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Rebecca Davis

Lessons Learned in Playful Game Design - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 2 views

chronicle.com/...33876

gaming games gamification ProfHacker

shared by Rebecca Davis on 08 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • As the semester got rolling, I realized that I’d made a new course preparation into a potentially life-consuming task.
  • Rebecca Davis on 08 Jun 11
     
    report on gamifying a class
Ed Webb

Gamification has issues, but they aren't the ones everyone focuses on - O'Reilly Radar - 1 views

radar.oreilly.com/...ation-ownership-addiction.html

games gamification gaming opinion analysis

shared by Ed Webb on 15 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • Ed Webb on 15 Jun 11
     
    Via James Schirmer on Buzz. As I commented there:  This is quite sensible. Since I do want to dismantle capitalism, I don't agree with that bit. More subtly, I am concerned about the entrenchment of simplistic binary thinking in western, particularly US, culture, so "Game designers often like to see an epic battle between good and evil - even where there isn't one - but that's part of the charm" - for me that's a significant drawback. To the extent that a game includes an argument about how the world is or how the world should be, then reinforcing oversimplification (rather than the simplification necessary in any model of the/a world, be it a book, movie, academic article or game) is problematic. I like my myths/theories/stories multifaceted.
Ed Webb

Ian Bogost - Gamification is Bullshit - 4 views

www.bogost.com/...gamification_is_bullshit.shtml

gamification bullshit games gaming bogost

shared by Ed Webb on 08 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • gamification is marketing bullshit, invented by consultants as a means to capture the wild, coveted beast that is videogames and to domesticate it for use in the grey, hopeless wasteland of big business, where bullshit already reigns anyway
  • The title of this symposium shorthands these points for me: the slogan "For the Win," accompanied by a turgid budgetary arrow and a tumescent rocket, suggesting the inevitable priapism this powerful pill will bring about—a Viagra for engagement dysfunction, engorgement guaranteed for up to one fiscal quarter.
  • I realize that using games earnestly would mean changing the very operation of most businesses. For those whose goal is to clock out at 5pm having matched the strategy and performance of your competitors, I understand that mediocrity's lips are seductive because they are willing.
  • Ed Webb on 08 Aug 11
     
    via Kirk Battle on Buzz
  • ...1 more comment...
  • Brett Boessen on 09 Aug 11
     
    Bogost seems to be getting more and more irritated by the gamification pseudo-movement. His response to McGonigal's book was contrary but professional. The exploitationware piece was critical and pointed, but I thought still civil. This is...angry. And that really comes through in his comment to the gamify.com guy's post. I'm mostly in agreement on the substance of his objections to much of gamification. But I wonder why this movement toward such vehemence? Do you suppose he's now fielding more annoying offers to help design game-like systems? Is Cow Clicker kindof backfiring, leading people to him as a designer instead of away from him? I don't know. But he sure is pissed, that's clear.
  • Ed Webb on 09 Aug 11
     
    I have no inside knowledge. But I suspect his irritation increases in proportion to the hype. The tone here is caustic, but the content is on the money. If you agree with him, and if you love games and their potential, you can understand the rage, I think.
  • Brett Boessen on 09 Aug 11
     
    I don't know -- rage, really? Isn't the "games vs. gamification" tack ultimately more of a both/and thing than a conflict? I'm not sure why having gamification exist necessarily entails an undermining of what games are. I suppose there's the question of educating non-gamers on the great potential of actual games, and perhaps policing a boundary between the two concepts. But just as I don't really want the local police to become enraged when I cross a line, I find this kind of response (and again, I've seen Bogost do it far better and with greater restraint elsewhere) off-putting to say the least. One comment on his post referred to Bogost's "war" against gamification; I'm just not sure that's the most productive approach to addressing its rise.
Rebecca Davis

Interactive Games Studies Undergraduate Program | St. Edward's University, Austin Texas - 6 views

www.stedwards.edu/...interactivegamesstudies

interactive games gaming liberalarts

shared by Rebecca Davis on 08 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Bryan Alexander on 08 Aug 11
     
    This is a full-time bachelor's degree for students who want a traditional 4-year college experience. The Bachelor of Arts in Interactive Games Studies at St. Edward's prepares you to turn your passion for video games into a fulfilling career.
  • ...1 more comment...
  • Brett Boessen on 09 Aug 11
     
    Wow. Is this the first full-size (major) program at an LAC in game studies? Computer Science and I have started some very early conversations here, but I don't think we'd do anything more than a minor.
  • Bryan Alexander on 09 Aug 11
  • Brett Boessen on 09 Aug 11
     
    Cool. I especially like the Design Challenge as a requirement for acceptance into the program. I wonder if they had issues when they started with people declaring the major without sufficient commitment? At ND when I was an undergrad, the Program of Liberal Studies, my major, required a short essay as part of an application to be a major. The Chair later admitted they don't really even evaluate them, but they found just having such a requirement was a deterrent to those on campus who (erroneously) saw the degree as light and fluffy. I'm not sure how I feel about that as the sole motivation for the requirement, but I'd definitely like to see what students who applied to Champlain's program submitted. :)
Rebecca Davis

THATCamp Games - The Humanities and Technology GAMES Camp / Date: TBA / Location: Maryland - 2 views

thatcampgames.org

games gaming digital_humanities

shared by Rebecca Davis on 26 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Rebecca Davis on 26 Aug 11
     
    THATCamp Games, a themed humanities and technology unconference embracing games of all kinds, will take place January 20th to 22nd at the University of Maryland in College Park. If you're interested in learning more about games and game design in the humanities, as part of research, or in relation to pedagogy and learning, this unconference is for you. No matter how much knowledge of games in the humanities you have coming in, you'll leave with new skills and new ideas.
  • Ed Webb on 27 Aug 11
     
    I fear I will be in North Africa then, otherwise I'd go. If my plans change, I'll do my best to be there. Sounds great.
Ed Webb

Tom Bissell on Dead Island - Grantland - 2 views

www.grantland.com/...o-games-killed-video-game-star

games gamification opinion

shared by Ed Webb on 20 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • You leveled up and rolled the dice in Dungeons & Dragons because it was impossible to run such systems under the game's hood. You know why? Because there wasn't a hood. Video games not only have hoods but also engines, and all manner of delightfully invisible computation can be dealt with and handled there. So I ask: Why isn't it invisible more often? Why this useless Gamification of what are already games? Why do we tolerate it? What do we actually get out of it, other than some mouse-brain satisfaction of knowing exactly where we are in the maze?4
  • I recently asked a game-designer friend if one of the reasons these skill-tree and leveling-up systems actually show up in games is due to the fact that some poor bastard actually had to work for months and sometimes years refining them and planning them and gaming them out, so that everything made sense and demonstrably kept players from getting too powerful too quickly. He said, with a sigh, "Pretty much." Which means that one problem with game design today is the game designer's emotional inability to hide his or her hard work. Oh, the humanity.
  • Techland consulted some real geniuses of nomenclature in coming up with Dead Island's weapons' subclass names: We have the Flimsy Cleaver, the Tiring Knife, the Frightening Mace, the Spiteful Pistol. It all sounds like the work of two Poles with a big bag of weed and a thesaurus. What's next? I wrote in my notes. The Recalcitrant Hoe? Two minutes later, no joke, I found the Languid Pistol.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • In a game about running from things that want to eat you, what is more important: the emotional experience of running from things that want to eat you, or knowing that the thing that wants to eat you is a Level 23 thing that wants to eat you? Knowing that the machete in your hand can take its head off, or knowing that the machete in your hand is capable of doing 320+ hit points of damage? On second thought, don't bother answering. That this game exists is answer enough.
Brett Boessen

image2rqz.gif (300×176) - 4 views

h4.abload.de/image2rqz.gif

funny gif games challenge

shared by Brett Boessen on 04 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Brett Boessen on 04 Nov 11
     
    Why game designs should include challenge.
Todd Bryant

Barbarian vs Civ game - 3 views

killscreendaily.com/...gner-gives-attilla-hun-his-due

History

shared by Todd Bryant on 19 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Bryan Alexander on 22 Feb 13
     
    Oh fun. I hope it succeeds.
Bryan Alexander

Breakaway Game-free online football/soccer game - 1 views

breakawaygame.com

games liberaleducation

shared by Bryan Alexander on 25 May 12 - No Cached
  • Bryan Alexander on 25 May 12
     
    A free internet game about football/soccer designed by Champlain College students at the Emergent Media Center with the UNFPA and Population Media Center
Bryan Alexander

U. of Utah to Help Students Publish Video Games - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Highe... - 0 views

chronicle.com/...37181

education games

shared by Bryan Alexander on 25 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Bryan Alexander on 25 Jun 12
     
    Many universities offer programs that teach video-game design, but the University of Utah has taken the unusual step of creating a company to help its students bring their electronic amusements to market. The company, Utah Game Forge, opened in May and just released its first game, Heroes of Hat!
Brett Boessen

Raph's Website » Rules versus mechanics - 2 views

www.raphkoster.com/...rules-versus-mechanics

games fundamentals production design rules

shared by Brett Boessen on 15 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • Brett Boessen on 15 Dec 11
     
    Nice fine-grained discussion of one designer's distinction between "rules" and "mechanics."
Bryan Alexander

Simulating spooks? The CIA, simulations, and analyst recruitment - 0 views

paxsims.wordpress.com/...ations-and-analyst-recruitment

simulation liberalartscampus

shared by Bryan Alexander on 09 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Bryan Alexander on 09 Jan 12
     
    Some liberal arts campuses involved, like SBC: "While many might associate the CIA with dissimulation as much as simulation, the Agency uses serious games and simulations in a number of ways. They are used, for example, in analyst training at CIA University (indeed, one well-known game designer teaches there).
Brett Boessen

Terra Nova: Movies Stink - 15 views

terranova.blogs.com/...movies-stink.html

rant castranova systems design games narrative stories storytelling

shared by Brett Boessen on 06 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Brett Boessen on 06 Jan 12
     
    Castranova is not usually so passionate in his writing.  Very interesting perspective, though.
  • ...12 more comments...
  • Bryan Alexander on 06 Jan 12
     
    Interesting to see him split games from stories.
  • Bryan Alexander on 06 Jan 12
     
    I do chime in with his grumpiness about Hollywood, generally.
  • Brett Boessen on 07 Jan 12
     
    Honestly, I'm starting to feel similarly. Though I am finding many of the long-form serial narratives of TV pretty engaging. Still, I appreciate the value in *doing* over watching/consuming. And yet what he's saying is essentially a version of the old "film/tv makes you passive" argument, which I've always recoiled against. So I'm torn.
  • Bryan Alexander on 10 Jan 12
     
    I've been coming back to the tv=passive line, more and more each year. It's hard, because I know so many active fans engaged in all kinds of practices. But then I see the silent fans, the ones who just... soak. And I'm reminded of William Gibson's line about couch potatoes.
  • Brett Boessen on 11 Jan 12
     
    I don't know that one...do tell. :)
  • Bryan Alexander on 11 Jan 12
     
    I think this is textually correct, more or less: "a vicious, lazy, profoundly ignorant, perpetually hungry organism craving the warm god-flesh of the anointed. Personally I like to imagine something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth, Laney, no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote. Or by voting in presidential elections."
  • Bryan Alexander on 11 Jan 12
     
    Or, more succinctly: couch potatoes, like taters, are kept in the dark, buried under manure.
  • Brett Boessen on 12 Jan 12
     
    Wow. That's...very detailed. Doesn't leave a lot of room for empathy or understanding: pretty cut and dried. :)
  • Bryan Alexander on 12 Jan 12
     
    Jeremaiad. One I sympathize with. I need to spend time with you happy media studies folks and regain my old empathy.
  • Brett Boessen on 13 Jan 12
     
    THAT Camp - Games. Done and done. :)
  • Bryan Alexander on 13 Jan 12
     
    That's right - when do you arrive?
  • Brett Boessen on 13 Jan 12
     
    I'll actually be there Thursday evening, but I'm going to dinner with my parents and brother (who live in the area). I am staying through Monday morning, though. We should be able to find some time to catch it, I'd guess. What are your travel plans?
  • Bryan Alexander on 14 Jan 12
     
    Coming in Thursday, leaving Sunday @3.
  • Brett Boessen on 14 Jan 12
     
    Cool -- I'll see you Friday morning then. Let's try to grab a meal at some point. :)
Brett Boessen

People Who Were A Game Designer Include Harold Ramis - lunaran.com - 2 views

lunaran.com/page.php

games GroundhogDay

shared by Brett Boessen on 03 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Brett Boessen on 03 Jan 12
     
    I love this, though I'll admit I would *never* be that one guy who sticks with it.
Ed Webb

Banana Pepper Martinis: Content Degradation in Modern Warfare 3 - 3 views

literatigamereviews.blogspot.com/...ation-in-modern-warfare-3.html

gaming analysis opinion

shared by Ed Webb on 18 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Ed Webb on 18 Nov 11
     
    design/content dichotomy
  • Bryan Alexander on 18 Nov 11
     
    First off: that blog has the greatest header image. Second, I think he's dead right about gradual degradation. Sequel syndrome.
Brett Boessen

The "Rattomorphism" of Gamification | Critical Gaming Project - 3 views

depts.washington.edu/...-rattomorphism-of-gamification

games design production consumption theory criticism

shared by Brett Boessen on 21 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • the revelation born out in long term studies is that ultimately it backfires. Over time, people engaged in activities that are structured by and sustained through operant conditioning grow to resent or hate those activities, and their creativity in approach as well as their productivity declines.
  • Ian Bogost has done an excellent job identifying gamification rhetoric as bullshit, and suggesting many of its products are exploitationware. In light of Kohn’s work we are compelled to add that the logic of gamification is the logic of corrosion
  • If the goal is to get users to simply DO something, then the logic of gamification may not read as corrosive – just effective
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • But if quality of action, emotional engagement, and development over time matter at all, we should be concerned about the corrosive conditioning the techniques of gamification entail
  • The problem is that there is no such thing as a “game layer,” if we understand “game” to mean something more than an assemblage of techniques we find in games
  • What we are really talking about here is more like a “reward layer,” or more abstractly, an activity “feedback layer” that draws its inspiration from techniques associated with games, and thus evokes expectations of gameplay
  • Erik Hanson on 23 Nov 11
     
    The final bit is what I said to Bogost when he was in town earlier this year, shortly after his post in the link. If there's an upshot to "gamification" as a movement and idea, it's that our feedback systems are woefully underdesigned. Not everything needs to be made "fun," but clear goals and feedback could make a lot of things less un-fun.
Bryan Alexander

Media - Social Studies - Play | Wolfsonian-FIU Freedom - 0 views

www.teenthoughtsondemocracy.wolfsonian.org/...media-social-studies-play

game

shared by Bryan Alexander on 01 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Bryan Alexander on 01 Mar 12
     
    Spin is designed to promote student reflection on the power of words and images by creating and altering meaning in a fictional narrative. This fast-paced, small group storytelling game provides students the experience of "spinning" a story in different directions to convey diverse storylines or viewpoints-much like it occurs in print, broadcast, and digital media today.
Ed Webb

Two Excellent Tools to Create Educational Games for your Class ~ Educational Technology... - 5 views

www.educatorstechnology.com/...excellent-tools-to-create.html

games tools education

shared by Ed Webb on 25 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Brett Boessen on 25 Aug 13
     
    Game Maker is a much more complex - and hard to learn - tool than Kodu, but the kinds of games you can make with it are more varied, too.
  • ...3 more comments...
  • Bryan Alexander on 26 Aug 13
     
    Is it something a small college can handle?
  • Brett Boessen on 26 Aug 13
     
    I'd say yes, depending on where in the curriculum you're looking to insert it. My CS colleague here does work with his students on Unity, which is FAR more complex than Gamemaker. But I wouldn't recommend trying to get students to make games with GM unless you're going to contribute a lot of your class time to it: demos, how-tos, workshops, and assignments (all multiple). With Kodu, you probably could get away with one longer class, two shorter ones, or an out of class evening workshop, and then just let them play with it. So as always, it's what you're hoping to accomplish with the assignment of the tool that will drive which tool you choose. :) For me, GM is really for people who want to make games they plan to circulate among people outside your class; Kodu could be that or could be to help learn the fundamentals of game design (or other procedural concepts).
  • Bryan Alexander on 26 Aug 13
     
    Good to know, Brett; thanks. Now, isn't Kodu aimed at the XBox platform?
  • Brett Boessen on 26 Aug 13
     
    It was originally, but now you can download it for Windows. I /believe/ you can then export your games to a public platform as well, but they may only be available to others with Kodu installed.
  • Bryan Alexander on 27 Aug 13
     
    For Windows? That changes things a great deal.
Bryan Alexander

Philip Sabin, "Wargaming in higher education: Contributions and challenges " - 1 views

ahh.sagepub.com/...1474022215577216.abstract

simulation gaming education

shared by Bryan Alexander on 20 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Bryan Alexander on 20 Apr 15
     
    "Wargames, especially on historical conflicts, do not currently play much part in the booming academic use of simulation and gaming techniques. This is despite the fact that they offer rich vehicles for active learning and interactive exploration of conflict dynamics. Constraints of time, expertise and resources do make it challenging to employ wargames in academia, but a greater problem is the stigma which wargaming attracts due to its association with childish enthusiasts and its perceived deficiencies as a modelling technique. This article builds on my many years of teaching and research experience with wargames to show how playing and designing them can benefit students and scholars alike."
Bryan Alexander

Putting a human face on science storytelling - 1 views

tiie.w3.uvm.edu/...student-made-geology-games

education games pedagogy storytelling augmented reality

shared by Bryan Alexander on 17 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • Bryan Alexander on 17 Sep 15
     
    "These are middle schoolers building mobile, place-based games with ARIS, taking advantage of the game editor's powerful new re-design and one science educator's trust in letting his students demonstrate what and how they learn."
  • Brett Boessen on 18 Sep 15
     
    Very cool. I appreciate that he takes the time in the video interview to lay out how one could take a more standard pedagogical model - his "5E" model (which I had not heard of before) - and augment/alter parts of it to incorporate the new technological elements he's interested in having his students explore.
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