Catching Up ...
Haven't blogged in ages now. In fact, I have even had a rather long period of ludic stagnation. 'This gaming life' has been eventful in other ways - some good and some not. Two events that I have attended deserve special mention. One was the LINK event held in Loughborough University in mid-May where the gathered academics and postgraduate students provided me with some important insights on publishing the PhD thesis. Besides this, there were some interesting postgrad papers - the one that interested me most was, predictably, on cyborgs and disability. The hybrid identity of the cyborg was flagged up as the connecting link for discursive alliance for women and the handicapped. What particularly intrigued me was how world war 2 disfigurement was seen as cyborgean and how people were seen as being regendered (remasculinised). My notes have to be aided by faded memories and I am afraid that I do not do justice to the paper. I've learnt my lesson about why one shouldn't leave things unblogged for too long.
This was the very thing that Jess Lacetti, prolific blogger and new media researcher at De Montfort, told us at the CEDAR workshop. Lacetti, interestingly, calls weblogs 'online academic business cards' and asks academic bloggers to concentrate on topical content. Good advice, for sure - in fact, I was pulled up slightly for suggesting something more in the nature of 'Ludus Ex'. Lacetti's solution is to maintain different blogs and not conflate their purpose. She gives the following three reasons for academic blogging:
i exist online
i participate with other scholars
i am able to think through writing
Nice. One thing I know and keep forgetting is the importance of tagging. There are no tags to this post but there will be more in any future post ... i promise. Tagging obviously gets the web-crawlers attention with all the meta-data and also helps create easy links between topics. My external examiner, Will Slocombe, was also one of the speakers at the event. He spoke on the importance of blogging as a teaching tool, how it is important for 'keeping in shape' for writing and how it enables peer-review. Astrid Ensslin, editor of the Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds, also spoke on her blogging experiences as a PhD student, about the importance of blogs in disseminating ideas, sharing posts, networking with other academics and the importance of rss feeds. Together with the rest of the team from Bangor (researchers Lyell Skains and Sonia Fizek), she showed us how to use Google Sites and Google Forms. Very useful for me - I was even able to use these examples for a job interview!
All said and done, however, much as I agree with the need for academic blogging and find the tips provided useful, I personally find it immensely more pleasant to read about someone's research and thoughts in a non/quasi-academic blog like QBlog (maintained by Richard Bartle , mentioned in an earlier entry). It's about the style and also the way it points out something very different to what I would normally expect in my real, virtual and possible lives (getting a bit too Deleuzian already) that I like so much more than some very dreary academic blogs that I have to plough through occasionally. For me blogging is about the in-between spaces of one's research and thinking. Of course, this is a very personal view and I know I need to be more of a disciplined and organised blogger.
Speaking of 'in-between spaces', as always these were for me the best part of the event: as I've always maintained, the smooth spaces of interaction that exist alongside the striated organisation of events are extremely important. In between the talks or (rather rudely) even during them in whispered conversations, I learned more about other people's work on game design, new stuff that people were doing and (importantly) where to get good Indian food in Leicester.
After the nice food (idli and sambar rather than Biriyani though), the final event was a demonstration of a mathematical tool designed for mapping creativity. I must say I wasn't convinced and was rather too vocal about it. At least, it shows that scientists and artists are still happy to talk to each other. I had almost lost hope after hearing a science PhD (a rather stuck-up one, as well) student, who is unfortunately an acquaintance of mine, say a million times how worthless the people who degrees in the Humanities are ... Well my friend, at least some of your colleagues recognise our importance although I squirm at the methods they use to 'map' us.
Finally, the pathbreaking event in my life: I learnt that some people, somewhere in the world actually think that I am a little turtle (in Polish, apparently my name means 'little turtle').
No actually that's not the pathbreaking thing that's changed my life ... it's the fact that I've begun to believe that what these people think is true. Yes, I am a little turtle.
Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo and Souvik ....
This was the very thing that Jess Lacetti, prolific blogger and new media researcher at De Montfort, told us at the CEDAR workshop. Lacetti, interestingly, calls weblogs 'online academic business cards' and asks academic bloggers to concentrate on topical content. Good advice, for sure - in fact, I was pulled up slightly for suggesting something more in the nature of 'Ludus Ex'. Lacetti's solution is to maintain different blogs and not conflate their purpose. She gives the following three reasons for academic blogging:
i exist online
i participate with other scholars
i am able to think through writing
Nice. One thing I know and keep forgetting is the importance of tagging. There are no tags to this post but there will be more in any future post ... i promise. Tagging obviously gets the web-crawlers attention with all the meta-data and also helps create easy links between topics. My external examiner, Will Slocombe, was also one of the speakers at the event. He spoke on the importance of blogging as a teaching tool, how it is important for 'keeping in shape' for writing and how it enables peer-review. Astrid Ensslin, editor of the Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds, also spoke on her blogging experiences as a PhD student, about the importance of blogs in disseminating ideas, sharing posts, networking with other academics and the importance of rss feeds. Together with the rest of the team from Bangor (researchers Lyell Skains and Sonia Fizek), she showed us how to use Google Sites and Google Forms. Very useful for me - I was even able to use these examples for a job interview!
All said and done, however, much as I agree with the need for academic blogging and find the tips provided useful, I personally find it immensely more pleasant to read about someone's research and thoughts in a non/quasi-academic blog like QBlog (maintained by Richard Bartle , mentioned in an earlier entry). It's about the style and also the way it points out something very different to what I would normally expect in my real, virtual and possible lives (getting a bit too Deleuzian already) that I like so much more than some very dreary academic blogs that I have to plough through occasionally. For me blogging is about the in-between spaces of one's research and thinking. Of course, this is a very personal view and I know I need to be more of a disciplined and organised blogger.
Speaking of 'in-between spaces', as always these were for me the best part of the event: as I've always maintained, the smooth spaces of interaction that exist alongside the striated organisation of events are extremely important. In between the talks or (rather rudely) even during them in whispered conversations, I learned more about other people's work on game design, new stuff that people were doing and (importantly) where to get good Indian food in Leicester.
After the nice food (idli and sambar rather than Biriyani though), the final event was a demonstration of a mathematical tool designed for mapping creativity. I must say I wasn't convinced and was rather too vocal about it. At least, it shows that scientists and artists are still happy to talk to each other. I had almost lost hope after hearing a science PhD (a rather stuck-up one, as well) student, who is unfortunately an acquaintance of mine, say a million times how worthless the people who degrees in the Humanities are ... Well my friend, at least some of your colleagues recognise our importance although I squirm at the methods they use to 'map' us.
Finally, the pathbreaking event in my life: I learnt that some people, somewhere in the world actually think that I am a little turtle (in Polish, apparently my name means 'little turtle').
No actually that's not the pathbreaking thing that's changed my life ... it's the fact that I've begun to believe that what these people think is true. Yes, I am a little turtle.
Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo and Souvik ....
Pacmania Live
The comment about Pacman in my previous post reminded me of this fab video that I found on the Ludologist.
http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/x9003r
Enjoy!
http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/x9003r
Enjoy!
Of Hindus and Their Ludic Epics
Once again, Hinduism makes its way into 'Ludus Ex' but this time in a full-blown post devoted to it. The reason for writing this is that I recently read two rather conflicting views on the first game blockbuster in the Indian market: a game called Hanuman. A few days back, Edge reported a 300 % growth in the profits of Sony Playstation India and judging from the words of Atindriya Bose, the country manager, India's somnolent gaming industry seems to have stirred a bit. Hanuman is even supposed to ship to the UK (good news although I'm not a console gamer) and South Africa. This is a proud moment for any Indian gamer, I'm sure. Not for all Indians, though. The second news clipping that I came across told me that a Hindu group wanted the game withdrawn because it apparently offends the Hindu religion. I saw a number of comments on various forums branding these people 'fundamentalists' and one person even facetiously comments that Indians need to 'stick to Pacman'. The cloud, however, remains and the Indian gamer is at risk of being ignored altogether. Let me try to voice his or her thoughts, here.
First, the group concerned is more keen on publicity than in practising religion. If they have read even a tiny bit of the Hindu scriptures, this self-taught Hindutva will sound very hollow indeed. Mind you, these people are based in the US and are not really connected to the Indian scenario. Hanuman, the game concerned, is about a Hindu God - the super-powerful monkey-god who moved an entire mountain and flew across the country (much before anyone ever thought of Krypton). Hanuman is a major character in the Hindu epic, The Ramayan (he also makes a cameo appearance in the Mahabharat). I can understand the umbrage of people who cannot imagine how their god can be put in the hands of reckless children wielding their joypads and insulting the power of their god. After all, one hasn't made a videogame on Jesus, Jehovah or the Islamic heroes.
There is, however, a subtle difference that is missed in such simplistic conclusions. What is missed, however, is of great import: the entire ethos of Hinduism (the problem of using this term is something I shan't go into, here) is missed here. In Hindu literature, the importance of play is paramount. The gods themselves indulge in leela or 'divine play'. Strangely enough, the hardcore critics of the game have forgotten that leela is characteristic of festivals related to the Ramayan. Ram-leela as it is called is an important part of festivals and if you go to the holy cities like Benares, many a roadside trader will try to sell you dolls of the characters from the Ramayan. Needless to say, Hanuman is a prominent attraction. Indian kids have played with Hanuman for millennia because Hindu culture has constantly highlighted the relationship between the ludic and the divine. With the new Hanuman videogame, therefore, they will not be doing anything to insult a god; rather in an ancient culture whose values are being eroded by 'Westernisation', this symbolises the power that Hindu texts have of rejuvenating themselves generation after generation. Moreover, the rich narrative of the Ramayan can now be explored again and again even in places where people do not know anything about the richness of the Indian epics.
Such anti-videogame reactions are not new and neither are they restricted to Hindus or even to religion. As in most cases, the ignorance about videogames and the problem in recognising them as texts gives rise to such ignorant comments. The first thing that we need to learn, whether from Western scholars such as Huizinga or from the ancient Hindu scriptures, is that play is serious and that mistaking the ludic for the ludicrous can lead to very grave consequences.
Finally, all the best, therefore, to Hanuman and to Indian gaming.
First, the group concerned is more keen on publicity than in practising religion. If they have read even a tiny bit of the Hindu scriptures, this self-taught Hindutva will sound very hollow indeed. Mind you, these people are based in the US and are not really connected to the Indian scenario. Hanuman, the game concerned, is about a Hindu God - the super-powerful monkey-god who moved an entire mountain and flew across the country (much before anyone ever thought of Krypton). Hanuman is a major character in the Hindu epic, The Ramayan (he also makes a cameo appearance in the Mahabharat). I can understand the umbrage of people who cannot imagine how their god can be put in the hands of reckless children wielding their joypads and insulting the power of their god. After all, one hasn't made a videogame on Jesus, Jehovah or the Islamic heroes.
There is, however, a subtle difference that is missed in such simplistic conclusions. What is missed, however, is of great import: the entire ethos of Hinduism (the problem of using this term is something I shan't go into, here) is missed here. In Hindu literature, the importance of play is paramount. The gods themselves indulge in leela or 'divine play'. Strangely enough, the hardcore critics of the game have forgotten that leela is characteristic of festivals related to the Ramayan. Ram-leela as it is called is an important part of festivals and if you go to the holy cities like Benares, many a roadside trader will try to sell you dolls of the characters from the Ramayan. Needless to say, Hanuman is a prominent attraction. Indian kids have played with Hanuman for millennia because Hindu culture has constantly highlighted the relationship between the ludic and the divine. With the new Hanuman videogame, therefore, they will not be doing anything to insult a god; rather in an ancient culture whose values are being eroded by 'Westernisation', this symbolises the power that Hindu texts have of rejuvenating themselves generation after generation. Moreover, the rich narrative of the Ramayan can now be explored again and again even in places where people do not know anything about the richness of the Indian epics.
Such anti-videogame reactions are not new and neither are they restricted to Hindus or even to religion. As in most cases, the ignorance about videogames and the problem in recognising them as texts gives rise to such ignorant comments. The first thing that we need to learn, whether from Western scholars such as Huizinga or from the ancient Hindu scriptures, is that play is serious and that mistaking the ludic for the ludicrous can lead to very grave consequences.
Finally, all the best, therefore, to Hanuman and to Indian gaming.
Reading Games and Playing Books in the Press
There's been a lot to write about but I have been lazy. Lazy? Well, not really ... besides being busy with millions of emails and job application letters, I have managed to finally conquer the Egyptians, the ever-truculent Scipii and even the indefatigable Britons with my Roman legions (all this in Rome: Total War, of course). Only two cities in Parthia stand against me but it's not too long before my legions will lay siege and conquer. Great as this achievement may be and worthy of being chronicled by none less than Livy the 2nd, it is not why I return to Ludus Ex today. A few days back, the Nottingham Trent University's press office showed interest in my research and asked me if I would agree to a press release. Being busy in my quotidian battles - in the world of applications by day and in fighting the Parthian horse archers by night - I agreed without entirely realising the importance of this. Now I know and I would really like to thank them for their interest.
The Guardian Gamesblog has now written about my research. They have even included a picture of the Inferno videogame and I'm chuffed (I was once unceremoniously ejected for suggesting that Dante's Divina Commedia was very like a videogame). I have always been a serious reader of the Gamesblog - I like its style and range. Many a time, have I wished to respond to Keith Stuart's or Alex Krotoski's posts but have always been too shy. In fact, I even met Keith at GameCity last year in the videogame quiz that he conducted ( a great quiz despite the sad memory of being totally outshone by our betters, despite Andrew and co.'s valiant efforts). Anyway, as I read the GamesBlog today, I'm having a think about Keith's comment in today's posting. The title 'Games As Valuable As Books in Terms of Literary Worth' is a comparison that is not mine - however, the fact that videogames provide a vital and much neglected perspective on our reading experience certainly is. For myself, I'd rather not go into 'value' as literary worth (which would be making a 'grandiose' claim) but rather focus on the importance of deeper readings of videogame narratives. The comment on the Gamesblog goes thus:
Hmm, I think it's rather an analytical leap to compare the provision of multiple story endings with a fully interactive experience. It's also a difficult sell in terms of the quality of video game story telling. The examples he provides are Half-Life 2, Bioshock and Assassin's Creed - all credible narrative experiences sure enough, but will we ever be dissecting a videogame plot, or its underlying meaning, with the same voracity that we approach a novel by Dickens, or George Elliot, or Stephen King?
Will we indeed? The 'analytical leap' is one that has been the bone of contention between ludologists and 'narratologists' (as the ludologists call them - they need not necessarily be clubbed with Gerard Genette etc). Multiplicity, when understood in the framework employed by the French philosopher, Gilles Deleuze, does show significant similarities between literature and videogames. Deleuze points to Kafka's stories form an 'assemblage' --- with themselves as well as with other assemblages and also how they form an assemblage in terms of time and endings. I have earlier commented on the classic example from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, where the Prince says, 'no no , that is not how it happened at all' thus highlighting the (non)negation of a perfectly legitimate ending. Think of a Dickens novel now (let's not go into more obviously ludic literature such as Cortazar's Hopscotch). Great Expectations originally ended with Pip and Estella not getting married but, on the suggestion of Bulwyer-Lytton, Dickens revised it giving it a happier ending - 'no no, that is not how it happened at all'. As we traverse the plot to unravel 'meaning' in a novel, there is interaction certainly (albeit of a different media-specificity, it needs to be emphasised) and there are many more temporal schemes and endings than are apparent. The videogame narrative points this out even more clearly than earlier media and instead of letting us rest content with quick conclusions like 'this is a story about Pip's love for Estella', it further problematises the very idea of narrative by pointing out the multiplicity in what is apparently single and obvious.
Whether this means that games should be taught for A-levels and GCSE I honestly do not know (would be fun though). What concerns me, however, is the academic negligence of a narrative medium (yes, the ludology-narratology debate is history) that tells us more not only about our reading experience today but also about how we have always been reading. This will change, hopefully. After all, a few years ago many institutions that now specialise in Film Studies would have been sniffy even at the very name. Mind you, even English Literature wasn't a university subject until the twentieth century despite its long and rich history.
Besides the GamesBlog, some other gaming websites have reported on my research. Some of the ones that I picked out are Gamer's Daily News and Gamezine.co.uk. Thanks a lot - it feels good to know that there is a significantly high level of interest in issues related to videogames.
The Guardian Gamesblog has now written about my research. They have even included a picture of the Inferno videogame and I'm chuffed (I was once unceremoniously ejected for suggesting that Dante's Divina Commedia was very like a videogame). I have always been a serious reader of the Gamesblog - I like its style and range. Many a time, have I wished to respond to Keith Stuart's or Alex Krotoski's posts but have always been too shy. In fact, I even met Keith at GameCity last year in the videogame quiz that he conducted ( a great quiz despite the sad memory of being totally outshone by our betters, despite Andrew and co.'s valiant efforts). Anyway, as I read the GamesBlog today, I'm having a think about Keith's comment in today's posting. The title 'Games As Valuable As Books in Terms of Literary Worth' is a comparison that is not mine - however, the fact that videogames provide a vital and much neglected perspective on our reading experience certainly is. For myself, I'd rather not go into 'value' as literary worth (which would be making a 'grandiose' claim) but rather focus on the importance of deeper readings of videogame narratives. The comment on the Gamesblog goes thus:
Hmm, I think it's rather an analytical leap to compare the provision of multiple story endings with a fully interactive experience. It's also a difficult sell in terms of the quality of video game story telling. The examples he provides are Half-Life 2, Bioshock and Assassin's Creed - all credible narrative experiences sure enough, but will we ever be dissecting a videogame plot, or its underlying meaning, with the same voracity that we approach a novel by Dickens, or George Elliot, or Stephen King?
Will we indeed? The 'analytical leap' is one that has been the bone of contention between ludologists and 'narratologists' (as the ludologists call them - they need not necessarily be clubbed with Gerard Genette etc). Multiplicity, when understood in the framework employed by the French philosopher, Gilles Deleuze, does show significant similarities between literature and videogames. Deleuze points to Kafka's stories form an 'assemblage' --- with themselves as well as with other assemblages and also how they form an assemblage in terms of time and endings. I have earlier commented on the classic example from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, where the Prince says, 'no no , that is not how it happened at all' thus highlighting the (non)negation of a perfectly legitimate ending. Think of a Dickens novel now (let's not go into more obviously ludic literature such as Cortazar's Hopscotch). Great Expectations originally ended with Pip and Estella not getting married but, on the suggestion of Bulwyer-Lytton, Dickens revised it giving it a happier ending - 'no no, that is not how it happened at all'. As we traverse the plot to unravel 'meaning' in a novel, there is interaction certainly (albeit of a different media-specificity, it needs to be emphasised) and there are many more temporal schemes and endings than are apparent. The videogame narrative points this out even more clearly than earlier media and instead of letting us rest content with quick conclusions like 'this is a story about Pip's love for Estella', it further problematises the very idea of narrative by pointing out the multiplicity in what is apparently single and obvious.
Whether this means that games should be taught for A-levels and GCSE I honestly do not know (would be fun though). What concerns me, however, is the academic negligence of a narrative medium (yes, the ludology-narratology debate is history) that tells us more not only about our reading experience today but also about how we have always been reading. This will change, hopefully. After all, a few years ago many institutions that now specialise in Film Studies would have been sniffy even at the very name. Mind you, even English Literature wasn't a university subject until the twentieth century despite its long and rich history.
Besides the GamesBlog, some other gaming websites have reported on my research. Some of the ones that I picked out are Gamer's Daily News and Gamezine.co.uk. Thanks a lot - it feels good to know that there is a significantly high level of interest in issues related to videogames.
A Stretch of Imagination
Has anyone of you played Noby Noby Boy ('stretchy stretchy boy' in Japanese)? I haven't and there is little likelihood that I will - it's made solely for PS3 and I don't see myself ever possessing one (I don't even have a tv). Despite no familiarity with the gameplay, I can safely say that one of my most unforgettable gaming experiences is connected to this game. I saw the game being demo-ed on a large screen by the designer Keita Takahashi who was delivering the GameCity 2007 vision statement. I can't describe the game - it's too bizarre for words: effectively, it's got a couple of stretchy characters that stretch from planet to planet, winding themselves around creatures. Do wikipedia it to learn more about what happens in it ... I'm not even going to attempt a description. By the way, the designer's the same guy who made Katamari Damacy.
It's because of him that I can't forget this game. He stood in front of us, barefoot, on the podium and said the only words he knew in English: 'I don't speak English.' The conversation that followed was in Japanese with the interpreter struggling to translate the world of Takahashi into English. I don't think he was speaking and us listening --- rather, it was some weird sort of collective imagination. He drew houses, lorries with smiling faces and showed us his house on Google Earth. He also said that he would grow weeds upward from his balcony so that they would reach the flat of the noisy couple upstairs. Then someone asked him what games he would make next and what games he played. 'None', he answered for both questions. He wants to build playgrounds for children and he wanted us to see Noby Noby Boy. Suddenly two stretchy characters were wriggling around each other and entwining themselves around random objects onscreen. It was a trance-like feeling. Recently, after the game was released, Takahashi was asked if he was high on drugs when he conceived the game, an allegation he was quick to deny. Keita Takahashi, I believe you. One only needs to have seen the man to know.
I can see the Noby Noby game as a game-design metaphor. Imagination. Limitlessly stretching, entwining and more forming complex patterns that are deceptively simple. I wonder what Takahashi's imaginative playgrounds will contain, if he ever gets to build them.
QBlog
Today, I handed in the final version of my PhD thesis and I've been informed that its fine. Basically, it means that I have no hesitation in calling myself 'Dr Mukherjee'. I wish I were the other kind of doctor though (the NHS kind I mean) because I have an eye infection and my GP does not seem to know what to do. Anyway, I'd rather speak of happier things.
My viva, as ''Ludus ex' readers will remember, took place about two months ago. Before that, I almost went crazy with fear. Mostly, because I was seeing mistakes everywhere in my thesis, pretty much like Lady Macbeth saw blood. A few things helped me retain my sanity. My incessant involvement in the world of Rome: Total War was one. The poetry of Mahendra Solanki, an assortment of pages from randomly picked up novels, vacantly staring at my videogame collection and thinking about whether the passing plane would take me home were among my other distractions. However, the thing to which I owe my sanity the most is QBlog. I'm not sure whether any of you know QBlog (Andrew does, I suspect) but anyone with an interest in videogames should read it. It's Richard Bartle's blog (if you don't know who Richard Bartle is, look him up quickly on google ... otherwise, you might end up being like my GP, which isn't really very nice). I think QBlog is very important for videogame researchers. It talks about Richard's workplace, strange signs in different places, weird experiences in aircrafts, boxes and places he visits. Some of these relate to virtual worlds while some don't; not all of these are connected to videogames. Which is precisely why QBlog is important for videogame researchers: it talks about other things and it finds the fun in even the most humdrum. When, for the umpteenth time you are reading the 88,000 words that you have written on videogames, believe me, a look inside Richard's strangely ordinary world can be the most relaxing of experiences. Even Rome: Total War would put me off if I kept losing territory; QBlog always got me to laugh.
In some ways I feel that if Richard was writing in the time of Dr Johnson, he'd probably be his own Boswell. The academic in me (with my colonial education and Brit Lit background) is usually quite happy when I am reading Bartle's Life of Bartle (To Say Nothing of the Many Other Lives Besides); the prose is lucid and the humour excellent. A few months ago, I commented on the 'style' of game designers and commentators - QBlog definitely scores a lot on this scale. Anyway, I like reading about random boxes, strange hotels in Berlin and how huge ant sculptures will be eating huge ladybird sculptures. Or if you want to know about a certain naughty word that the WoW filters haven't managed to check, QBlog will tell you all about it.
Anyway, have a look for yourself and let me know what you think. Especially if you've read too much theory and want to lighten up. This post has been long overdue but I must say 'thank you QBlog' for relieving all that pre-viva stress and making reading about games fun again - after being terrified of all the 'serious' stuff on gaming that's out there.
My viva, as ''Ludus ex' readers will remember, took place about two months ago. Before that, I almost went crazy with fear. Mostly, because I was seeing mistakes everywhere in my thesis, pretty much like Lady Macbeth saw blood. A few things helped me retain my sanity. My incessant involvement in the world of Rome: Total War was one. The poetry of Mahendra Solanki, an assortment of pages from randomly picked up novels, vacantly staring at my videogame collection and thinking about whether the passing plane would take me home were among my other distractions. However, the thing to which I owe my sanity the most is QBlog. I'm not sure whether any of you know QBlog (Andrew does, I suspect) but anyone with an interest in videogames should read it. It's Richard Bartle's blog (if you don't know who Richard Bartle is, look him up quickly on google ... otherwise, you might end up being like my GP, which isn't really very nice). I think QBlog is very important for videogame researchers. It talks about Richard's workplace, strange signs in different places, weird experiences in aircrafts, boxes and places he visits. Some of these relate to virtual worlds while some don't; not all of these are connected to videogames. Which is precisely why QBlog is important for videogame researchers: it talks about other things and it finds the fun in even the most humdrum. When, for the umpteenth time you are reading the 88,000 words that you have written on videogames, believe me, a look inside Richard's strangely ordinary world can be the most relaxing of experiences. Even Rome: Total War would put me off if I kept losing territory; QBlog always got me to laugh.
In some ways I feel that if Richard was writing in the time of Dr Johnson, he'd probably be his own Boswell. The academic in me (with my colonial education and Brit Lit background) is usually quite happy when I am reading Bartle's Life of Bartle (To Say Nothing of the Many Other Lives Besides); the prose is lucid and the humour excellent. A few months ago, I commented on the 'style' of game designers and commentators - QBlog definitely scores a lot on this scale. Anyway, I like reading about random boxes, strange hotels in Berlin and how huge ant sculptures will be eating huge ladybird sculptures. Or if you want to know about a certain naughty word that the WoW filters haven't managed to check, QBlog will tell you all about it.
Anyway, have a look for yourself and let me know what you think. Especially if you've read too much theory and want to lighten up. This post has been long overdue but I must say 'thank you QBlog' for relieving all that pre-viva stress and making reading about games fun again - after being terrified of all the 'serious' stuff on gaming that's out there.
in the in-between spaces
The last few days have seen me get increasingly interested in spaces. After a chat with Michael Nitsche in Magdeburg, I am again interested in reviving my work on time in videogames and re-exploring the Deleuzian discussion on state-spaces and singularities. While thinking about these, I cannot help reflecting how my past week has been spent in and otherwise affected by in-between spaces.
First of all, after an intense period of gaming, this prolonged departure from my various game spaces does not let me figure out properly where I really am. Not being anymore in Mosale Seto or City 17, I now have enough time to struggle with my identity in RL. These last few days have been spent in constant movement and many times I have ended up with adventures in the interstitial worlds and (non)spaces.
(non)space experience One
For me, the whole sleepy town of Magdeburg was such a (non)space. Most people I met at the station were there as if on sufferance - just to change trains or on a day-job. Most of them didn't like the place and were surprised that I did. However, even I kept feeling that I was somewhere unreal and fluid: Magdeburg with its bomb-scarred history and its rebuilding by the Soviet architects seemed for me an in-between space that was also suspended between times. I didn't do any sightseeing but the two landmarks that I looked at were quite revealing. The imposing Gothic cathedral with archaelogical excavations right in the middle of it and its huge windows absolutely devoid of the coloured light of stained glass, was quite a strange experience for me. Here, I hardly felt like Henri Lefevbre's cathedral space. Going further down the street in Magdeburg, one comes across what's called the Hundertwasserhaus. Unlike what I stupidly thought, the place has nothing to do with water at all, it's named after Friedensreich Hundertwasser, the architect who disliked using straight angular lines. The Magdeburg version (there is another one in Vienna) is strangely colourful and fluid; it reminded me of fairy-tale houses all the way from Hansel and Gretel and Baba-Yaga. I'm not sure whether anyone lives there and wouldn't be surprised if no one did, especially after having visited such a 'non-space' building, the Hawa Mahal (literally 'the air house') in Jaipur, India.
(non)space experience Two
The most interesting parts of conferences for me are the smoking breaks and the coffee breaks. In Magdeburg, it was the same. One memorable experience was when Patrick Rueckdeschel and I played truant and simply went off for a drink. The result was an interesting exchange on Bateson and metacommunication and me having to kill my hangover with aspirin and sparkling water (instead of a drink i had had a good few litres of nice German beer in me)!
The next one was having coffee with Richard Bartle and listening to his description of a Polish truck that went rogue near his local roundabout (different traffic system in the UK, remember). These talks with Richard are never short of entertaining : I now know which game studies academic I should never be asking for a lift and also that the German word for salmon is 'lachs', a fact that Richard in some bizarre magical way figured out without speaking German whereas I couldn't, despite having reached MittelStufe at the Goethe-Institut (a long time ago, admittedly).
The third experience in between the organised interaction of the papers was perhaps my most productive one. I managed to find Michael Nitsche alone and talk to him about my Deleuzian take on time in videogames. There were some problems that Michael brought up, especially in relation to adventure games, regarding my theory of game events as actualisations of a 'real virtuality' (see Manuel DeLanda's explanation in Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy or read my article in Writing Technologies, for a simplified explanation). He brought me back to the moot question of whether repeating the same steps to solve the same puzzle in a gameplay instance still constituted a different event. I still think it does - mainly because, as Deleuze says, even as one repeats a series of steps under the influence of one singularity, other singularities in affect the process in varying combinations. For example, even if I am to solve a puzzle-sequence in Myst, following the same process that I had used in my last attempt, it is not exactly the same story -- my reactions to the story also count and a structuralist analysis is not sufficient to account for this. All Myst stories are different but nevertheless they are repetitions because they are Myst. Michael, however, is right about the limitations that such analyses of adventure games might seem to have; i find the new Prince of Persia games as more helpful in understanding these ideas, especially in their meta-commentary on time in videogames.
This is getting rather long and I guess I should stop now about my coffee-break experiences. Before I do, I must mention how I happened to get involved in a debate about meaning and essences. Stephan Guenzel, Niklas Schrape and a lady whose name slips my mind (apologies) were speaking about meaning. In my attempt to support Stephan's excellent summary of Structuralist and Post-Structuralist positions, I ended up declaiming 'there is no meaning'. Indeed, when one looks for meaning in localised spaces, it somehow seems to have slipped away and into the in-between.
(non)space experience Three
Back to Nottingham. Phil Leonard, my supervisor, did a talk at our weekly Brown Bag seminar on Wednesday.
The Brown Bag is a lunchtime talk that happens in between more structured work (yet it is a pretty structured activity itself). Someone somewhere has also thought of placing it on Weds - in the middle of the week and, therefore, again in-between.
Phil was a few minutes late and the rather packed room suddenly came abuzz pretty much like the in-between coffee breaks at the conference. Quite unintentionally, I was picking up snippets of conversation about various issues and it was like the Deleuzian affective space throbbing with the roots of impulses and action and waiting for so much to happen. Phil arrived and started talking about hacking and Hari Kunzru's novel Transmission.
In the novel, Arjun Mehta, an Indian computer programmer seeks a career in the US and instead of arriving in the glory of Silicon Valley, he ends up in run-down pads in California and Chicago, in-between places of waiting. When he finally does make it to a big antivirus company, he gets made redundant shortly afterwards. In a desperate bid to be called back to his job, he writes a powerful computer virus that wrecks information spaces all over the world. Even though he supplies a form of the antivirus solution, his boss appropriates it and does not give him his job back. The novel unfolds in various complicated ways that Phil explores in his paper. Phil sees the protagonist as occupying (non)spaces.
Like the hacker whom Phil defines using theorists like Bruce Sterling and Manuel Castells, the protagonist is shown to be working across boundaries and in the process constantly subverting boundaries. Perhaps, even the term 'working' needs to be questoned here: this is a different definition of 'work'. If I understood him right, Phil sees the hacker as a 'character with unreadable metamorphic properties'; for me, this is like the experience of moving in (note that I don't say 'being in') in-between spaces. After all, as Phil describes him, Arjun Mehta exists only 'between metropoles'. As the paper drew to a close, the buzz started again , albeit somewhat muted - some of the affective impulses would now be actualised. The academics would go back to their teaching and their computers; the students would perhaps go home or to other non-spaces.
I forgot to say that Kunzru devotes quite a bit of his novel to videogames. In fact, Everquest seemingly has a major influence on the ending (non-ending?) of the story ... also, for me, this book's story can be played again and again and again. Perhaps, that's why I am feeling like visiting Far Cry 2 now.
First of all, after an intense period of gaming, this prolonged departure from my various game spaces does not let me figure out properly where I really am. Not being anymore in Mosale Seto or City 17, I now have enough time to struggle with my identity in RL. These last few days have been spent in constant movement and many times I have ended up with adventures in the interstitial worlds and (non)spaces.
(non)space experience One
For me, the whole sleepy town of Magdeburg was such a (non)space. Most people I met at the station were there as if on sufferance - just to change trains or on a day-job. Most of them didn't like the place and were surprised that I did. However, even I kept feeling that I was somewhere unreal and fluid: Magdeburg with its bomb-scarred history and its rebuilding by the Soviet architects seemed for me an in-between space that was also suspended between times. I didn't do any sightseeing but the two landmarks that I looked at were quite revealing. The imposing Gothic cathedral with archaelogical excavations right in the middle of it and its huge windows absolutely devoid of the coloured light of stained glass, was quite a strange experience for me. Here, I hardly felt like Henri Lefevbre's cathedral space. Going further down the street in Magdeburg, one comes across what's called the Hundertwasserhaus. Unlike what I stupidly thought, the place has nothing to do with water at all, it's named after Friedensreich Hundertwasser, the architect who disliked using straight angular lines. The Magdeburg version (there is another one in Vienna) is strangely colourful and fluid; it reminded me of fairy-tale houses all the way from Hansel and Gretel and Baba-Yaga. I'm not sure whether anyone lives there and wouldn't be surprised if no one did, especially after having visited such a 'non-space' building, the Hawa Mahal (literally 'the air house') in Jaipur, India.
(non)space experience Two
The most interesting parts of conferences for me are the smoking breaks and the coffee breaks. In Magdeburg, it was the same. One memorable experience was when Patrick Rueckdeschel and I played truant and simply went off for a drink. The result was an interesting exchange on Bateson and metacommunication and me having to kill my hangover with aspirin and sparkling water (instead of a drink i had had a good few litres of nice German beer in me)!
The next one was having coffee with Richard Bartle and listening to his description of a Polish truck that went rogue near his local roundabout (different traffic system in the UK, remember). These talks with Richard are never short of entertaining : I now know which game studies academic I should never be asking for a lift and also that the German word for salmon is 'lachs', a fact that Richard in some bizarre magical way figured out without speaking German whereas I couldn't, despite having reached MittelStufe at the Goethe-Institut (a long time ago, admittedly).
The third experience in between the organised interaction of the papers was perhaps my most productive one. I managed to find Michael Nitsche alone and talk to him about my Deleuzian take on time in videogames. There were some problems that Michael brought up, especially in relation to adventure games, regarding my theory of game events as actualisations of a 'real virtuality' (see Manuel DeLanda's explanation in Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy or read my article in Writing Technologies, for a simplified explanation). He brought me back to the moot question of whether repeating the same steps to solve the same puzzle in a gameplay instance still constituted a different event. I still think it does - mainly because, as Deleuze says, even as one repeats a series of steps under the influence of one singularity, other singularities in affect the process in varying combinations. For example, even if I am to solve a puzzle-sequence in Myst, following the same process that I had used in my last attempt, it is not exactly the same story -- my reactions to the story also count and a structuralist analysis is not sufficient to account for this. All Myst stories are different but nevertheless they are repetitions because they are Myst. Michael, however, is right about the limitations that such analyses of adventure games might seem to have; i find the new Prince of Persia games as more helpful in understanding these ideas, especially in their meta-commentary on time in videogames.
This is getting rather long and I guess I should stop now about my coffee-break experiences. Before I do, I must mention how I happened to get involved in a debate about meaning and essences. Stephan Guenzel, Niklas Schrape and a lady whose name slips my mind (apologies) were speaking about meaning. In my attempt to support Stephan's excellent summary of Structuralist and Post-Structuralist positions, I ended up declaiming 'there is no meaning'. Indeed, when one looks for meaning in localised spaces, it somehow seems to have slipped away and into the in-between.
(non)space experience Three
Back to Nottingham. Phil Leonard, my supervisor, did a talk at our weekly Brown Bag seminar on Wednesday.
The Brown Bag is a lunchtime talk that happens in between more structured work (yet it is a pretty structured activity itself). Someone somewhere has also thought of placing it on Weds - in the middle of the week and, therefore, again in-between.
Phil was a few minutes late and the rather packed room suddenly came abuzz pretty much like the in-between coffee breaks at the conference. Quite unintentionally, I was picking up snippets of conversation about various issues and it was like the Deleuzian affective space throbbing with the roots of impulses and action and waiting for so much to happen. Phil arrived and started talking about hacking and Hari Kunzru's novel Transmission.
In the novel, Arjun Mehta, an Indian computer programmer seeks a career in the US and instead of arriving in the glory of Silicon Valley, he ends up in run-down pads in California and Chicago, in-between places of waiting. When he finally does make it to a big antivirus company, he gets made redundant shortly afterwards. In a desperate bid to be called back to his job, he writes a powerful computer virus that wrecks information spaces all over the world. Even though he supplies a form of the antivirus solution, his boss appropriates it and does not give him his job back. The novel unfolds in various complicated ways that Phil explores in his paper. Phil sees the protagonist as occupying (non)spaces.
Like the hacker whom Phil defines using theorists like Bruce Sterling and Manuel Castells, the protagonist is shown to be working across boundaries and in the process constantly subverting boundaries. Perhaps, even the term 'working' needs to be questoned here: this is a different definition of 'work'. If I understood him right, Phil sees the hacker as a 'character with unreadable metamorphic properties'; for me, this is like the experience of moving in (note that I don't say 'being in') in-between spaces. After all, as Phil describes him, Arjun Mehta exists only 'between metropoles'. As the paper drew to a close, the buzz started again , albeit somewhat muted - some of the affective impulses would now be actualised. The academics would go back to their teaching and their computers; the students would perhaps go home or to other non-spaces.
I forgot to say that Kunzru devotes quite a bit of his novel to videogames. In fact, Everquest seemingly has a major influence on the ending (non-ending?) of the story ... also, for me, this book's story can be played again and again and again. Perhaps, that's why I am feeling like visiting Far Cry 2 now.
Games and Cultures Conference, Magdeburg 2009
I've just come back from the 'Games and Cultures' Conference at Magdeburg, Germany. Almost a year ago, I had gone to the 'Games and Philosophy' Conference in Potsdam, also in Germany and I had thoroughly enjoyed it. The Magdeburg conference was a mixed bag, though. Some of the papers were on pedagogy and therefore, were not my cup of tea. Some others were in German and therefore, too difficult for me to understand (with my very limited German). Of those that remained, I enjoyed a few and quite unusually for me, I even asked many questions.
I mainly went for three keynote papers: Richard Bartle's, Tanya Krzywinska's and Michael Nitsche's. I missed Michael's because I had to catch a cheap flight home (all my expenses were paid out of my meagre bank balance) but I greatly liked the other two.
Richard spoke on morality in MMOs and how players often cross the designer-created boundaries because of their own sense of morality. What I particularly found interesting was the new focus on moral dilemmas set by game-designers vis-a-vis the interesting moral responses of the players. I remembered reading on Boing Boing about a parent who made his son follow the Geneva Convention while playing COD4 - RB made a similar point ... well, he didn't mention parents and COD4 but the Geneva Convention and the morality of torture in games was quite interesting to hear about. Incidentally, I am still asking myself the question about whether I play STALKER morally or whether I do things to gain XP (experience)? I'm not sure Richard has quite answered this question for us ... for me, he's certainly raised it.
Tanya Krzywinska's paper on the 'Mis-appearance of Sex in Videogames' showed how in various implicit ways sex had a major presence in gameplay. The lithe body and movements of Altair (Assassin's Creed), the buxom Lara and the muscular Beowulf are all testimony to the deep sexual elements that are present in videogames. I've seen the Assassin's Creed video many a time, but I had never noticed the phallic elements in it ; nor had I connected the eros to the thanatos present in the game - as Tanya commented, even death was sexy in the game.
There were other papers that i was quite impressed with - even though I did not agree with all of them. The one I liked most was Patrick Rueckdeschel's paper exploring the depths of Batesonian metacommunication in videogames. Bateson and Goffman have received some attention already in videogame textbooks; my own thesis explores their theories in terms of videogames, in further detail. Patrick, however, is out to do much more. What I really liked about his presentation was the introduction to Sergeant Star of America's Army. Star glibly comments that death should not be a major deterrent to people joining the army. Apparently, all jobs have an equal risk of death. At which, Richard Bartle quipped that he didn't know that being a lecturer was such a deadly job. Besides Patrick's paper, I heard a few others that were of interest to me --- on perception, on the wii and involvement (though I thought that the theory behind it was rather under-developed) and emotions in videogames.
My own paper was a close-reading of the STALKER games - i focused on identity and did a literary analysis of the games. I have always seen identity as a process and not as a given in which the holes are plugged in after events happen to us. For me, this is what the term 'first-person shooter' misses; 'Egoshooter' , the implications of which were suggested to me by Mark Butler quite does the job. In my paper, I use Deleuze to develop Mark's idea and do a literary analysis of videogames. I was asked whether I chose the STALKER games because they made my point so well. 'Course I did. While I fully agree that videogame analyses can yield a general theory of videogames (as mine does about identity and subjectivity), I also feel the need to read/play videogames as separate texts rather than clubbing them together under any unwieldy term. That's what I've been doing so far and you will see more of it in 'Ludus Ex'.
I mainly went for three keynote papers: Richard Bartle's, Tanya Krzywinska's and Michael Nitsche's. I missed Michael's because I had to catch a cheap flight home (all my expenses were paid out of my meagre bank balance) but I greatly liked the other two.
Richard spoke on morality in MMOs and how players often cross the designer-created boundaries because of their own sense of morality. What I particularly found interesting was the new focus on moral dilemmas set by game-designers vis-a-vis the interesting moral responses of the players. I remembered reading on Boing Boing about a parent who made his son follow the Geneva Convention while playing COD4 - RB made a similar point ... well, he didn't mention parents and COD4 but the Geneva Convention and the morality of torture in games was quite interesting to hear about. Incidentally, I am still asking myself the question about whether I play STALKER morally or whether I do things to gain XP (experience)? I'm not sure Richard has quite answered this question for us ... for me, he's certainly raised it.
Tanya Krzywinska's paper on the 'Mis-appearance of Sex in Videogames' showed how in various implicit ways sex had a major presence in gameplay. The lithe body and movements of Altair (Assassin's Creed), the buxom Lara and the muscular Beowulf are all testimony to the deep sexual elements that are present in videogames. I've seen the Assassin's Creed video many a time, but I had never noticed the phallic elements in it ; nor had I connected the eros to the thanatos present in the game - as Tanya commented, even death was sexy in the game.
There were other papers that i was quite impressed with - even though I did not agree with all of them. The one I liked most was Patrick Rueckdeschel's paper exploring the depths of Batesonian metacommunication in videogames. Bateson and Goffman have received some attention already in videogame textbooks; my own thesis explores their theories in terms of videogames, in further detail. Patrick, however, is out to do much more. What I really liked about his presentation was the introduction to Sergeant Star of America's Army. Star glibly comments that death should not be a major deterrent to people joining the army. Apparently, all jobs have an equal risk of death. At which, Richard Bartle quipped that he didn't know that being a lecturer was such a deadly job. Besides Patrick's paper, I heard a few others that were of interest to me --- on perception, on the wii and involvement (though I thought that the theory behind it was rather under-developed) and emotions in videogames.
My own paper was a close-reading of the STALKER games - i focused on identity and did a literary analysis of the games. I have always seen identity as a process and not as a given in which the holes are plugged in after events happen to us. For me, this is what the term 'first-person shooter' misses; 'Egoshooter' , the implications of which were suggested to me by Mark Butler quite does the job. In my paper, I use Deleuze to develop Mark's idea and do a literary analysis of videogames. I was asked whether I chose the STALKER games because they made my point so well. 'Course I did. While I fully agree that videogame analyses can yield a general theory of videogames (as mine does about identity and subjectivity), I also feel the need to read/play videogames as separate texts rather than clubbing them together under any unwieldy term. That's what I've been doing so far and you will see more of it in 'Ludus Ex'.
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