Article by Chris Chesher analyzing player relationships to console games; key term/concept is "glaze", which results from combining (theoretically) "gaze" and "glance" as modalities for relating to cinema and tv screens...

"You've probably heard the word gamification by now; I noticed several sessions on the topic at CCCCs. It's also more or less the subject of Jane McGonigal's book Reality is Broken, which I just managed to finish reading a few days ago. I intend to review the book in an upcoming podcast segment for Armchair Arcade Radio, but suffice it to say this book is a must-read if you're interested in "big picture" stuff concerning videogames. For now though, I want to think about how gamification and some of McGonigal's observations could improve wikis."

Thanks to Jher for passing this along...

The facilities are following scholar­ship. Games are now used in English classes studying interactive narratives, media-studies classes looking at the cultural impact of violent games, as well as courses in game design offered at about 300 colleges. "The argument is really pretty simple," says David S. Carter, an engineering librarian at Michigan. "We have faculty who are doing stuff involved in video games, so the library needs to be doing something to support that teaching and that research."

Clip of Rushdie talking about the future of storytelling vis a vis gaming worlds...the ARIS site this is posted to is home to a project in 'augmented reality'/situated documentaries at the UW Madison

Thanks to Sean Sharp for passing this along to me (and the group)...A discussion of how to utilize WordPress & various plug-ins to "gameify" course work & grading...

I'm reading this book right now...Here is the blurb from MIT: "For many players, games are entertainment, diversion, relaxation, fantasy. But what if certain games were something more than this, providing not only outlets for entertainment but a means for creative expression, instruments for conceptual thinking, or tools for social change? In Critical Play, artist and game designer Mary Flanagan examines alternative games-games that challenge the accepted norms embedded within the gaming industry-and argues that games designed by artists and activists are reshaping everyday game culture. Flanagan provides a lively historical context for critical play through twentieth-century art movements, connecting subversive game design to subversive art: her examples of "playing house" include Dadaist puppet shows and The Sims; her discussion of language play includes puns, palindromes, Yoko Ono's Instruction Paintings, and Jenny Holzer's messages in LED. Flanagan also looks at artists' alternative computer-based games, examining projects from Persuasive Games and Gonazalo Frasca and other games created through the use of interventionist strategies in the design process. And she explores games for change, considering the way activist concerns-among them Darfur, worldwide poverty, and AIDS-can be incorporated into game design. Arguing that this kind of conscious practice-which now constitutes the avant-garde of the computer game medium-can inspire new working methods for designers, Flanagan offers a model for designing that will encourage the subversion of popular gaming tropes through new styles of game making, and proposes a theory of alternate game design that focuses on the reworking of contemporary popular game practices."