This morning I finally got around to watching the much vaunted Second Skin trailer about MMORPGs. I feel that the framing of the whole thing is wrong. Though virtual worlds have objective dimensions (the code, the UI, the subscribers, the paratext–by which I mean forums, blogs, guild sites, etc.), “virtual world” is also an intellectual…
I’m not finished working on my multipart series, “Interaction Criticism: How to Do It,” and I’m really looking forward to the next installment, which will present and discuss some examples from “serious” design criticism (i.e., design criticism published in academic books on design), but today instead I’m taking a mini hiatus and posting something different.…
A song by Damien Rice called “9 Crimes” set to one of the coolest machinima creations I’ve ever seen. Enjoy!
So I was reading through my google reader feeds, and came across this gem over at Functioning Form. The post came out of the recent conference VizThink which has this example. I think that this example is very compelling as both represent some kind of fact, or statistic (reminds me of Mark Twain’s quote…
While everyone loves Guitar Hero, it is reasonable to consider the environmental implications of all those cheesy plastic guitars. A company showed off an elegant solution at CES 2008: Guitar Hero Air Guitar Rocker. Let’s face it: it’s not the guitar that makes you a rock god(dess); it’s the slick moves and stylin’ hair. See…
As I have immersed myself back into the experience that is World of Warcraft, I feel as though I am really not a part of the environment sometimes. Let me explain: I don’t really play any other games like WoW and my interests are mainly in playing “party” games like Guitar Hero, Mario Party, Rayman,…
Came across this pretty recently. It kind of reminded me of when Jeff showed us examples of unintended forms of play within games. Yes, wii remotes were intended to be used how this guy is using them physically, but I don’t believe the creators intended them to be reprogrammed to interact with a software program…
I read an interesting article on Slashdot today: Academic Games Are No Fun. Apparently, well into a $250K MacArthur grant, the IU Telecommunications Department-based creators of the MMO “serious game” Arden, The World of Shakespeare, have learned that (1) a game needs to be a game, and (2) games need to be fun. I can’t…
Interaction Culture 