• F13 interview

    Hours Categories Game talk, Gamemaking
    Comments 8 Comments

    While I was in London, an interview with F13.net came out. We also did a small key giveaway for entry into the Metaplace testing, but those are all gone. Don’t worry, there will be more. 🙂

    We covered stuff ranging from Metaplace to academia and game studies, to the AAA MMO market.

    F13: What do you make of Blow’s assertion that “modern game design is actually unethical”?

    Raph: Jon’s take on the underlying mechanics of fun, from a chemical point of view, isn’t very different from mine. I think that Dan Cook probably said it most succinctly, that “game designers are hijacking the learning systems of the brain.” But perhaps we might tweak that to “the REWARD systems” of the brain.

    Lots of other things accomplish this, sometimes for good and sometimes for evil. A lot of work goes into devices and designs built to encourage gambling, for example, and if you read up on the subject, you quickly find that there’s something deeply manipulative about it.

    On the other hand, we are also tapping into that when we give someone a gold star for doing well in grade school, and this is usually used for a positive purpose.

  • The people you meet on planes

    Hours Categories Misc
    Comments 9 Comments

    There I am in the U.S. customs line at LAX, and I notice the girl in front of me, part of a smallish gaggle of young people. She’s got this long dark hair, quite noticeable. Tired looking — hey, it was an 11 hour flight from London — and she’s digging in her bag for her passport, trying to fill out the arrivals card on the fly, and keeps holding up the line. Something familiar about both her and her boyfriend, who has really startling blue eyes and keeps looking at me strangely because I keep looking at them trying to place them.

    Then I realize I’m standing next to the stars of High School Musical, Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens, and nobody has recognized them. The two other folks traveling with them are constantly checking their Blackberry, and the conversation is something like “Yeah, when we were in Australia…” After we get through the passport stamping, I tell them quietly how much my kids love their work (didn’t want to cause a big to-do in the line), and they are very gracious despite how tired they are. I end up with the soundtrack stuck in my head the whole rest of the trip…

  • VWF08 unconference

    Hours Categories Game talk
    Comments 5 Comments

    Well, the actual conference may not have happened, but there was quite a nice series of events anyway. I had several appointments that occupied the first day. Then the event proper got back on track. First, the SXSW party took place, which was a nice meet and greet. Then the next day we gathered at the Hospital Club for an unconference.

    I missed all the sessions (!) but it didn’t matter — the in-between and around discussions were excellent. Among other things, there was a Virtual Policy Network meeting, discussions of mirror worlds, several sessions on metrics, much discussion of kids’ worlds, and so on.

    Afterwards, a group of us went to Covent Garden to keep chatting over beer, followed by dinner — mostly about the history and architecture of Second Life, the nature of a liberal arts education, the present and future of UDP, whether the food we ate was actually Mexican, and game grammar.

    Alas, the nature of the unconference and the fact that I missed all the “sessions” — which were merely larger circles of chairs — means that I don’t really have any liveblogs or transcripts for you…

    Today’s workshops are not taking place, so that means I basically have a day off before my flight back.

  • VWF not happening now after all!

    Hours Categories Game talk
    Comments 5 Comments

    In a rather unbelievable turn of events, last night the organizers let all of us know that the venue for the conference is unavailable, because someone was shot there and the police have closed it off for three days!

    A variety of side events are still happening, since so many people flew halfway around the world to attend, but the main sessions are not. For example, both the SXSW party and the reciting poetry at Bartle events shall go on as scheduled. 😉

  • The Sunday Poem: Departures

    Hours Categories The Sunday Poem
    Comments 1 Comment

    Life is made of departures:
    The passage from the dark
    The moment of weaning’s sharp
    Longing, frantic gestures.

    Balloons slipping out of hands.
    A dog’s last stiff-legged sleep.
    Kisses in a closet, the deep
    Fear there, the moments grand.

    The move from maiden name
    And the way she feels once
    Delivered. A man who hunts
    Regrets, and finds just blame.

    Life is made of departures
    And occasional desperate returns