I’m now in the Fireside chat with Dan Hunter, Thomas Malaby, and Doug Thomas about what they advocate as a new direction in games research. They want to talk about people and the socio-cultural emergent things around games rather than the game mechanics themselves. This is like what I tried to do when I started looking at game mechanics to affect player behavior vs. the actual practice of players.

Continue reading GLS day 1, late morning →

Uh… I forgot. Rich Vogel isn’t presenting because, sadly, his dad passed away recently. 🙁

Sasha Barab is now presenting in his place about Reflexive Play Spaces: Narratizing Disciplines and Disciplining Narratives. Games are different than simply contextualizing problems a la PBL in that players role-play characters that actually change the world. The context is dynamic rather than static. “Reflexive Play Space is a form of ‘transactive art.'” See the Quest Atlantis stuff for more info.

Anyway, all of the sessions are being recorded. Not sure where they will be online but they will. I’ll pop in a link to them as soon as I find it.

[Edit: July 13] Found the webcasts!

I’m in a session about using virtual worlds in education right now. I just got here so not sure, but right now John Lester (from Linden Labs) is talking about Second Life and the cool stuff people create in it and then talk about the artifacts. “As you increase the perceptual immersion; you increase emotional immersion.” -talking about the Sistine Chapel in SL. Soon, Rich Vogel will be talking about Ultima Online. Cool.

Continue reading GLS day 1, morning →

Man, I haven’t posted an update on my personal life in a while…

1. I got a new adviser, Phil Bell, and along with that, a temp summer RA position doing video editing work. My old adviser, Jen Stone, left UW to go to Alaska to be with someone she met through WoW! 🙂

2. Tomorrow I leave for Madison, WI, for the Games Learning Society conference.

I’ll be presenting a version of my WoW paper on communication and coordination there as part of a panel about different gaming communities. Others in the panel are Laurie McCarthy, Reed Stevens, and Jen Stone with Tom Satwicz acting as the respondent. It should be totally fun.

After a couple of months of trying to wrangle floor space at some grad student’s place (because I’m leechy and po like that), I gave up and got room at the University of Wisconsin’s accommodations for visiting scholars. But I also had to reserve a room in a hotel for Friday since UW didn’t have room. BUT then Moses Wolfenstein responded to an email I sent out to the TerrorNova guild, and now I am actually staying with him! I then had to cancel my bookings. I guess I shoulda just waited and trusted that things would fall into place. Or something. Or maybe I am being a total pain in the ass and just don’t know it.

I plan to take lots of photos and write up how the conference went on here, so check back next week.

Game on: World of Warcraft – The Daily of the University of Washington

Here’s another story I was quoted in regarding online games. This one is from The Daily, the UW newspaper. The previous one was the Seattle PI. 🙂

Of course, the interview lasted like one and a half hours and the little bits I’m quoted as saying only barely touch upon what the conversation was about. Things I would have liked to see expanded upon are that social worlds, whether online or off, represent different places people can spend their time in, build relationships, negotiate, learn, resolve conflicts, and generally grow as people. The article has a slight bent on looking at game addiction, but the more interesting topic, I think, is after acknowledging that, yes Virginia, people are addicted to living, what kinds of work can we do or what does this new social space allow?

Last week, my advisor, Jen Stone, announced she would be leaving UW…  I can still take general exams this quarter but need a new advisor come next school year.  Joy.

Here’s the third part of a great series on the history of computer role-playing games.   And commentary.