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Tag Archives: Game culture
Communities and Casual Gaming
I got an email the other day from someone working for doof.com asking if I could write something about their new casual gaming network. Just a couple of days latter the Casual Game Manifesto popped up on Gamasutra – let’s see how the two go together.
On an elementary level, doof.com delivers most of the stuff [...]
National Cinemas/ National Game Cultures pt.1
This is the first part of a two part post musing about national cinemas compared to national game cultures. Today I give you some thoughts on a(n Australian) national cinema, the game part follows tomorrow.
I spent a good part of last week reading Tom O’Regan’s excellent “Australian National Cinema. O’Regan explains that Australia’s [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Et cetera, national cinema, national game culture Leave a comment
Simulating Green: How British Petroleum Is Using Video Games To Solve Global Warming
Gonzalo Frasca has been preaching it for ages, and I’ve been repeating it for ages: Due to their simulational and interactive nature videogames are perfectly suited to explain the underlying mechanisms of complex systems. Simulations can express messages in ways that narrative simply cannot, they’re capable of modelling not simply representing a related experience as [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged BP, Electronic Arts, global warming, New York Times, Sim City, Sim City Societies Leave a comment
How to understand the Motivation behind Suicide Bombing – with Halo 3
If you want to put yourself in the position of a suicide bomber look no further than… Halo 3. Clive Thompson over at Wired explains that due him leading a normal life he just doesn’t have the time to improve his skills to keep up with homophobic teenagers around the world. In short: He sucks [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged halo 3, political games, suicide bombing, videogames, Xbox 360 1 Comment
Digital Games as Social Commentary on Migration
Gamepolitics brought my attention to this interesting PBS website maintaining a collection of games dealing with immigration.
I think games are the perfect medium to explore this issue due to the similarities between playing a game and negotiating one’s way in a new, alien society: In both cases it’s about trying to figure out the rules [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged gamepolitics, games, migration, newsgames, PBS, serious games, videogames 1 Comment
Between Paranoia and Discrimination: Racism in Videogames
Via Gamepolitics I came across this piece on the liberal website Alternet. It seems that not only is the upcoming Resident Evil 5 is causing controversy due to being set in some Haitian village where the player has to gun down hordes of black zombies, but now also the almost three year old predecessor is [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged alternet, discrimination, gamepolitics, minorities, minorities in videogames, racism, resident evil 4, videogames Leave a comment
The Games Convention
Last week was my first trip to the Games Convention in Leipzig, the main reason being that I spend the last two years on a different continent. But then again, did this first-time visit reveal mysterious secrets unknown to the uninitiated?
No. Despite what the lobby groups want to tell you, it still looks like the [...]
ESA Gives Video Game Voters Network Website Overhaul, Could Use Some Humanizing
The Entertainment Software Association, representing the interests of of U.S. video game publishers, launched an updated website for its Video Games Voters Network in order to “increase the recruitment, education, and mobilization of video game players across the country.” The press release (via gamepolitics.com) explains:
The response to the VGVN is overwhelming and dramatic―over 100,000 members, [...]
Iran Releases Anti US/ Anti Israel Game
The Iranian government recently introduced the propaganda PC game Rescue the Nuke Scientist (the kind of name only a totalitarian regime can come up with…).
Reports Gamepolitics:
The PC game was created by the Union of Islamic Student Societies, a radical student group. It is said to be a riposte to Kuma Games’ Assault on Iran mission for its reality-based [...]
Off the Couch, On the Couch: Consoles’ Future