For the past 30 years museums and art galleries on both sides of the Atlantic have been resistant... more For the past 30 years museums and art galleries on both sides of the Atlantic have been resistant to exhibiting digital games as art and have instead embedded them in exhibitions and displays that have portrayed them as exemplars of design. This conservative approach has largely failed to achieve the stated purpose of many of these exhibitions: to foster a wider public appreciation for games and encourage more sophisticated conversations about gaming. This article argues that curators for video game exhibitions have been co-opted by the ideological norms of the tech sector which has produced a reluctance to engage critically with their subject matter and a willingness to overlook ethical problems within the videogame industry.
This Thesis analyses the form and content of the US' re-examination of its involvement in Vie... more This Thesis analyses the form and content of the US' re-examination of its involvement in Vietnam. Commencing in the late 1970's this "coming to grips" with Vietnam is widely perceived by cultural institutions within the US as a confrontation with some of the darker aspects of its history. Vietnam Vets, once beyond the pale, have gained a new recognition based on an acceptance of the re-adjustment problems which they faced as a result of the effects of heavy combat. The US is also widely perceived as being a changed nation after Vietnam: there has been a breakdown in social and foreign policy consensus, and Americans are now a lot warier of foreign intervention. However there is enough evidence to suggest that this "New America" is no more than skin deep. The confrontation with history is taking place in a cultural context that is characterised by a new sense of national pride, with an affirmation of US history as one of its major characteristics. As far ...
Part of the problem is that new technological developments fit seamlessly with traditional, and l... more Part of the problem is that new technological developments fit seamlessly with traditional, and largely bankrupt, pedagogical ideas. So whatever changes we are able to achieve in the design of educational technology will be for nothing if the majority of our colleagues remain fixated upon an idea of education as content delivery and absorption, with students designated as recipients and clients rather than partners in an exploratory enterprise. In the larger cultural arena, the idea of new forms of information technology in general, and the Internet and Web in particular, as presenting an opportunity for developing new notions of community and agency has been pushed to the margins by online shopping, pimply-faced cyber-vandals, and the cooperation of government and business in undermining a communal notion of intellectual property. The dream that these new technological forms could be used for something other than business-as-usual (or, indeed, for something other than business-of-a...
Rhetoric/Composition/Play through Video Games, 2013
The core problem concerning the place of games and writing in our culture is familiarity. Mass cu... more The core problem concerning the place of games and writing in our culture is familiarity. Mass culture possesses a “common sense” understanding, reaffirmed through ritualistic repetition, of writing and games (considered separately, rarely together), an understanding supposedly shared by all like-minded, right-thinking persons. The old saying tells us pretty clearly what is bred through familiarity, however, and in the area of games and writing, this contempt is directed at practitioners and those who help shape the practitioners’ experience. Game studies scholars are thus more than familiar with the numerous stereotypes about players as seething cauldrons of antisocial tendencies and game developers as amoral panderers. Writing studies scholars for their part are all too familiar with the “Johnny/Jane can’t write” laments on the one hand, and the regular indictments of the lowest status and most poorly paid members of the professoriat for failing to turn all students into Proust in a single semester on the other. The coupling of comfortable familiarity with the careful evasions of contempt then justifies all manner of interventions from unholy coalitions of the clueless and the Machiavellian. Perhaps most distressingly, gamers and student writers have thoroughly absorbed this contempt and reach for it themselves as a default conceptual framework, albeit one rendered horribly complex and confused by its incompatibility with their own experience.
What can one of the most violent video games ever made teach us about love? Examines weaknesses ... more What can one of the most violent video games ever made teach us about love? Examines weaknesses in current mainstream videogame review practices, offers alternatives, and explores Wolfenstein: The New Order as a case study of a game whose richness has been overlooked by most reviewers and critics.
Growing up in small-town New Zealand in the late 70s and early 80s, and falling in love with a ro... more Growing up in small-town New Zealand in the late 70s and early 80s, and falling in love with a rock group I would never see.
The celebration of student writing in its many forms is an ethical gray area due in no small part... more The celebration of student writing in its many forms is an ethical gray area due in no small part to the appearance of celebration as an unadulterated good. Many of our celebratory practices, however, involve problematic appropriations of student work for our own purposes, some of which may run counter to established professional guidelines for the teaching of writing as laid down by the CCCC. Our current understanding of celebration as beyond the scope of professional norms is due to the failure of the CCCC to live up to the promise of the 1974 resolution concerning Students’ Right to their Own Language. The CCCC has, in effect, focused on the “language” aspect of the resolution at the expense of the idea of students’ rights. This has resulted in a fuzziness concerning ethical uses of student work that has allowed student work to become an index of our own obsessions. Celebrations of writing in particular highlight our desperate yearning for “authentic” writing and for purity in the pedagogical encounter.
Review of A Casual Revolution: Reinventing Video Games and their Players by Jesper Juul. Juul's ... more Review of A Casual Revolution: Reinventing Video Games and their Players by Jesper Juul. Juul's book provides a provocative interpretation of the rise of casual games and argues that they are ver far from being the dumbed-down aberration they are often made out to be by hard-core gamers. Instead, they may well be a return to the roots of videogaming. Yet Juul's work demonstrates little interest in examining the cultural influences informing these developments and as a result has some significant blind spots. In its execution the book is also a classic example of what Menand once referred to as a "journal article on steroids."
A comparison of Napoleon: Total War (The Creative Assembly 2010) and indie title Scourge of War: ... more A comparison of Napoleon: Total War (The Creative Assembly 2010) and indie title Scourge of War: Gettysburg (Norb Software Development 2010) illustrates the role of different conceptions of realism in the development of games with a tactical battlefield component. The incoherence of Napoleon’s tactical realism proved no barrier to popular and critical success and—when compared with the largely unknown Scourge of War—such popularity affords an insight into the preference on the part of players and critics alike for games that feature a sophisticated re-packaging of versions of reality based on cinematic convention.
The Witcher Enhanced Edition (CD Projekt Red 2008) is a shining example of a promising but flawed... more The Witcher Enhanced Edition (CD Projekt Red 2008) is a shining example of a promising but flawed title reviewed and reworked into an excellent game. Although the game was released some time ago, taking a second look at the game allows us not simply to explore an example of a successful design approach to crafting effective gameplay decisions, but highlights the important contribution academic game reviews can make in contrast to their mass market cousins.
Eludamos. Journal for Computer Game Culture, Jan 1, 2009
In a November 2006 Gamasutra article titled “We’re not listening: An Open Letter to Academic Game... more In a November 2006 Gamasutra article titled “We’re not listening: An Open Letter to Academic Game Researchers” John Hopson argues that much of the research into games by academics is not presented in a way likely to appeal to game developers and is largely irrelevant to their concerns. Hopson’s argument implicates humanities and many social science researchers producing speculative and descriptive research rather than more hard-edged technical and statistical research that can have an immediate impact on a game’s bottom line. While conceding Hopson’s point about the ineffectiveness of many academic communication norms, I argue that Hopson’s article is indicative not of problems with academic research into games as much as the position of game development toward the utility of academic research in general. After analyzing the assumptions underlying Hopson’s argument, I offer a schema that articulates several key types of research into games carried out by scholars with a primary background in the humanities and the contribution of each research approach to the game development process.
Pirates of the Burning Sea (Flying Lab Software 2008) is a distinctive MMOPRPG involving national... more Pirates of the Burning Sea (Flying Lab Software 2008) is a distinctive MMOPRPG involving national rivalries in the early eighteenth-century Caribbean. As such it faces an uphill battle to win a gaming audience in a marketplace dominated by fantasy titles. One of the game’s most innovative but potentially problematic features is the implementation of a proprietorship investment model to encourage long-term player involvement.
Rhetoric and composition teachers have in general been resistant to the idea of the classroom as ... more Rhetoric and composition teachers have in general been resistant to the idea of the classroom as a simulation space, preferring instead to focus on attempt to foster "authentic" engagement and "authentic" voices. An examination of how Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Games design their initial player experiences offers some guidelines for how embracing the classroom as a simulative space could enable us to design more effective entryways into complex learning environments.
Note: this is an experimental, non-linear web installation that utilizes some of the design metaphors of the kinds of games it discusses.
For the past 30 years museums and art galleries on both sides of the Atlantic have been resistant... more For the past 30 years museums and art galleries on both sides of the Atlantic have been resistant to exhibiting digital games as art and have instead embedded them in exhibitions and displays that have portrayed them as exemplars of design. This conservative approach has largely failed to achieve the stated purpose of many of these exhibitions: to foster a wider public appreciation for games and encourage more sophisticated conversations about gaming. This article argues that curators for video game exhibitions have been co-opted by the ideological norms of the tech sector which has produced a reluctance to engage critically with their subject matter and a willingness to overlook ethical problems within the videogame industry.
This Thesis analyses the form and content of the US' re-examination of its involvement in Vie... more This Thesis analyses the form and content of the US' re-examination of its involvement in Vietnam. Commencing in the late 1970's this "coming to grips" with Vietnam is widely perceived by cultural institutions within the US as a confrontation with some of the darker aspects of its history. Vietnam Vets, once beyond the pale, have gained a new recognition based on an acceptance of the re-adjustment problems which they faced as a result of the effects of heavy combat. The US is also widely perceived as being a changed nation after Vietnam: there has been a breakdown in social and foreign policy consensus, and Americans are now a lot warier of foreign intervention. However there is enough evidence to suggest that this "New America" is no more than skin deep. The confrontation with history is taking place in a cultural context that is characterised by a new sense of national pride, with an affirmation of US history as one of its major characteristics. As far ...
Part of the problem is that new technological developments fit seamlessly with traditional, and l... more Part of the problem is that new technological developments fit seamlessly with traditional, and largely bankrupt, pedagogical ideas. So whatever changes we are able to achieve in the design of educational technology will be for nothing if the majority of our colleagues remain fixated upon an idea of education as content delivery and absorption, with students designated as recipients and clients rather than partners in an exploratory enterprise. In the larger cultural arena, the idea of new forms of information technology in general, and the Internet and Web in particular, as presenting an opportunity for developing new notions of community and agency has been pushed to the margins by online shopping, pimply-faced cyber-vandals, and the cooperation of government and business in undermining a communal notion of intellectual property. The dream that these new technological forms could be used for something other than business-as-usual (or, indeed, for something other than business-of-a...
Rhetoric/Composition/Play through Video Games, 2013
The core problem concerning the place of games and writing in our culture is familiarity. Mass cu... more The core problem concerning the place of games and writing in our culture is familiarity. Mass culture possesses a “common sense” understanding, reaffirmed through ritualistic repetition, of writing and games (considered separately, rarely together), an understanding supposedly shared by all like-minded, right-thinking persons. The old saying tells us pretty clearly what is bred through familiarity, however, and in the area of games and writing, this contempt is directed at practitioners and those who help shape the practitioners’ experience. Game studies scholars are thus more than familiar with the numerous stereotypes about players as seething cauldrons of antisocial tendencies and game developers as amoral panderers. Writing studies scholars for their part are all too familiar with the “Johnny/Jane can’t write” laments on the one hand, and the regular indictments of the lowest status and most poorly paid members of the professoriat for failing to turn all students into Proust in a single semester on the other. The coupling of comfortable familiarity with the careful evasions of contempt then justifies all manner of interventions from unholy coalitions of the clueless and the Machiavellian. Perhaps most distressingly, gamers and student writers have thoroughly absorbed this contempt and reach for it themselves as a default conceptual framework, albeit one rendered horribly complex and confused by its incompatibility with their own experience.
What can one of the most violent video games ever made teach us about love? Examines weaknesses ... more What can one of the most violent video games ever made teach us about love? Examines weaknesses in current mainstream videogame review practices, offers alternatives, and explores Wolfenstein: The New Order as a case study of a game whose richness has been overlooked by most reviewers and critics.
Growing up in small-town New Zealand in the late 70s and early 80s, and falling in love with a ro... more Growing up in small-town New Zealand in the late 70s and early 80s, and falling in love with a rock group I would never see.
The celebration of student writing in its many forms is an ethical gray area due in no small part... more The celebration of student writing in its many forms is an ethical gray area due in no small part to the appearance of celebration as an unadulterated good. Many of our celebratory practices, however, involve problematic appropriations of student work for our own purposes, some of which may run counter to established professional guidelines for the teaching of writing as laid down by the CCCC. Our current understanding of celebration as beyond the scope of professional norms is due to the failure of the CCCC to live up to the promise of the 1974 resolution concerning Students’ Right to their Own Language. The CCCC has, in effect, focused on the “language” aspect of the resolution at the expense of the idea of students’ rights. This has resulted in a fuzziness concerning ethical uses of student work that has allowed student work to become an index of our own obsessions. Celebrations of writing in particular highlight our desperate yearning for “authentic” writing and for purity in the pedagogical encounter.
Review of A Casual Revolution: Reinventing Video Games and their Players by Jesper Juul. Juul's ... more Review of A Casual Revolution: Reinventing Video Games and their Players by Jesper Juul. Juul's book provides a provocative interpretation of the rise of casual games and argues that they are ver far from being the dumbed-down aberration they are often made out to be by hard-core gamers. Instead, they may well be a return to the roots of videogaming. Yet Juul's work demonstrates little interest in examining the cultural influences informing these developments and as a result has some significant blind spots. In its execution the book is also a classic example of what Menand once referred to as a "journal article on steroids."
A comparison of Napoleon: Total War (The Creative Assembly 2010) and indie title Scourge of War: ... more A comparison of Napoleon: Total War (The Creative Assembly 2010) and indie title Scourge of War: Gettysburg (Norb Software Development 2010) illustrates the role of different conceptions of realism in the development of games with a tactical battlefield component. The incoherence of Napoleon’s tactical realism proved no barrier to popular and critical success and—when compared with the largely unknown Scourge of War—such popularity affords an insight into the preference on the part of players and critics alike for games that feature a sophisticated re-packaging of versions of reality based on cinematic convention.
The Witcher Enhanced Edition (CD Projekt Red 2008) is a shining example of a promising but flawed... more The Witcher Enhanced Edition (CD Projekt Red 2008) is a shining example of a promising but flawed title reviewed and reworked into an excellent game. Although the game was released some time ago, taking a second look at the game allows us not simply to explore an example of a successful design approach to crafting effective gameplay decisions, but highlights the important contribution academic game reviews can make in contrast to their mass market cousins.
Eludamos. Journal for Computer Game Culture, Jan 1, 2009
In a November 2006 Gamasutra article titled “We’re not listening: An Open Letter to Academic Game... more In a November 2006 Gamasutra article titled “We’re not listening: An Open Letter to Academic Game Researchers” John Hopson argues that much of the research into games by academics is not presented in a way likely to appeal to game developers and is largely irrelevant to their concerns. Hopson’s argument implicates humanities and many social science researchers producing speculative and descriptive research rather than more hard-edged technical and statistical research that can have an immediate impact on a game’s bottom line. While conceding Hopson’s point about the ineffectiveness of many academic communication norms, I argue that Hopson’s article is indicative not of problems with academic research into games as much as the position of game development toward the utility of academic research in general. After analyzing the assumptions underlying Hopson’s argument, I offer a schema that articulates several key types of research into games carried out by scholars with a primary background in the humanities and the contribution of each research approach to the game development process.
Pirates of the Burning Sea (Flying Lab Software 2008) is a distinctive MMOPRPG involving national... more Pirates of the Burning Sea (Flying Lab Software 2008) is a distinctive MMOPRPG involving national rivalries in the early eighteenth-century Caribbean. As such it faces an uphill battle to win a gaming audience in a marketplace dominated by fantasy titles. One of the game’s most innovative but potentially problematic features is the implementation of a proprietorship investment model to encourage long-term player involvement.
Rhetoric and composition teachers have in general been resistant to the idea of the classroom as ... more Rhetoric and composition teachers have in general been resistant to the idea of the classroom as a simulation space, preferring instead to focus on attempt to foster "authentic" engagement and "authentic" voices. An examination of how Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Games design their initial player experiences offers some guidelines for how embracing the classroom as a simulative space could enable us to design more effective entryways into complex learning environments.
Note: this is an experimental, non-linear web installation that utilizes some of the design metaphors of the kinds of games it discusses.
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Note: this is an experimental, non-linear web installation that utilizes some of the design metaphors of the kinds of games it discusses.
Note: this is an experimental, non-linear web installation that utilizes some of the design metaphors of the kinds of games it discusses.