A Model of Play

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Apr 212009
 

A Model of Play is a fascinating poster (available as a PDF or as images) that takes what seems like a very game-grammar point of view on the concept of play — even freeform play.

In play, one of the primary goals is to have fun — to continue engaging in the conversation that creates fun. Individuals choose the means for achieving that goal; they choose the topic of conversation, for example, which game to play. Within a topic, they choose different strategies and pursue a series of sub-goals, adjusting means according to their effectiveness. Goals and sub-goals and associated means form a tree (or web) of possibilities for action.

Among the grammar principles that are mentioned is the notion that play always requires two, even if the second person is a “virtual person.” The notion that interactivity is inherently a conversation can be traced back to at least Chris Crawford, of course.

Also cool is the “step by step” logic version found here, which builds the poster argument by argument.

Flash on TVs

 Posted by (Visited 3897 times)  Game talk  Tagged with:
Apr 212009
 

Just briefly noting that the Open Screen Initiative, which I have mentioned before (1, 2), seems to be moving into higher gear.

The company will on Monday announce its latest version of its Flash multimedia platform that will essentially put its technology in Internet connected TVs, set-top boxes, Blu-ray players, and other digital home devices. The main purpose of the TV and consumer electronics optimized Flash is to allow viewers to see high-definition video, interactive applications and new user interfaces right on their TVs.

As part of the announcement, the company revealed a number of partners that plan to use the technology, including, Intel, Comcast, Disney Interactive, Netflix, Atlantic Records, and the New York Times Company.

…Developers will also be able to create “widgets” for TVs to help bring Web content onto the TV screen. Widgets are specially designed Web applications that can easily be added to consumer electronics devices.

— Adobe’s Flash comes to TVs, set-top boxes | Digital Media – CNET News.

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CoH players make a zillion missions

 Posted by (Visited 7424 times)  Game talk  Tagged with:
Apr 172009
 

It still happens — I get into a conversation with someone, and they say ‘but, surely user-created content can’t work on the Internet? Won’t most of it be bad?”

Then you get a story like this, wherein we learn that the users of City of Heroes, given 24 hours, made more missions than the entire dev since the game was first started — and what’s more, around 10% of them got rated as 5-star by the other users.

In a letter to the community posted on the official City of Heroes website, Matt “Positron” Miller revealed that within the first 24 hours of the new updates’ existence, players in both hero and villain factions had created more than 3800 story arcs, each consisting of five missions a piece – more content than the development team had created during the game’s entire existence.

Really, the quintessential challenge here isn’t going to be volume of high-quality content. It’s going to be filtering, bubbling the good stuff up to the top. But this is a largely known problem these days on the web. So  it’s about time that the skepticism stop. Yes, users can be just as good at game design as pros — what they usually need is tools with a low enough barrier to entry, and the context within which to create.

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