I've enjoyed:
Google GGA:
|
|
Links
Alice Taylor
Clint Hocking Costik Derek Daniels The Edge electro^plankton Gamasutra Game Critics GameDevBlog GameFAQs Game Jew Game Poets Society Game Set Watch Gamevideos.com Gewgaw Got Game? Grand Text Auto Grrl Gamer Henry Jenkins Heroine-Sheik IGDA Indie Game Jam Insert Credit Invisible City Julian Dibbell KillerBetties Kim Pallister Kongregate Kotaku Lost Garden Ludology Magic Box Margaret Robinson Matteo Bittanti Memory Card Ogre Cave Penny Arcade Raph Koster Reality Panic Serious Games Shiny Shiny Slash Dot Games Surfer Girl Terra Nova ToastyFrog Tokyopia Water Cooler Games Women Gamers Zen of Design
Thank You for Donating!
If you'd like to help keep GGA afloat, we thank you!
Mascot by Penny Arcade!
|
October 24, 2006
The Multimedia Nest
I was talking to Alan Yu the other day - he used to run the GDC, now he's an A&R rep at EA - and we were talkng about the challenges facing the games industry today. He responded by describing his after work routine: picks up food on the way home, turns on the TV but mutes it to watch the ball game, plays music through his stereo, has a laptop nearby for communication and entertainment, and may also be talking on the cell phone to friends at the same time. What he was describing sounded like a multimedia nest, a coherent sensory and informational experience made up of modular and disparate pieces that coccoon him. Where does gaming fit into this? Well, for people like Alan, it really doesn't. Why? Games require far too much attention - they demand input from our hands, processing from our brain, decision-making from the cerebral cortex. These days many games are so complex you can't even turn off their sound for fear of missing critical cues and clues. I admit that I am an inveterate multi-tasker - I play World of Warcraft while on AIM and sometimes as a TV show or film plays in the background. But it's hard to do and my friends lose me for bouts as I get pulled into combat. The set up is not ideal for a multimedia nester. Of course, part of the appeal of games is that they are so profoundly immersive. We love to lose ourselves in other worlds like that - they are the ultimate engagement. And it sounds counter-intuitive, at first, to think that highly media-savvy and centered people want less engagement from their consumables. And yet - with no research to back up my claim - I think it might be true. Something important happens when one plays a game, something that can't be shared in the same space as other forms of entertainment. Games are like a black hole - you fall in and lose contact with the rest of the world. Sometimes, that's the exact feeling we seek; most often, though, we avoid it as a "time sink" precisely because we can't reasonably do other things at the same time. Some applications have started to address this problem. Xbox Live does a pretty good job of allowing you to feel that you're still connected to the world. You can stream your own music while you play. When your friends come online, you know; if they leave you a message, you see it; and you can talk to them, even - with the advent of the Live camera - video chat, and still remain in the game. PS3 promises to deliver a similar integration of media and communications. In essence, what's really next-generation about these consoles is that they try to become your nest. Another tactic is to turn this around - to allow consumers to take their media with them. That's the concept behind ubiquitous computing, the third wave of computing forecasted in 1988 by Mark Weiser. That's where mobiles and handhelds and DS Lites come in. But if we once again think of these experiences as layered on top of eachother, talking on the phone can be done safely while walking, while looking at other things, while eating, while reading the paper; playing a mobile game or texting is less easily layered on top of other experiences. Once again the depth of attention required gets in the way. We're increasingly moving to a mode of media consumption that is layered; consumers dip into several media forms at once to concoct the perfect blend, to manage their own experience to be a balance of stimulus and reward and the attention required to recieve the reward. If games are going to survive, we need to figure out how they can contribute to the multimedia nest. Posted by jane at October 24, 2006 10:41 AM | TrackBackComments
Another concept is gaming that's okay with waiting. While I wade through help desk tickets, I often have some turn based strategy running on a KVM'd pc, like Master of Orion 2 or Age of Wonders 2. They never mind if I'm away for 5m or 5 days. The DS is also great due to how easy it is to put a game on hold... you just close the lid. Heck of a lot more reliable than hoping the game creator put a good pause in. Posted by: geedeck![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.gamegirladvance.com/nav-commenters.gif) on October 24, 2006 02:06 PM
As someone who's about as media-savvy as one can get without a license, I have to disagree with the idea that the more plugged-in one is, the more broad one's focus becomes. From personal experience, I can say that I'm a serious single-tasker. Just hearing about Alan Yu's routine makes me edgy. Instead, I'd suggest that due to the way computers have been designed (desktop metaphor and all that), a lot of people who found computers to be a good fit for how they think became very plugged in. It probably drove lots of people who work more like I do away. I say this as someone who cut his teeth on DOS and finds the whole desktop metaphor to be abhorrent. That's not to say I don't multi-task in a way: I switch between tasks, but probably less frequently by an order of magnitude than lots of people. I enjoy immersing myself in one thing. From what I can tell, it's something fairly basic in the way I think. That deals with the determinism. As for games that are less multi-layered, I certainly think there's a market for them. I think MMOGs address this market for some people, and for others, it's taken by Tamagochis or cell-phone games. Personally, I can't say I have much interest in that market. I'm interested in deeper experiences. I think a game where people want to mute it and turn on the radio (or a podcast) instead indicates that there isn't enough richness in the game's audio. It's a missed opportunity. Certainly, there's a place for games that are not so demanding, but I personally feel like I get enough superficiality as is. Posted by: Ben Cummings on October 24, 2006 03:00 PM
As someone who's about as media-savvy as one can get without a license, I have to disagree with the idea that the more plugged-in one is, the more broad one's focus becomes. From personal experience, I can say that I'm a serious single-tasker. Just hearing about Alan Yu's routine makes me edgy. Instead, I'd suggest that due to the way computers have been designed (desktop metaphor and all that), a lot of people who found computers to be a good fit for how they think became very plugged in. It probably drove lots of people who work more like I do away. I say this as someone who cut his teeth on DOS and finds the whole desktop metaphor to be abhorrent. That's not to say I don't multi-task in a way: I switch between tasks, but probably less frequently by an order of magnitude than lots of people. I enjoy immersing myself in one thing. From what I can tell, it's something fairly basic in the way I think. That deals with the determinism. As for games that are less multi-layered, I certainly think there's a market for them. I think MMOGs address this market for some people, and for others, it's taken by Tamagochis or cell-phone games. Personally, I can't say I have much interest in that market. I'm interested in deeper experiences. I think a game where people want to mute it and turn on the radio (or a podcast) instead indicates that there isn't enough richness in the game's audio. It's a missed opportunity. Certainly, there's a place for games that are not so demanding, but I personally feel like I get enough superficiality as is. Posted by: Ben Cummings on October 24, 2006 03:08 PM
try multislacking with both WoW and the burning crusade beta running, and IMs coming in on three windows. now that's ummm, the inverse of nesting? Posted by: eric on October 25, 2006 12:21 AM
I kinda feel the same way as Alan Yu. Everday, i log on to the web check out my usual 6 favourite gaming websites (Gamespot, 1Up, IGN, Kotaku, Joystiq, Destructoid), read all the news find out the latest info, check out the videos etc. & yet, when I go back home, I don't feel like playing video games off late. I don't know why, I mean I'm still interested in video games & the whole industry in general but some how I just lost the zest to play them. Will the next gen consoles reinvigorate my interest...I dunno. We'll see. Posted by: darkchild82 on October 27, 2006 02:36 AM
zertifizierung in Russlandexport
on December 30, 2006 11:48 PM
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out) (If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)
|
I've enjoyed:
Archives
August 2009
July 2009 June 2009 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 Category Archives
About GGA (15) Academia (26) Advertising (3) Art (25) Books (9) Business (42) Conferences (18) Criticism (22) Culture (20) Design (6) Economics (6) Entertainment (19) Events (65) Experimental (32) Fashion (25) Features (18) Food (3) Fun (16) Gender (26) Humor (35) Jane's Journal (78) Journalism (27) Law (18) Marketing (10) Military (3) MMOG (33) Movies (16) Music (18) News (16) People (37) Politics (42) Preview (4) Research (14) Review (4) Scandal! (2) Sex (12) Society (47) Technology (22) Television (4) Theory (27) Travel (1) Trends (25) Upcoming Releases (12) Web (12) WTF? (28) |