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Contents contributed and discussions participated by Brett Boessen

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edremy

Reacting to the Past - 4 views

games simulation role play pedagogy
started by edremy on 27 Jul 11 no follow-up yet
Erik Hanson liked it
  • Brett Boessen
    #3 Brett Boessen on 28 Jul 11
     
    Agreed. That last, Bryan, can be an excellent way to draw non-"gamer" folks into game principles and design, too. This looks cool; passing it along to my historian colleague.
Brett Boessen

Talking with Tom Bissell-By Donovan Hohn (Harper's Magazine) - 2 views

harpers.org/...hbc-90007644

games gamestudies bookreview interview

shared by Brett Boessen on 26 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • The best part of that scene, and what was so affecting about it, was, as Clint Hocking (the game’s designer) pointed out, it wasn’t scripted. It was something that grew organically out of the systems they put into place. And it was wonderful: upsetting, funny, bizarre, intense. What other form of entertainment can do that for you? Provide a series of systems that you poke and prod and walk around in and explore, to the effect that, sometimes, you have something happen right in front of you that you made happen by virtue of being a virtually present within the system. You think about it long enough and your brain begins to melt, doesn’t it? It’s not storytelling, actually, but it allows a story to happen.
Brett Boessen

Food for Thought: game-based learning and pedagogy « Gaming & Learning - 3 views

gamingandlearning.wordpress.com/...me-based-learning-and-pedagogy

experiential learning pedagogy education games

shared by Brett Boessen on 24 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • You’re told that Animal Farm is a commentary on Socialism, told where Bhutan is. Games don’t work that way; they are experiential.
Brett Boessen

On Authorship in Games - Click Nothing - 5 views

clicknothing.typepad.com/...on-authorship-i.html

ebert games art criticism blog post

shared by Brett Boessen on 14 Jul 10 - Cached
  • interacting with a work does not shape the work, it ‘only’ reveals it.
    • Brett Boessen
      Brett Boessen on 14 Jul 10
       
      Well put.
  • Because a game is a complete formal system
    • Brett Boessen
      Brett Boessen on 14 Jul 10
       
      Is he implicitly arguing here that games with emergent elements -- especially MMO's and games with heavy player-vs-player interactions -- are not games, or is he arguing that they also represent "complete formal system(s)"? Or did he simply misspeak? Because I don't see emergence as falling within any kind of closed system.
  • The rebuttal to this argument lies in a comparison to film or to music or to any other collaborative artistic creation.
    • Brett Boessen
      Brett Boessen on 14 Jul 10
       
      Woops -- I thought he was going to address my points above, but he went in a different direction here. (I'm enjoying the point-by-point-rebuttal structure of the post immensely, though. I'd love more of my students to write this way. :)
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • The Argument from Legitimacy
    • Brett Boessen
      Brett Boessen on 14 Jul 10
       
      He rocks this entire section -- well done.
  • “I believe art is created by an artist. If you change it, you become the artist.”This is a much easier point to tackle simply because there is a fallacy in Ebert’s argument. He is implying that interacting with a work is the same as changing it. But this is not true. My ‘paint’ is not ‘what the player does’. My paint is ‘the rules that govern what the player can do’.
    • Brett Boessen
      Brett Boessen on 14 Jul 10
       
      Agreed. Ebert probably should have read Bogost's Persuasive Games before he started all of this.
  • There is noise in these systems too – some of it comes from the collaboration of others, and some of it comes from random noise
  • Many filmmakers, from Taratino to Inarritu to Haggis and dozens more have been increasingly attempting to explore stories from multiple angles in an attempt to mimic – in a medium severely limited for this purpose – what games can do innately
  • Ebert is wrong for two important reasons
  • there is authorship in games, no matter how much we abdicate
  • I will accept Ebert’s roughly stated thesis that art requires authorship
  • Because a game is a complete formal system, the entire possible range of outputs from those systems is determined by me
  • how do you know you are able to express your thoughts and feelings in the design of interactive systems’
  • I know because I understand it. What I am expressing makes sense to me both intellectually and emotionally. If others do not understand it, it is not really a question of whether I am expressing myself, but rather one of whether I am expressing myself clearly
  • The next argument is whether or not it is, in fact, true that the entire possible range of outputs from a games’ systems are really determined by me
  • The next argument would be that audiences cannot reconstruct the meaning I intend them to by way of interacting with systems
  • Another argument against the existence of real authorship in games is the argument about the legitimacy of the kind of authorship I am talking about. In his responses to Barker, Ebert says:“If you can go through "every emotional journey available," doesn't that devalue each and every one of them? Art seeks to lead you to an inevitable conclusion, not a smorgasbord of choices.”
  • The final argument that I see remaining is the one that asks ‘who is the artist here anyway?’ Ebert says:
Brett Boessen

What Will They Do? Transmedia Producers as Narrative Architects « Asmedia - 5 views

asmith50.wordpress.com/...ducers-as-narrative-architects

transmedia production liberalarts games

shared by Brett Boessen on 12 Apr 10 - Cached
  • The transmedia producer thus holds a different type of skill set, one that draws connections across media forms and one that involves conceptualizing, analyzing, and designing experiences at the macro-level. It is a person that does not just dive into the transmedia realm with a laundry list of media to explore, but actually has a deep understanding of the relationship between content, context, and culture.
  • transmedia producers must understand the unique storytelling potential behind each media platform. Certain stories lend themselves to particular media and vice versa. And as more narrative complexities threaten to impede comprehension , transmedia producers guard against blatant inconsistencies and contradictions. The narrative structure they design must be durable and organized, all while allowing room for future construction and additions.
  • the transmedia producer will have an incredible knack for activating communities and rewarding collective intelligence.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Transmedia producers possess storytelling talent, yes, but they should also appreciate the complex relationship between story and game, author and audience, openness and closure, art and commodity. They are as well versed in any sector of the entertainment industry as they are in popular culture and fandom as a whole.
  • Brett Boessen on 12 Apr 10
     
    Is there a better description of the concrete skills a liberal arts education offers than the description of what transmedia producers do outlined here?
  • Brett Boessen on 13 Apr 10
     
    You know, that just makes complete sense now that you say that: it would be hard to imagine someone who was not the product of a solid liberal arts education making such a coherent and persuasive argument for its value in this way.
  • Brett Boessen on 15 Apr 10
     
    Agreed, Bryan. Media Studies has always been deeply interdisciplinary, and transmedia strikes me as pushing it even further in that direction (or perhaps pulling into itself the most interdisciplinary facets of MS).
Brett Boessen

Control freak: Will David Cage's 'Heavy Rain' videogame push our buttons? - Gaming, Lif... - 0 views

www.independent.co.uk/...-push-our-buttons-1902630.html

games article heavyrain auteurism

shared by Brett Boessen on 25 Feb 10 - Cached
  • "When I started crediting myself as writer and director, I saw that as a political act. This is not a game made by 20 people plus 12 marketing guys, trying to find an average of what everyone likes. I'm doing the work of an author and there is no compromise. It's really the story I want to tell."
    • Brett Boessen
      Brett Boessen on 25 Feb 10
       
      Of course he goes here -- if he wants games to be seen as art, they have to have "artists." Auteurism provides a stamp of legitimacy for the medium in his eyes.
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