TAG - Latest Comments

Re: The Silver Lining

want to get pregnant — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 12:23:21 -0000

The Gophers women's basketball team has one last chance to put a silver lining on one of the program's worst seasons in a decade. Big Ten tournament play begins tonight in Indianapolis, and Minnesota will be trying to capture

Re: Global Game Jam

Bart — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 14:47:35 -0000

Jason Della Rocca has a review with some pics - http://www.realitypanic.com/ar.... Here is also a nice blog post on game jam from game studies scholar Casey O'Donnel - http://www.caseyodonnell.org/b...

Re: The Silver Lining

brisbane seo — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 04:08:47 -0000

Continuing its record-breaking spree, silver prices shot to hit a new high of Rs 50699 per kg. Continuing its record-breaking spree on the back of firming trend overseas, silver futures prices shot up by over 2 per cent to hit a new high of Rs 50699 ...

Re: The Silver Lining

brisbane seo — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 04:08:01 -0000

“It is a big silver lining. A very thick silver lining.” Public response to the sudden influx Monday of 75 designer dogs drew more volunteers than the building could hold Tuesday while the dogs were bathed, groomed and checked by a vet. ...

Re: TAG GDC Scholarship Recepients

Cindy — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 16:15:46 -0000

It's amazing that Concordia/TAG has TWO people going! Congrats.

Re: Party of Sin in the Mirror

Alex — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 12:29:09 -0000

Thanks for the support!

Re: Montreal Street Fighter

Darklyte510 — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 10:16:27 -0000

Hmmm.... I wonder if that student was me lol. We now meet at MTLSF HQ on de Gaspé (near laurier metro) and sometimes Foonzo Café (a pretty awesome new chillout place made for geeks of all creeds) on the corner of Drummond and St-Cath :)

Re: Life on the Frontier….Ville

Kelly_Boudreau — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 11:11:00 -0000

I will send you list making instructions in FB message.

As for the preview - I have never logged in through disqus BEFORE writing my reply, I usually do it in the allocated box, then when I go to post, it asks what account I want to use. I click disqus, hit login and it publishes. It's not so bad though that there is an edit button ;-)

Re: Life on the Frontier….Ville

Bart — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 10:59:35 -0000

oh yeah... excellent comments. I am a total facebook newb -- how do I create the lists of FV friends because I am sick of spamming to get my thanksgiving thing done?

Can't you preview your comments in Discus?

Re: Life on the Frontier….Ville

Kelly_Boudreau — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 10:03:25 -0000

I found that far too often, the quests were unattainable with my small group of friends - I would start them, but rarely finish. So I am a solo player these days. I will happily help friends with their quests when asked, but I got tired of the failure.

Speaking of which, wish you could have come to my Facebook game talk at the Reliquaire last spring, part of it was about breaking down what elements made the games actually compelling to many (aging) gamers (re: mmo style gameplay) and its link to the casualness of the game - and as you mentioned in your post - the ability to weave gameplay almost seamlessly into one's everyday life (and there was a pretty decent discussion in a room full of non-believers!).

As people increasingly look towards studying the phenomena of FB games, my question is - seeing so many people come to the same conclusions (have tons of refs / links if you want /need) - honing in on the same few interesting 'bits', is FB games research a 'one trick pony'? Is there more to it than breaking down why they are compelling (and to whom); why we justify / rationalize why they are played in the first place? The role that 'friends' play in the advancement of the game (exploitation versus collaboration) ... do these games warrant other forms of inquiry? Is there room for broader and deeper exploration and analysis?

...oh and a side note - what I find funny is that you say you would not friend someone simply for the advancement of Frontierville (or other game du jour), but I imagine you would run a PUG no problem in WoW to get a quest done... forget for a minute that there is value placed on each form of 'social' game play, but in the end, it is the same thing - playing with strangers to get ahead .... is it that it is tied to your profile and personal info that you are hesitant? Is it that the value you place on the gameplay is different, so you are less apt to ask strangers? What if you could solely add FB game friends (which is technically possible since you can make lists and restrict access to certain 'friends'' - i used to have lists of friends who played the game and only send game related requests to that list instead of 'spamming' all my non-playing friends). I could throw out 20 more questions that I have been mulling through since spring, but I will let it be for now. However, I think these types of questions are an interesting direction to go in instead of from within the games themselves imo.

Oh - and can we get a preview function for comments pretty please!!

Re: Nostalgia again… don’t fence me in

Bart — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 10:49:04 -0000

somebody asked me so... the picture there is Jack Kelly who played Bart Maverick. He was only occasionally in episodes and usually not as a gun slinger but more of a card shark who gets his brother Bret (James Garner) into loads of trouble. The Bret-Bart banter was famous and made for some excellent poker table scenes -- so much wasted potential for this in RDR (though I did enjoy my first game of horseshoes for a buck last night).

Re: Nostalgia again… don’t fence me in

Wbarobinson — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 11:36:43 -0000

When you first get to Mexico, and the music plays in the storm, head west and stay on the road and on your horse... I was never able to recreate that moment, but it was so beautiful I almost cried. When it ended I could not figure why this moment had lyrics in it's music, why it was prompted, what caused it to end and why it never reoccured... Also, I hated the bars, I could never do anything meaningful there. I once drank myself to near death, but none of the prostitutes would talk to me, I kept accidentally knocking people over and while the gambling games were fun for a while, the NPCs repeat themselves too frequently and no narrative progression really happens over cards, something that should be easy to do, given that I am not that distracted as a player.

Re: Nostalgia again… don’t fence me in

Bart — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 11:08:36 -0000

oh as an addendum I found this link - http://frontier1859.com/mmorpg... - a Western MMO in need of a publisher... I am intrigued.

Re: Batman Plays Himself as Wii Avatar

Kelly_Boudreau — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 04:45:35 -0000

Ok -now that I have had my coffee (and it is not 4 in the morning) (and since you cannot read my dissertation today, I will elaborate a bit more).

Indeed you make some very valid points that if I want my work to be original research (as my doctorate should be) and I have to differentiate my work from what has already been done. Of course everyone has the same stuff to build their theories - it's something I always say when myself or a colleague stumble on that perfect paper that seems to say everything we thought we were trying to say – the paper that makes us question why or what we are doing in the first place. However, after looking closely at said paper, I usually realize that while on target, it’s not quite the bull’s-eye. And so, I read more, think more and play more, theorize a bit more, trying to tease apart all the elements and bits that go into producing a sort of hybrid – or ‘in between’ identity … some of the best bits come out of my play-notes (which I keep for gamic analysis).

It’s not that I am simply treating identity as “an emergent process made possible by an assemblage of relations” that I work to define – it’s that I am working on looking at what that assemblage ACTUALLY produces beyond player identity (that I feel is only possible by breaking down and identifying the assembled bits – but I am not trying to separate them – they are part and parcel the process… just that different games have different bits to be assembled…). That has been my point all along. I am not talking about how the player constructs their identity through yet another interaction in the world… Of course, we all know that identity is socially constructed, made up of our experiences with the material and social world around us – that will always be a foundation for my work – that is what identity – at its core definition (for me as a sociologist) but I am working on looking specifically at videogame play, which – throughout the last 6 years of my research – has always been about trying to understand what makes the player/avatar relationship different than just me building my identity through an external form of self in various stages of play. That is what my process is pointing at.

While I do talk about player/hardware/code (I use the words player/technology/game – it might seem the same thing but those words have different meaning to me – I qualified each word in my comps in detail), I couple that with the interactions that I talked about in my master’s work – so instead of simply reducing the interactions to larger categories, I am trying to hone in on the interactions – from many perspectives – that will enable me to see that the player / tech / game interaction is indeed more than just Actor Network Theory in action… and that it results in more than just the player building their identity (even though, I will not deny that gameplay influences individual identity, there is plenty of work out there that focuses on this – it’s just not my point/focus)…

I would love to see the paper you are talking about – I have been reference mining for years, and have not stumbled upon it (it might be found through different key words though). If it can help me clarify or solidify some of the points that I have made so far, that would be great. I know I have used some of Bernard’s work (on artefact emotion & his heuristic game play model) – it has been great to be able to use his work to build on or to take in a different direction. In the end, I would hate for my work to be just a repetition of what has been done (don’t think I would pass my defence either! Mind you, it would free me up to dance http://gonzolabs.org/dance/vid...

Re: Batman Plays Himself as Wii Avatar

Kelly Boudreau — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 04:32:25 -0000

for now - I am just talking about the process - about breaking down the elements that are medium specific - not the result (ie: identity) .... I will leave it at that for now as I am in the back into concentrated writing (deadlines do loom) - good questions to keep in mind as I make my way through - hopefully when it's done, you will see where I am going with all of this convincingly =)

Re: Batman Plays Himself as Wii Avatar

Bart — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 21:18:51 -0000

now I am a bit confused... there is no real issue that I see in treating identity as an emergent process made possible by an assemblage of relations that you work to define. You can substitute the very fashionable notion of 'becoming' for identity if you like.

The problem comes when you try to separate the elements of your process from other people's processes. Everyone has the same stuff to build their theories - the interactions of players, hardware and code. I actually think Bernard was starting to take me to task on this when I gave a paper on the elements of gameplay long ago... this is an old actor-network problem. Can you tell me what doesn't go into the process of making identity?

If its not about the process of making identity I guess my question is what is it about? This is the empiricist in me... what is it that you are pointing to when you show your framework? what is being described? A process independent of players, hardware and code is fine but what is the process and how does it differ from other processes? I don't actually think we disagree much on the process point... it should still be a thing we can describe without finitude. I am definitely dying for examples now... I can't wait to read it.

Re: Batman Plays Himself as Wii Avatar

Kelly Boudreau — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 15:57:38 -0000

I am talking about reciprocity to a certain extent - in terms of the ‘multi-directional relationship between the elements within the framework (one of my comps talked about this in detail). I will check out Haraway’s book – while I did read her stuff on cyborg identity, I stepped away from it a while ago, seeing that it still didn’t quite answer the questions I had about the player/avatar relationship (was more ‘result’ than ‘process’). In regards to whether or not Pickles is an avatar if by avatar we mean strictly “visual representation” on the screen that is controllable by the player, then yes, indeed, Pickles is an avatar. However, based on the work I am doing right now (single player games as opposed to my past work on mmorpg’s), if you are the one that created pickles, it is less what I am talking about when talking of the player/avatar relationship. It does make me think that I need to re-contextualize what I mean when I am talking about an “avatar” (Klejver’s thesis comes in handy here!) – or if the term is fine, but it is the context that the avatar comes to be is to be emphasized as a difference-maker in my doctoral work (where there is a comparative element between MMORPG’s and Single-Player games).

RE: Materiality and/or Affect: Neither – and both. What I mean is, when I say I want to move beyond representation, it is not to say that I am denying that the avatar is a representation, but that - as being something outside of ourselves, created by someone/thing other than ourselves, in a different medium – it is of course a representation – but it is MORE than that – it serves MORE than being a representation of or even FOR the user. And it has more to it that simply being a tool FOR the user. And I think this is closely tied to your third point.

I think the point where we conflict is that for me, this is not about the avatar – nor the player – it is about all the elements that are necessary to produce the interactions that create an overall experience. In stating this, I realize that I might need to move past using the words “player/avatar” relationship – since in my doctoral work it is about the player / technology / game relationship. The identity does not lie in the avatar – (and therefore the database) – or the player – it lies in the PROCESS of the interactions between all the nodes of my framework (essentially, the player, the materiality & technology that enables the play) and the gameworld (in both the coded and virtual sense). I am not disagreeing with what you are saying about the database and identity, I just don’t see it as the same point (or direction) that I am making with my research.

While I have used symbolic interactionism in my earlier work, I am not sure this is where I am going in my head anymore (re: Cooley - an avatar is really a semi-autonomous piece of the self coming back to haunt it...) So far, my gameplay & literary analysis has grounded me in the process rather than the result (there is no end self – no ‘result’ …ending in the player – just an ongoing process of interacting / intermeshing elements – this is expanded and explained deeper in my writing).

Which brings me back to a few primary issues I am having while writing – I truly think “identity” is the wrong word – primarily because identity implies a ‘result’- and it is tied to ‘someone/thing’ in a definitional sense. Also, whenever I talk about my work (or it gets talked about) the idea of the ‘process’ being what is really be studied – seems to get lost. This is obviously a result of the way I (try to) explain my work to people – again, using loaded words like ‘identity’ hehe. I need to reconcile that, and the fact that it is no longer solely the player/avatar relationship that I am concerned with, but a more complex relationship between many elements (which I am identifying as I work through my dissertation) that enable gameplay and leading to an understanding of the player/avatar relation – not defining it per se….

Re: Batman Plays Himself as Wii Avatar

Bart — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 21:58:39 -0000

oh crud... so many typos and I can't edit... next time i'll comment in discus.

Re: Batman Plays Himself as Wii Avatar

Bart — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 21:55:33 -0000

this is interesting but I guess it makes me think of a few directions at once...

1) the quality you are talking about is reciprocity and actually you might have a look at Donna Haraway's book on dogs since she also talks about her relationship with her dog in terms of hybrid identity in a way that is specifically different from her earlier idea of cyborg identity (also a hybrid so you might want to address this also). Its worth consider if avatars can be part of a reciprocal relationship the way dogs can and not that the reciprocity is not simply the anthropomorphic projection of the human/player (Sherry Turkle argues this)... well I have a paper arguing about having a relationship with a Nintendog... is my puppy pickles qualify as an avatar in your book?

2) any time anyone wants to stop talking about representation or about getting 'beyond represention' they tend to be talking about a) materiality or b) affect - are you talking about either of these?

3) In my stuff I still like to argue that avatars are digital simulacra tied to the mechanics of databases (without the database there would be no avatar and no discernible difference between avatars and thus no plausible notion of identity). The database is the agent with which the player interacts and the representation (the sensed persona) is epiphenomenal wrt the database construct. Curiously I think it should be you rather than Shanly who is using Cooley to discuss this idea - an avatar is really a semi-autonomous piece of the self coming back to haunt it.... oh yeah Freud and the uncanny works here too.

Re: Batman Plays Himself as Wii Avatar

Kelly Boudreau — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 10:02:42 -0000

The thing is, when I am talking about 'hybrid identity' - a term I am still struggling with after many years of using is, is that it is not about representation whatsoever - I actually argue against representation being of the result (or purpose) of the player/avatar interaction. I argue that the avatar is not about representation either (beyond the obvious fact that an avatar is a visual, digital representation of several things, possibly including the player), my work has been about trying to move past that, and look at the player/avatar relationship as something that is about more than simply that of a tool or representation.

I actually disagree that the player 'makes' anything at all, rather, what develops (the 'hybrid identity') is a result of a set of conditions present (or absent) within the process of digitally mediated game-play and the extent to which these conditions exist (the conditions are determined through the evolving framework that I briefly presented at the round table). My goal is to remove the concept of identity away from the individual - as I mentioned in my brief presentation. I understand that this may be a challenge, or even impossible, as identity is a human construct (in Sociology, Philosophy, Psychology, etc.), but I see it as something that exists between the player and the avatar and not in either the player or avatar proper ... This is why I struggle with the word/term "identity" as such - because it does not truly convey what it is I am talking about, and it has been part of my work to think past the term and all its baggage.

I don't believe that 'hybrid identity' would exist within the painter/painting relationship , because the painting is a direct result of the painter (and the tools the painter used to create it). This is pure creation. Perhaps, and this is a stretch at the moment, that the relationship I am talking about is more akin to the art observer / painting - the painting exists without the observer - and vice versa, however, it is through the individual act (and past experiences of the observer) of viewing the piece of artwork that creates (and I hesitate to even use the word 'create' here) something between them. But this isn't quite right either....

One of the arguments that I am making throughout my dissertation (in progress) is to explain why the film spectator / film relationship is not the same as the player / game relationship (beyond the obvious 'interactivity' differences). The development and reconceptualization of my framework over the years has been about determining the medium-specific conditions for 'hybrid identity' to exist (or in some cases, the hows & whys it does not exist in some genres, contexts, etc.).

All that to say - I actually argue against the fact that we create hybrid selves and send them out to represent ourselves - it is actually one of the main points I am trying to counter in my work.

Re: FFXIV and the Fatigue system

cheapest ffxiv gil — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 11:05:17 -0000

Square Enix is giving us a chance to play new great mmorpg that is much better than World of warcraft.

Re: Music Adaptation in Little Big Planet

Cindy Poremba — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 11:38:23 -0000

Maybe here? http://www.thing.net/~grist/ld...

Claudia Mesch's paper is also an excellent one on this subject (http://reconstruction.eserver.....

Re: 5 á 7 Symposium- Lumines vs Spartans

Cindy Poremba — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 11:25:48 -0000

We will answer the eternal question: Are drinking games Art?

Re: Music Adaptation in Little Big Planet

Adamvs — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 16:17:17 -0000

I don't have specific examples at hand, but the concept of "the score" was broadly reinterpreted by the Fluxus movement to apply to any medium. Celia Pierce explores this move in her 2006 essay "Fluxus After Fluxus". She explicitly ties the art games of Fluxus to contemporary games and game art.

Re: Montreal Street Fighter

Edward Tarabay — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 18:07:25 -0000

Ahhhh, Montreal Street Fighter... many a time i have been owned by their members. A return there sounds like great fun.