, The Sunday Poem
Feb 042007
It feels weird to try to follow up “Ode to Code”, which is easily the most popular poem I have ever posted on the site. Most of the Sunday Poems get a few dozen reads, and that one has crested 1500.
Well, here’s a song that is in some ways similarly geeky. After all, it’s about orreries, sextants, Dava Sobel’s wonderful book Longitude, determinism, and even name-checks Aristotle. It also has a shipwrecked sailor hallucinating, of course. For those who don’t know or haven’t read the book (which I highly recommend), before John Harrison developed his clock, longitude was fiendishly difficult to calculate, which led, of course, to sea travel being extremely dangerous and unpredictable.
I ended up making it the title track on that “full band” CD that I still haven’t finished after all these years (it’s been since 2001!). I should probably just call it “done” and put it up somewhere. Oh well. Read on for the lyrics and also how to play it on the guitar:
Continue reading »
Virtual Worlds 2007
(Visited 8394 times) Game talk
Feb 032007
Just got this email announcement for VW2007. Alas, I won’t be there (I have a prior commitment for ETech — I’ll post about that when the details are final) but Areae will have John Donham there. 🙂
Virtual Worlds Conference – email update – February 2, 2007 Virtual Worlds Conference takes place March 28 – 29, 2007 at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City.
1. Keynote address by Matt Bostwick, SVP, Franchise Development at MTV Music Group
2. Featured Speakers Announced
3. A Thank You to VW 2007 Sponsors
4 Early Registration Ends February 23rd – Save $400
