Games: November 2005 Archive Page

All of the professors interviewed agreed that the Civ3 gods created a universe in which war goes a long way. The gods, of course, are the game designers who determine the algorithms by which history, in the game, will progress. So in order for the game to accurately portray the inputs that spit out world history, the game designers had “better create a damn complex algorithm,” says Alexander Galloway, an assistant professor of culture and communication at New York University who used Civ3 in a media studies graduate seminar. “The game doesn’t progress the same way [as human history],” Galloway says, noting that a player controlling Russia would essentially have to pick one form of government and stick with it. “I’m sure there are lower level history textbooks that are reductive too.” --Not Just Child’s Play (Inside Higher Ed)

While it's certainly true that all simulations are reductive, it's not true that a player in Civ3 would have to stick to one form of government. Players start out with "Despotism," but after they have researched such things as "Literacy" and "Code of Laws," they have the option to research -- and switch to -- more advanced forms of government like "Republic," "Monarchy," "Democracy" and "Communism." Each form of government comes with benefits and drawbacks, and just because you're playing Russia doesn't mean you have to move from Monarchy to Communism when the game reaches the 20th century. Each civilization starts out with a slightly different set of resources, and each civilization gets a specific military unit that is superior to the similar class units in other nations.

Don't write the sentence "There has been very little research done on games" in any more papers or articles or theses and essays UNLESS you also have a full bibliography that cites those few existing works. I don't care how many authorities you cite who may have written those words quite recently. Because yes, gamestudies is a new field, and therefore does not have entire library shelves to themselves, like literary studies. However, if the amount of articles and books you have to read to be able to understand the width of the field is so small, it is pretty lazy scholarly work - sloppy craft, simply - not to have read them all. --Torill Mortensen --Please, PLEASE stop (Thinking with my fingers)

Just trying to send a little link love Torill's way.

Comments published in a CNN article yesterday purporting to be from Sony CEO Howard Stringer regarding the planned pricing for PlayStation 3 have been removed after it emerged that he had not said anything on the question.

[...]

So where did the information come from, then? The culprit appears to be a Hollywood Reporter article on another interview with Stringer, which appeared a few weeks ago and also appeared to attribute pricing and availability information to the Sony CEO.

However, on closer inspection, the article was actually citing an anonymous source within Sony - a fine detail which the CNN article apparently missed, setting the whole rumour mill rolling once again. --CNN drops PS3 price story as Stringer comments are confuted  (Games Industry)

Via Bobby Kuchenmeister, a former student of mine, and a regular commenter, who finally got a blog. Hooray!

From the beginning of any playthrough of the game, the author knows what things happen when, why they happen and what they mean. They even know things that don't appear in the game at all. By contrast, the player knows only what they've seen so far, plus anything they guess or speculate (which may well be totally wrong). The rest of this article talks about some specific problems caused by clashes between these two mindsets, and how, as an author, to create a better game by thinking more like a player. Some of the things I mention overlap with things I've discussed previously in my How to Write a Great Game article; if you're interested in seeing more design discussion from me I suggest reading that. Thanks is also due to Stephen Granade's article The Player Will Get It Wrong, which covers a number of the same issues I discuss here, from the perspective of one specific author and several games. --Dan Shiovitz --Think Like a Player! ( Home Page for Dan Shiovitz)

--2005 IF Comp Results

Vespers, Beyond, and A New Life are the winners of IF Comp 2005. Woo hoo! Free text games!

The driver of the police van starts to pull out, momentarily blocking your view of Ide and the protestors. The two young men behind you come forward for a closer look.

"Did Tony just give her the finger?" asks the young man in the sweatshirt.

"I don't blame him," says the second young man.

As you move to a new position, you pass near the young man wearing the sweatshirt.

You glance at your watch and notice that court will be in session in a few minutes. You know that you've got a seat reserved, but you know judge Dickerson doesn't like people coming into his courtroom late. Given all the noise out here, the judge might be in a bad mood.

Do you

A) Talk to the young men
B) Talk to the woman with the megaphone
C) Head right into the courtroom

[In class Friday, you will be given the next chunk of the story.] --Lab: Court Reporting (EL 227: News Writing)

I'm in the process of creating a "Choose Your Own Adventure" exercise for a courtroom reporting exercise in my News Writing class.

Tomorrow morning, I'm going to hand students a packet of information based on the choices they make. There will be a few other quick choices, then when the court breaks for lunch, they'll have an hour to write up their notes.

When court reconvenes, I'll shift into role-play mode, and I'll perform for them what happens in the courtroom.

They'll have to take notes on this sequence, and incorporate these events into the story that's due at the end of the lab.

Wish me luck!

Still, when asked what art forms speak the most to us, games don't rank at the top. Ranked 1 to 6, where 1 is the most emotional, the order was: movies, music, books, video/PC games, paintings/artwork, and last cars. (OK, so I have a thing for cars?)

Heavy gamers have more of a feeling for movies. Lighter and younger gamers are more moved by music.

For genres, I thought MMOs would top the list, but RPGs are the runaway winner ? by far the most emotional genre of videogames. --Hugh Bowen --Can Videogames Make You Cry? (bowenresearch.com)

This is a teaser article, advertising a full-length report. While I'm very interested in the subject, journalists should be careful of how they use this kind of study.

Was the study peer-reviewed? What was the methodology? What is the author's purpose in publishing it (and selling copies on his eponymous website)?

I'll have to look into the death of Aeries from Final Fantasy VII. Interactive fiction fans seem to place the fate of Floyd the robot (from Infocom's 1983 Planetfall) in the same category.

Serious Games Summit DC 2005, Day 2A Debate Between Jan Cannon-Bowers and Marc Prensky (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

Do we need instructional design in serious games, or is making a good game enough? This debate is part of an ongoing turf battle within the serious games movement.

As is generally the case with conference liveblogging, these are lightly-edited notes, and shouldn't be taken as a verbatim, authoritative transcript.

Perry McDowell gave the introduction. Developer of "Delta 3D," an open-source games engine.

If games can train and educate without putting pedagogy into it, why waste time/money in it?

If games can't train without instructional design, the results can be scary ("negative training effects").

In the 80s, regarding AI, "Mouths made promises that brains couldn't keep." The result was "the AI winter" -- money for AI research dried up as a result of dissatisfaction with early attempts.

In the 90s, the same thing happened with VR. Serious Games is providing a reprieve for VR researchers. But if we can't show hard evidence that SG doesn't train people better, faster, cheaper, then before long Serious Games will be five guys drinking beer remembering the old days, while, the rest of us will be at the "Hula-hoops for Education Conference."

"We don't want Serious Games to be on the scrapheap of history" along with the pet rock. (Hmmm?. if serious games isn't any good, then why shouldn't it be discarded when the next thing comes along? The argument is predicated on the assumption that serious games do work. He's suggesting the issue is to preserve funding for serious games, not to solve the problems that most of us in this room assume serious games will solve.)

Jan Cannon-Bowers and Marc Prensky; two smart, very well-educated people who have almost diametrically opposing positions on the issue.

Contextualizing the start of the deabate, which started at another conference (sorry, I didn't catch that detail).

Marc -- teachers are basically babysitters, under certain circumstances we can get rid of teachers.

Jan -- "Marc, I could almost defend you until you went off the deep end."

The moderator helpfully contextualized the debate with Jerry Springer and Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots slides, and Dan Ackroyd's famous Saturday Night Live retort, "Jane, you ignorant slut."

So clearly, this debate was staged as entertainment, with the two participants ready to attack each other intellectally.

Jan Cannon-Bowers

Do we need pedagogy in educational games? Of course we do! What moron would think otherwise? Why is "pedagogy" a bad word? Gamers are afraid that pedagogy represents this noose we're going to put around their necks and tighten it to crush out all their creative juice. She suggests that it will be an interesting mix and culture clash. Learning doesn't have to be "fun" in order to be successful. Would you say everything you learned was fun? We can all recall cases in which we were so motivated to learn that we overcame bad instructional environments.

Should we try to make learning fun? Sure! If fun is one way to elevate motivation, then why not? Positive feelings about training -- "I liked it or didn't like it." There's a threshold below which no learning is happening, but does learning have to be "fun" in order to be effective? There's a point at which, once a certain threshold of comfort has been reached, there is little correlation between comfort and learning.

Besides fun, we should also consider that training is interesting, engaging, useful, challenging, fulfilling, and otherwise motivating. If we don't incorporate pedagogy, learning effectiveness is hit or miss (at best).

Jan would prefer that her doctor, mechanic, etc, be trained on a solid system that does its job, and she doesn't care whether they have fun in the process.


Marc Prensky

Had difficulty getting his laptop started. Heckled from the audience -- "Are you having fun?" Marc admitted that he should have tested it, and admitted "There's probably pedagogy involved in testing." The moderator jumped up and joked that the debate was over, Jan cried, "I won!"

To fill time, Jan fielded a question from the audience? what's the difference between enjoyable and fun? She replied that that's splitting hairs, but noted that people may go through an experience where they are sweating bullets, and then look back afterwards and say, "That was fun!"

When the laptop was ready, Marc sarted saying, "Sure sure sure sure." Began with a joke definition of pedagogy -- peda = "foot," gogy = "gouge" -- gagging on your foot in your mouth.

"Whenever you add an instructional designer, the first thing they do is suck the fun out."

Showed a list of 12 activities (trying, deciding, observing. etc.). You need motivation in order to get people to do those 12 things.

Will Wright --If a learner is motivated, there's no stopping him.

Effort for learning can feel like work, but can also feel like play. Learning feels like play when you have the engagement, motivation and passion -- and that should be our number one priority. The main reason you do all these things is to get people to finish the training you've invested your energy in.

A good chart

Curriculum Design v Game Design

Focus: Content vs. Engagement
Mode: Presentations vs. Gameplay
Decisions: Rare vs. Frequent and Important

Negative Training -- the instructional designer's way of instilling fear. "the herpes of training"

("Serious Games" is a subset of games for educational purposes. A term for a subset of education that focuses on enjoyment is "Fun Pedagogy.")

Jan of game designers -- "I don't trust you!" (guffaws). When asked to clarify, she said she didn't trust the instinct of game designers to be able to deliver the content that, for example, helps a pilot to fly a plane, without the help of instructional designers.

(Makes me think of Plato's Ion, the dialogue with a rhapsode who says that he is qualified to act the role of a general because he knows what a general would do or say.)

When asked how a pilot in a "fun" simulation would learn the details, Marc said "RTFM." Someone from the audience asked "Who wrote the FM?"

Marc -- we need good instructional strategies. "If they were good instructional strategies, they wouldn't suck the fun out." We've learned a lot about the world of Norrath, such that if there were a real world of Norrath, it could be validated.

Jan -- design is about making decisions. "I don't think the typical gamer who's not gotten some extensive exposure is going to make the appropriate design decisions."

Marc -- suggested that instead of starting from the beginning that instead you started in the middle, repairing an interesting thing that's broken, rather that creating something from scratch without a sense of how it all works.

Jan notes that moving from simulation to games, you need new, modern models of instruction that can accommodate immersive environments.

Ricardo Rademacher, who was sitting behind me in the audience, pointed to the slide on which Marc had displayed "Whenever you add an instructional designer, the first thing they do is suck the fun out," and noted that you could turn that around. "Whenever you add a game designer, they suck the learning out," and argued that's precisely what happened in the 90s with "edutainment software."

In the last few minutes of the panel, amidst much laughter and zipping-up of laptop cases, when Marc tried to get the crowd to join his rallying cry of "Let's not suck the fun out," Ricardo and I cried, "Let's not suck!"

In a parting shot, the moderator asked the crowd how many of them had changed their minds based on what they had seen. Predictably, nobody raised their hands.

Overall, I thought the whole premise -- do we need pedagogy at all -- gave Jan an uphill battle. Imagine, if you will, in the alternate universe, instead of "Serious Games Summit," a "Fun Pedagogy Summit."

What chance would a game designer have there?

Well, that's it -- time to publish this and head over to the reception. I'm driving back to Pennsylvania tonight.

Serious Games Summit DC 2005, Day 2Paul Marino: Machinima: Using Games to Change Filmmaking and Instructional Video (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

Executive Director, Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences
Author of The Art of Machinima

The presentation was a brief introduction to a demonsration of clips, many of which I've seen, so it wasn't as immediately informative as I had initially expected. Still, a useful focal point for many different issues. Marino began by defining machinima as “the intersection of filmmaking, animation and interactive/game technologies,” ended by calling it “the democratization of animated filmmaking/storytelling.”

What follows are my hastily typed notes. I kind of shut my brain off and just watched the clips, so this entry will be a little thin.

Capturing live action, even if it takes place in a virtual world, is a kind of filmmaking.

Cinema + Moore’s Law = Machinima

Quake Movies – The Rangers – created “Diary of a Camper,” a silent film with text-chatting dialogue, created by capturing the actions of players in the multi-player environment. The term “Quake movie” persisted for a while, but since it was being created within different games, a new term was needed.

Term coined in 1998 by Hugh Hancock and Anthony Bailey. (Machine + cinema, with the misspelled ending being part of an e-mail communication.)

Clive Thompson, NYT, noted that machinima is not just about creating an animated movie, but also permits game players “to comment directly on the pop culture they so devotedly consume.”

Machinima Clip Screening

“Apartment Huntin’”
“Warthog Jump”
”My Trip to Liberty City” -- “Almost a travelogue, in a Woody Allen kind of way.”
(Played the clip from the beginning to the joke about not really playing baseball.) (The same author also created a great short film on a text adventure theme.)

Visionary Machinima

“Anna” – lifecycle of a wildflower.
“The Journey” -- abstract, arthouse film, medium of expression.

Dance Videos: Keep of Movin’

“Let’s Get Started”
”Shut up and Dance”

Episodic Machinima
“Popular, and to a certain extent profitable.”
Red vs. Blue – five-person team that supports themselves, a million downloads per episode, over three years.
“Strangerhood Studios,” based on Sims 2.
“Cyborg Altar Boy”

New Building Blocks: Machinima Gets Crafty

In machinima it’s hard to do drama, easy to do comedy (the reverse of Hollywood)
Half-life 2’s Faceposer.

Marino’s clip… Presented the G-man singing in a music video.
“Robes”
“A Few Good G-Men”

(As soon as I get the chance, I’ll add links to sources for all these clips.)

Marino noted that Pixar films take two or three minutes per frame to reander, but today’s machinima creators are taking advantage of the real-time rendering tools that their computers and consoles possess. We’re reaching the point where creating these films don’t take nearly as much time as it used to take. Are we in the “Age of Ubiquitous Creativity”?

The talk really didn't have much to say at all about instructional filmmaking, even though that was part of the title. Overall, I'd say the audience was impressed; a crowd of about 20 people were around the speaker at the end of the presentation -- that's generally a good sign.

Serious Games Summit DC 2005, Day 2Derek Wischusen: Expanding Teachable Moments in Serious Games using AI (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

Began with a useful grid that recognizes that realism is not the only way to evaluate a game, and that realistic games are not the only kind of training games out there.

Wischusen presented two binary pairs:

Fun/Training
and
Realistic/Unrealistic

Goal: Fun -> Training

(I like the recognition that realism is one option, but there are many ways to be “unrealistic,” just as there are many ways to be nonwhite or un-American. Expressionism, impressionism, romanticism, abastraction etc. are all artistic alternatives to realism.)

Key messages:

Training isn’t “just in time” or “just in case”
Simulation isn’t training
Networks, virtual environments, games, process measures are not training


Training is “relevant practice with feedback”

Assessment and Feedback

Simulation/game provides the practice environment. Practice alone does not make perfect. Intelligent assessment and feedback is essential for effective training to occur.

Perfect practice makes perfect. To learn how to do it correctly, you need assessment and feedback to tell you when you’re not doing it correctly.

While the good instructor is always the best source of training, there are rarely enough instructors to meet training needs; and never enough to provide one-on-one training.

(Hmm… A embedded assumption is that one-on-one training is best.. but “best” is a value statement. If you factor in ROI, then one-on-one instruction may be inefficient. Are all instructors “good” at one-on-one training? The reference to a “good” instructor is sort of begging the question. )

The system can do pre-testing to identify the knowledge you bring into the system, personalizing the delivery according to the needs of the learner.

“Cognitive fidelity is as important as graphical fidelity for both training quality and end-user acceptance.” (Hmm… that phrasing privileges graphical fidelity, but the speaker noted that not all training simulations requires that kind of fidelity.)

Presentation of Virtual Interactive Pattern Environment and Radiocomms Simulator (VIPERS) – an Air Force Research Laboratory project designed to give student pilots practice performing a labor-intensive landing procedure. Typically simulated with a duct tape pattern on the floor, with the students calling out their status and responding to commands as the routine requires. A technique better practiced on the ground, but students have limited access to fancy simulators.

(Hooray – in an aside the presenter noted that 2D environments can provide just as good results as rich 3D simulations, and cautioned the assumption that realistic graphics are always the best option.)

Synthetic Teammates for Realtime Anywhere Training and Assessment (STRATA)

DARWARS – offers a massively multiplayer online war, that permits different training systems to plug into it. Emphasizes “headwork” (teamwork, not flying skills).

Giving the trainee a situation that contains an error; will the trainee note that the setup information contains an error that makes accomplishing the goal impossible.

AI agents should occasionally make errors, since people do make errors in the field. That’s part of the “realism” in the training environment.

Virtual Environment Cultural Training for Operational Readiness (VECTOR)

Building a 3D environment that teaches soldiers to interact with people in a foreign environment, so that the locals are more interested in helping the soldiers than hurting them. The AI agents respond to trainee actions based on the emotional state of the agent, according to rules determined by cultural subject-matter experts. Within the exercise is a synthetic instructor, who gives objectives, provides feedback on both military and cultural protocols. The training involves interacting with the locals, getting important information while following cultural rules.

VIGILANCE – HazMat training, skilled support personnel (SSP) who assist the first responders. They may operate heavy machinery. The concern is that our SSP haven’t been trained to assist an EMT during a HazMat response.

Serious Games Summit DC 2005, Day II (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

(See also Serious Games Summit DC 2005, Day 1)

Keynote: David Warner
Riding the Cutting Edge of Distributed Intelligence

Sande Chen and David Michael
Beyond Q & A: Assessment Methods for the Next Generation of Serious Games

Derek Wischusen
Expanding Teachable Moments in Serious Games using AI

Paul Marinio
Machinima: Using Games to Change Filmmaking and Instructional Video

Jan Cannon-Bowers, Perry McDowell and Mark Prensky
The Role of Pedagogy and Educational Design in Serious Games