{"id":115,"date":"2007-04-28T11:22:47","date_gmt":"2007-04-28T15:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/vvvv\/2007\/04\/28\/mit-games-and-play\/"},"modified":"2007-05-01T11:00:46","modified_gmt":"2007-05-01T15:00:46","slug":"mit-games-and-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/vvvv\/2007\/04\/28\/mit-games-and-play\/","title":{"rendered":"MiT \/ Games and Play"},"content":{"rendered":"

Benjamin J Robertson, Architecture and Control: \u201cNatural\u201d Constraints on Cultural Production in the Networked Society — Not sure what this has to do with Games and Play, but the basic idea appears to be a modification of Lessig’s “Code is Law”: natural law as constraining materialist (or in Lessig’s case, code) law. <\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Dan Roy, Constructing Identities of Mastery in Games<\/a>: Games emphasize mastery — better than other media: help us see and overcome challenges.<\/p>\n

What motivates mastery?
\n1. Personal relevancy: choice, engagement
\n2. Personal visibility: measurable
\n3. Social relevance: mastery obvious to group
\n4. Social visibility: opportunities for group to see individual mastery<\/p>\n

MMORPGs as an example: “Leveling up” as a proxy measure of increased mastery. However, it’s only a measure of time, not mastery — thesis argues that there should be such a measure.<\/p>\n

cf. Natural Born Cyborgs about the nature of self. (postmodern “soft” self)<\/p>\n

Going to different selves to feel differently, e.g. adopt a self to feel masterful. [Is this why games are addictive?]. cf. Castronova’s concept of migration: “People will go where things are best for them.” Except that migration implies a one-way move. Today, a flexibility to move back and forth that’s less possible in the real.<\/p>\n

What a great presentation: Dan was clear, used personal anecdotes\/illustration, had a point to make. Dan’s also got a great blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

McKenzie Wark, Gamer Theory<\/a> (or “G4M3R 7H30RY”)<\/p>\n

Existing studies seem focused on formalism, “ludology,” how do we secure this study?<\/p>\n

Wark is interested in a critical theory:<\/p>\n

1. World seems increasingly an unfair game. Whereas single-player games have a level playing field, “quasi-Utopian.” Rather than less, it’s in fact the world in a more perfect form — can hold this world to account for what it does not deliver.<\/p>\n

2. Games as objects, not just a reiteration of cinema. Chose arbitrary games based on ability to see theory, including a “boring game.”<\/p>\n

3. SimEarth: What is not quantifiable. What is cannot be modeled. What will be excluded?<\/p>\n

4. SimEarth: It is a game you cannot win — the best you can do is get humans to blast off. It’s the “limit case” of the digital: a remainder that will come back to haunt us.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

QUESTIONS<\/p>\n

Gamer vs. Hacker: Work is now play, play is now work (you gotta be creative!). Contrast WoW — you pay to labor.<\/p>\n

Presumptive irrelevance of race (de-racinated spaces): Dan purposefully side-stepped this issue in the thesis. Game spaces allow taking on a different race + potentially experience that… though then the assumptions break down about race? Ed. Arcade’s game “labyrinth” avoiding race, or even style (e.g. inserting “cool kids”). McEnzie: studying relationship among races, not just 1-to-1 mapping onto human races.<\/p>\n

If games are Utopian, can they give us leverage?<\/p>\n

[Look up recent paper of leadership] Ben Stokes: Can you get ‘certification’ of WoW guild master to real-life leadership. Dan: Rehearsal for real-world job market. Ben: Can we help these players translate these skills into jobs? Dan: Maybe a future of a unified identity that can from world to world, WoW to Facebook to blog…<\/p>\n

A game designers’ perspective: imperative to make things “fun” — McEnzie: “fun” not thinkable (cf. Raph Koster) but rather opposite of boredom. Boredom is a constant referral to a self that cannot act. Fun is by definition something you think about as you’re doing it.<\/p>\n

OK now we’ve wandered into philosophy of fun… and now we’re in game… and now fun… ok that’s a lot of theory that’s just blown by.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Benjamin J Robertson, Architecture and Control: \u201cNatural\u201d Constraints on Cultural Production in the Networked Society — Not sure what this has to do with Games and Play, but the basic idea appears to be a modification of Lessig’s “Code is Law”: natural law as constraining materialist (or in Lessig’s case, code) law. *** Dan Roy, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":271,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1492],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pedagogy-multimedia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/vvvv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/vvvv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/vvvv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/vvvv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/271"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/vvvv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/vvvv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/vvvv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/vvvv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/vvvv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}