Supernova 2008: “All the World’s A Game” summary

 Posted by (Visited 10642 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: ,
Jun 202008
 

(CC) Elliott Ng, UpTake Travel Search.The UpTake Blog has a great summary of the panel I was on. They missed my opening remarks, which were largely inconsequential: a brief overview of fields outside of games that are relevant to virtual world design, which can be summarized as “all of them.”

Elliot Ng’s summary reads:

  1. Raph shared about “emergent” play, like endgame raids in World of Warcraft and Everquest (aka Evercrack) not originally envisioned by the game developers but created by the players.
  2. Raph: “Humans enjoy transgressive play” and will always try to break free from the game constraints.
  3. Doug’s thesis oversimplified is as follows: Gamers will be more successful in the future workplace than non-gamers, because of five key characteristics of the gamer’s disposition: (1) Gamers have a bottom-line mentality, (2) Gamers understand the value of diversity, (3) Gamers thrive on change, (4) Gamers see learning as fun, (5) Gamers tend to marinate on the edge.
  4. Dave said that “it freaks him out” that the Web communities he build have the same, fundamental game mechanics as online games like World of Warcraft. Are we destined to create games that follow that pattern and will we live in a flattened world because of it?
  5. Dave invoked the eerie story of Japanese schoolchildren obsessing over “shiny balls of mud” called dorodango and creating an external evaluative process to allocate status and distinction based on expertise gained through repetitive practice creating these balls of mud. Is this simply the human condition? Do game and Web designers accentuate these hard-wired tendencies? Or do we have freedom to choose the future we want?
  6. Doug: “what i’m concerned is that kids are being trained to be consumers. In Hello Kitty, Barbie Girls, and Club Penguin, citizenship is being a good consumer.”

I was struck by the fact that so much of the discussion, particularly on Dave’s side, echoed concerns from my Project Horseshoe talk “Influences.” There  was much discussion of the social impact of “the grind” as large-scale cultural phenomenon: is it good to indoctrinate kids into a “gamist” mentality?

Image (CC) Elliott Ng, UpTake Travel Search.

Supernova panel Wednesday

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Jun 172008
 

Somehow, I completely spaced mentioning that I am on a panel at Supernova on Wednesday (which may be “now” by the time you read this…!).

All the World’s a Game
Moderator Susan Wu (Charles River Ventures), Doug Thomas (USC), Dave Elfving (Apple), Raph Koster (Metaplace)

Massively multiplayer online games offer glimpses of how social interactions and work will develop in the Network Age. What can they teach us? How can businesses and online communities leverage insights from virtual worlds to develop more effective systems and practices?

Should virtual worlds change the real?

 Posted by (Visited 21298 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: , , , , , ,
Mar 192008
 

I have had a post brewing in my head for days to weeks now, in part driven by some of the reaction to my “High Windows” talk at GDC — yes, the one with the corpse in Darfur, and the whining about how virtual worlds have not achieved their potential, the one I haven’t posted up yet.

Some called that speech inspiring, and others termed it depressing. One of the most interesting reactions came from Prokofy Neva, who has written several interesting posts about the influence of the digerati/tech crowd/game designer on the real world. Her reaction to Jane McGonigal’s turn in the GDC Rant session (slides are here) illustrates the gap that exists:

Then it was Jane McGonigal talking about how game companies were really really good at making people Happy. They had Figured Out what people need to be happy — to feel useful, and a part of something useful (Lenin understood this too! Hey, so did Hitler! And Jane did, too, repeating this exact same PowerPoint exactly the same, twice, once at GDC, and again at SXSW!). Games were so good at fixing stuff they could Fix Reality…

Now, leaving aside the giant culture gap between Prokofy and gamers which makes this commentary inflammatory to those on the other side, there’s stuff here worth listening to.

Edit: just to be clear, I am not at all endorsing Prokofy’s characterization of Jane and her work. It’s ridiculously over the top (and rather rude) to compare Jane to Hitler (!).

While I do think that there are many valid points in Prokofy’s writings on all this, the tone taken is really unnecessary. In writing a post like this, my goal is to try to bridge some gaps, and that means trying to look past the needlessly inflammatory stuff. But that doesn’t mean I should err by omission and fail to comment when a line is crossed. So I apologize for that, particularly to Jane, who doesn’t deserve the mudslinging.

Continue reading »

Core of Fun audio

 Posted by (Visited 4125 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: , , ,
Mar 042008
 

ETech is on this year again, and this time I am not attending — too busy at work, even though it’s right here in town. Alas! Lots of friends are here and I won’t get to see most of them.

Coincidentally, my keynote there from last year on The Core of Fun is now available as audio from IT Conversations as a free download or stream.

Boy, it’s weird to listen to yourself!

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