gamegirladvance

Talking to Students

I've been invited to give a talk in November to students in the computer science program at ITESCA in Sonora, Mexico. There's no game-focused program there so this will be a pretty basic talk, and as some friends of mine have already pointed out, students seem to *always* want to know how to get into the industry. I figure I'll give a broad overview of the industry in terms of how production is generally divided between skills, what the impact of casual games/iPhone/downloadable console games has been for independent game developers, then give them a massive amount of resources -- books and websites, mostly -- so they can do their own research. And then, of course, Q&A. My Spanish is non-existent so I'll have a translator, too. Haha.

Any other tips? Or, if you know of good books/websites that I might not be aware of, please pass them along to me. Thanks!

Quick Philosophical Grammar Question...

Should game titles be italicized?

I'd been trained by some press outlets not to italicize them; but lately I have been thinking we ought to treat them the same was as films, TV shows, and books. Makes sense, right?

Poems about a Freshly-Picked Peach

Are games trapped by math?

I just learned that all of the peach orchards between Parmer and 35 and Round Rock are gone. Which sucks. ["It's all WalMarts now." "It's the pits." Laughter] Yeah... and why is there no game about the taste of a freshly picked peach, straight from the tree, with the smells and dust of the working orchard? How do you make a game about that?

["Because my monitor tastes like crap." "It's a human interface problem."]

It isn't just an interface problem! It isn't just an interface problem! There are probably poems about the taste of a fresh peach.

Raph Koster, at Project Horseshoe.

Game Career Seminar

So what have I been working on in my new job as Conference Manager? I'll tell you - the Game Career Seminar, happening next weekend October 28th and 29th at the VGXPO.

If you were like me two months ago, you'll say, what is the VGXPO? It's a new consumer videogame event - this is the second one - in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. You know, where George Washington's men froze their feet off in the winter of 1777.

The event is aimed at high school and pre-major college students, and it's full of practical information and advice - not just about choosing a school and trying the get a job, but also about how to think long-term about a career in the game biz. It's rewarding as hell, but it ain't easy.

If you're a young whippersnapper (or know someone who is) and you want to know more about the game industry and where you might find a place for your talents, I encourage you to check it out.

But, bring an extra pair of boots. Just in case.

MacArthur Open Forum

Hey big thinkers and wranglers of ideas, the MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning has a series of discussions planned for the next month, all centered around interactive entertainment and its impact on our world.

The discussion is happening online: http://community.macfound.org/openforum

So, take a look and chime in with your ideas! I'm already in there - but I feel I didn't say enough!

GameJew Takes on Education

My favorite internet star of the moment, GameJew (AKA Jonathan Mann), takes on education in the latest episode: GameJew Episode 7. He visits a videogame class at a technical college, then talks to a professor of interface design at an arts school, and finally ends by driving around a videogame bus to teach kids how to play co-operatively.

There's a wealth of interesting insights here - like the fact that the kids value winning over challenge, something that a lot of hardcore gamers may not understant, since one common critique that can lower a review score is that the game is "too easy."

The 3D interfaces designed by the teacher Jonathan interviews are also beautiful and inspire new possibilities for videogame controls.

GameJew is one of the smartest, funniest, most creative commentators on the culture of videogames today, and I urge anyone interested in that to check out his work. It's not always perfect, but I would argue that it never fails to engage.

Better Game Characters By Design by Katherine Isbister

I've known Katherine Isbister for quite a while now; she wrote the excellent piece on Becky Schaefer's Lara Croft-inspired needlepoint art a few years ago. Katherine has a background in the social sciences which served her well when she moved over into game design. She now has a book out -- Better Game Characters By Design: A Psychological Approach.

One of the first times I met her was when she was working at a lab in Kyoto developing an effective virtual tour guide to the city. We had interesting conversations over ramen about how information can be packaged in an emotionally charged character. She then went on to teach a course at Stanford University, where I helped judge a contest among her students for best game character design (Tim Schafer was co-judge, and that's where I met him for the first time.)

Then she moved away to upstate New York to teach at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she founded a Games research Lab. Sounds like she is doing well!

Women Like to Talk About Sex More Than Men

The popular belief is that men think about sex once every seven seconds, but when you look at who actually talks publicly about sex, women are overrepresented. Women are the ones who write the sex columns in magazines, the ones who study pornography academically (the leading researchers of which are women), the ones who spearhead discussion on sex in videogames - which brings me to the conference on the subject that is starting tomorrow in San Francisco.

The truth is, women are just as obsessed with sex as men, and may be more willing to admit it!

Perhaps men find it a wee bit embarrassing to spend so much time discussing sex because for them it's so obvious - boom, it's right there, no mystery about it. Or perhaps they feel there shouldn't be a mystery, and when there is, it feels like a lack of manliness. Thus we have tons of articles in popular press about how women can and should reach orgasm, but if you're a dude and can't get it up, you confide in no one but your doctor.

Women also seem more willing to investigate the effect sex has on other aspects of life, and from an early age. Popular reading material for young girls almost always deal with a sexual coming of age; boys seem to be more into books and comics full of superpowerful men who band together to overcome adversity, sometimes gorily. So maybe it's not too surprising that the keynote speakers for the Sex in Videogames conference are women: Sheri Graner Ray and Regina Lynn. Looking over the list of speakers, also, I see that this the most gender balanced videogame conference I've ever attended: a third of the invited speakers and panelists are female (compare that to less than a quarter for the Game Developer's Conference).

In any case, I'll be going to hear Sheri and Regina and Brenda Brathwaite and many others talk on Thursday and Friday, and it should be very interesting.

GAM3R 7H30RY

MacKenzie Wark, professor at the New School and author of A Hacker Manifesto (in book form here), has launched a new project called GAM3R 7H30RY which is at once notes for a future book as well as a unique platform for discussion and contribution.

I haven't had much chance to poke around myself, but the interface is simple and elegant and its goal is intriguing: open an author's draft for inspection, critique, comment... I don't know that I would have the courage to do that!

How to Prototype a Game in Just 7 Days!

The four students who pioneered the Experimental Gameplay Project at Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center (where I got my master's degree) have written an article for Gamasutra of best practices and lessons learned. You should read it.

The Experimental Gameplay Project is active again, by the way, with the same faculty advisor and four new students each making one prototype per week. You can see their products for yourself on their site.