Summary-8

Computer games
Developing the technology of computer, a part of games was changed many thing. Actually could be difficult to find someone who had played never computer game. It means a computer games are close to our human life. So, in this week, we learned about ‘games’.
computer games: how do they work?
- how do they work “behind the screen”? i.e., how do they work from the perspective of an engineer? =a simple example of pong
- how do they work “in front of the screen”? i.e., how do they work for the audience or participant? =Sherry Turkle on computer games and processes of identification
=Henry Jenkins on computer games, gender and space

What’s in a game engine?
graphics
physics
ai
...and a lot more

game “mods”
Mod (modification: fps, rpgs, real-time strategy games)
– by general public or developer
– can be entirely new games in themselves
– partial conversions (total conversions)
movies with game engines
example: tum raider (original: tomb raider). For myself, tomb raider is one of my favorite game.
programming: an example
pong in flash (original pong / mod 1 / mod 2)
– physics: what makes the ball bounce?
– AI: can an opponent be programmed to play against a human player?

what makes a good game?
play? Or story?
The game need both good play(or control) and good story. But in my opinion I like a game which a attractive story.

Ludology versus Narratology
One of the reasons I think Myst was successful was that people are used to being entertained with stories. There're lots of ways to entertain, but the two primary ones are story—which is television and movies and books and all that—and the other is game play —blackjack and football and Parcheesi. There’re other ones, but those are two we are very familiar with. I think the mass market audience is more familiar with story. The first campfire the guys on the hunt come back with a story to tell--that is something anybody can partake in.”

Two issues to consider from film theory
1. identification:
How do people relate to the characters and action on the screen?
e.g., what do women do/think when the hero is a man versus when the hero is a woman?
What does a designer or filmmaker do to facilitate the audience’s/players’ relations with characters and actions on the screen?
e.g., filmmaking techniques: POV, suture, the 180 degree rule, etc.
2. space:
What is the space of cinema/games? what can the audience/player see or do there?
What can the designer or filmmaker do to increase, decrease, or change the space?
e.g., montage and also think about the filming and editing techniques listed above concerning identification

video games as “metaphysical machines”
...as “perfect mirrors”
...as “drugs”
...as “contests”

identification
Identification is known to psycho-analysis as the earliest expression of an emotional tie with another person. It plays a part in the early history of the Oedipus complex. A little boy will exhibit a special interest in his father; he would like to grow like him and be like him, and take his place everywhere. We may say simply that he takes his father as his ideal.



Space: what’s a boy’s space?
•is it a place where boys can...
–enjoy lurid images?
–prove themselves with stunts?
–gain mastery?
–(re)produce hierarchies?
–vent aggressive feelings?
–engage in scatological humor?
–competitively role-play?
–and bond together

space: what’s a girl’s space?
-Brenda Laurel says: “Girl space is a space of secrets and romance, a space of one’s own in a world which offers you far too little room to explore.” (quoted in the Jenkins’ article)
-Is Laurel correct?

games and gender
-what’s a girl’s game? The Sims?
-what’s a boy’s game? Counter-Strike?

Hot and cool media
–Telephone is a cool medium, or one of low definition, because the ear is given a meager amount of information. And speech is a cool medium of low definition, because so little is given and so much has to be filled in by the listener. On the other hand, hot media do not leave so much to be filled in or completed by the audience. Hot media are, therefore, low in participation, and cool media are high in participation or completion by the audience. Naturally, therefore, a hot medium ... has very different effects on the user from a cool medium...

So, are video games hot or cool media?

Summary-7

computer-aid

In the beginning we watched ‘Modern Times’ by Charlie Chaplin.
CSCW: computer-supported cooperative work
*Winograd and Flores
–the language/action perspective of work
–a diagram of a conversation for action

key-point in this topic was: “every digital media technology has an architecture using diagrams to compare physical architectures with digital architectures”

Agre
–the surveillance model
–architectures of surveillance
–the capture model & its relation to Winograd and Flores
CSCW
•computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) is a field of research and design. (ex: CAD/CAM, ABB Powerwall, Drug Design)
–researchers in this field investigate how people work together in groups, and design computer-systems and networks to enable or facilitate group work.
–CSCW is considered to a part of a larger field known as CHI or HCI: human-computer interaction (HCI) design, evaluation, implementation, and study of interactive computing systems for human use.
–Practitioners include Lucy Suchman, Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores (as well as several hundred others in university and corporate research laboratories).

Winograd and Flores
•Winograd and Flores present a methodology for CSCW analysis and design. This methodology is commonly known as the “language/action” perspective.
design as conversation construction
•any organization is constituted as a network of recurrent conversations (ex: issue, topic, theme…)
•conversations are linked in regular patterns of triggering and breakdown (ex: next issues…)
•in creating tools we are designing new conversations and connections (ex: ways, methods, rules…)
•computers are a tool for conducting the network of conversations (ex: how-to, clues ….)
Winograd and Flores: model of conversation
•conversations are sequences of actions because by saying things people are understood to be doing things;

Some questions
What are our patterns of triggering and breakdown? --> linking t to t

How do we use computers and networks to conduct this network of conversations? --> creating tools

What new media technologies might be designed to create new conversations and connections? --> blogs …

Winograd & Flores’ recurrent networks of conversation
capture (in comparison with surveillance)
•linguistic metaphors instead of visual metaphors
•instrumentation and reorganization of activities rather than a non-disruptive data collection
•organization using categories of connected activities (cf. assembly lines) instead of organization by “territories” (e.g., private space versus work space)
•local storage and use of captured data versus centrally organized monitoring
•the driving aims are not necessarily political, but philosophical/market driven
five stage cycle of grammars of action
•analysis
•articulation
•imposition
•instrumentation
•elaboration

political economy of capture
•“...by imposing a mathematically precise form upon previously unformalized activities, capture standardizes those activities and their component elements and thereby prepares them for an eventual transition to market-based relationships.