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Games Definition Discussion 2013

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Daniel Cook - Google+ - A Case Study in how Revolutionaries become the Man</... A Case Study in how Revolutionaries become the ManHere's what this covers: Game development in the early 1990s -> The rise of consoles -> The creation of feeder schools -> Rebellion Pardon the broad sweep.

Daniel Cook - Google+ - A Case Study in how Revolutionaries become the Man</...

A starting point for perspective My mental model of game developers stems from the relatively early days of game development. No one understood what games were. The predominant only people making games were fringe dreamers. I started making games in the awkward adolescence phase. My heroes all pretty much had the origin story of 'crazy person with a dream made a game'. Consoles existed, but they were one piece of gaming pie that included a strong legacy of PC, C64, Atari and Amiga. No one really knew what they were talking about. The game industry was started by the misfits of society. A key idea is that making games was 95% intrinsic motivation.

There had been marketing of various types for years. Those kids grew up. Formalists and Zinesters: Why Formalism Is Not The Enemy. Prior to emigrating, I found myself vigorously defending Raph Koster on Twitter. It started as a result of this article, in particular this quote from Anna Anthropy: "Videogames have been one of the most exclusive communities i've ever encountered," she said to me via email, "some dudes, like Raph Koster, insist that when he says dys4ia 'isn't a game,' that's not a value judgement.

That's bullshit. the attempt to label games like dys4ia as 'non-games,' as 'interactive experiences,' is just an attempt by the status quo to keep the discussion of games centered around the kind of games it's comfortable with—cus if there's one thing existing videogame culture is good at, it's making a certain kind of dude very, very comfortable. " I've noticed a recent uptick in this "certain kind of dude" argument. On the one hand it's about the acceptance and treatment of women, minorities and other groups within the game industry - and rightly so. The third discussion is about critique. Poor Enemies Zines. What Games Are. Radiator Blog: A letter to a letter. Dear Raph Koster's Letter to Leigh, You were right when you said that the authors of "personal games" would probably take you the wrong way...

Radiator Blog: A letter to a letter

It's hard not to. It's impossible to divorce the politics from the forms of these games, which, yes, makes them difficult to critique as formal designed objects without appearing to attack their politics. These authors argue that "apolitical formalism" is inherently political, that the worst politics pretends it's not politics. Porpentine tweeted that she prefers "blatant bullshit over honeyed poison. " I'm sure you'll understand these authors' reluctance to trust this kind of criticism after the past decade of sustained critical attack on such games and their contexts -- perhaps these "crimes" weren't always inflicted by you or whatever, but it's certainly a trigger when you begin your letter with wondering, "what is a game? " A Letter to Leigh. When people say games need objectives in order to be ‘games’, i wonder why ‘better understanding another human’ isn’t a valid ‘objective’games need ‘challenges’ and ‘rules’, isn’t ‘empathy’ a challenge, aren’t preconceptions of normativity a ‘rule’- Leigh Alexander writing on Twitter Dear Leigh, I have such a complicated emotional response to this.

A Letter to Leigh

And I think you like getting letters, based on what I see on the Internet. I would rate better understanding of another human and the challenge of empathy as bare minimum requirements for something reaching for art. The assumptions underlying this question are the interesting thing. But that’s not what you really mean, is it. The debates over “what is a game” have been going on for a long time now. Many of these works are brilliant. The assumption implicit in what you’re saying is that a work’s formal structure isn’t as relevant as what it accomplishes. An aesthetic of unplayability More recently, I have seen the following currents develop: -Raph. Opinion: We have an empathy problem.