Infinite Lives

From The Usborne Guide to Computer and Video Games (1982):

Many more extrapolations and insights at the link.

• Global Nerdy – Videogames of the Future, as Predicted 25 Years Ago via intweetion

Hi, mom. Hi! It’s me! Yeah, hi!

What? No, I haven’t taken the GRE yet. Hang on, hey, I was calling to tell you—hmm? My driver’s license? Um, nuh-uh, I didn’t renew it. But I—huh? Well, I mean, probably. No, I mean, I’ll get the oil changed, I think I can do that for twenty bucks at the Car-X. What? Yes, we are. No. Yes. Yes. Probably a movie or something. No, I think I’ve actually stopped losing weight. What? Well, ramen and granola, mostly. OK. OK. OK. I don’t think so? OK.

Hey, I was actually phoning to tell you about my article in the magazine. What? No, my article. Well, the magazine is called Kill Screen—uh, no, it’s a video game magazine, I guess “kill screen” is like a video game, uh, term.

But it’s Kill Screen, issue number one, the “No Fun Issue,” and my column is about gender and sex and sexism and uh genderism, and the magazine is twenty dollars. What? No, I get one copy. No, I just get the one copy of it. No. No, I’m keeping my copy. You have to buy your own copy. No. No. Yes. Hmm? Well, even though you can kind of already read my piece online for free, you know, the magazine is published like quarterly, and it’s ad-free and glossy and ninety-six pages long, so since this is a really nice magazine or whatever, like, I couldn’t just publish the old version of the column. So I added a lot to the original piece and we all workshopped it, and so it’s like a really different article now, in some ways, but I think in good ways.

Anyway, I guess that’s all. OK. OK. I will. Mhm. Yes. OK. I will. I will. OK! Talk to you later. OK. OK. Talk to you later. Bye! OK. OK, bye! Yes. I will. Bye!

• Kill Screen Magazine – Issue One: The No Fun Issue

I am just going to assume everyone knows about how Nintendo started out as a playing card company. Right?

So anyway, Bill Mudron, who is a reputable artist and my third or fourth -favorite person in the world, is working on some weird Nintendo history thing, I don’t know. Looks like a book or something. He just uploaded a book jacket to his Flickr. Whatever.

• Flickr – ‘the Nintendo history book’

Wendy Kays isn’t happy with your husband.

The author of Game Widow (and reluctant Dr. Phil guest guru) investigates the collateral damage caused in relationships by game addiction. Kays’ own husband is a game developer.

From the back of her book:

Is your loved one constantly monopolizing your computer or TV to play video games? [editor’s note: Actually, yes, he monopolizes my Xbox.] If so, you might be a game widow. Wendy Kays, former game widow, is here to help. In this book, she successfully bridges the gap between those who game and those who don’t by sharing invaluable advice and practical strategies for reclaiming your relationship with a video-gaming spouse, friend, or family member.

Curious about Game Widow? Me, too.

And for four more days, a PDF of the book is free for download (direct PDF link).

• Game Widow – 30 Day Download Page via gamewidoworg.blogspot.com

• Seattle Times – Former “game widow” shares her heartache and how she got her husband back

Last May, the Digital Games Research Center (AKA the Zentrum für Computerspielforschung, AKA DIGAREC), together with the University of Potsdam’s Arts and Media Department, hosted the Philosophy of Computer Games 2008, a three-day conference for which “international speakers and scientists were invited… to discuss the ethics, aesthetics, phenomenology and politics of computer games.”

Now, with the continued assistance of the University of Potsdam Press, DIGAREC has collected, edited, and published the sum total of the May 2008 conference. The result: a finished book, Conference Proceedings of the Philosophy of Computer Games 2008, with keynotes and lectures divided and edited into chapters.

Essays include “The Concept of War in the World of Warcraft,” “The Space-Image: Interactivity and Spatiality of Computer Games,” “The Rhetoric of Persuasive Games: Freedom and Discipline in America’s Army,” and “Différance at Play: Unfolding Identities Through Difference in Videogame Play.”

Incredibly, DIGAREC opted to publish the book as a free, downloadable PDF—but make no mistake, this is a proper book (with an ISBN and endpages and everything!), suitable for your Kindle or e-reader. It’s a pretty hefty tome. Oh, and yes—it’s all in English. (My German isn’t that good.)

• Universitätsbibliothek Potsdam – Conference Proceedings of the Philosophy of Computer Games (via)

Another one for the Backburner. And what a find! 61 Frames Per Second’s Cole Stryker located a real gem of a book title, The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy. Stryker notes that this is actually just one title in a larger series in which essayists hunt for deeper meanings in ubiquitous pop culture icons (The Matrix, Battlestar Galactica).

Amazon gives the book’s description thusly:

With both young and adult gamers as loyal fans, The Legend of Zelda is one of the most beloved video game series ever created. The contributors to this volume consider the following questions and more: What is the nature of the gamer’s connection to Link? Does Link have a will, or do gamers project their wills onto him? How does the gamer experience the game? Do the rules of logic apply in the game world? How is space created and distributed in Hyrule (the fictional land in which the game takes place)? How does time function? Is Zelda art?

To which Cole Stryker responds:

Ugh. If these musings are any indication as to the content of the upcoming book, count me out. It will sell thousands of copies while real philosophy languishes on the shelves of your library. I’m not saying video games aren’t fertile ground for philosophic discussion, this one just seems…a bit surfacey.

Now, while I can certainly appreciate Stryker’s lack of enthusiasm, for my own part, I just added the book to my Amazon wishlist. It sounds like comparative lit to me! I sure hope there’s an essay about the workings of time and choice versus determinism!

The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy is scheduled to hit booksellers in late November.

• 61 Frames Per Second – Philosophy? In my Zelda?

When Game Life’s Chris Kohler reported that the Wii had finally outsold the Xbox 360 in the U.S. yesterday, he also reprinted Nintendo’s annoucement, which itself is written in a strange, alien shorthand. “After just 20 mos, Wii is the new console leader in the US @ nearly 10.9 million units, says NPD 2day.”

Kohler received said information from Nintendo directly—not through a formal press release, but instead through a text message.

That’s a text message that Nintendo of America just sent to journalists’ phones, knowing they’d be away from their desks covering E3. (The company used the same delivery medium to announce the Wii MotionPlus controller on Monday.)

Although Kohler’s SMS message from Nintendo isn’t the main point of his update, I find this unbelievably interesting. Two days ago I noted that I’d followed E3 news and rumors using Twitter almost exclusively—and using the new Twitteriffic iPhone app, at that. “When I look over my Twitter friend-feed,” I’d said (yes, quoting myself is bizarre), “it’s like this extremely concise liveblog written by ten or twenty people.”

Nintendo, SMS, and Howard Rheingold’s ‘Smart Mobs’: connecting the dots

Well, now, here’s a book to add to the Backburner in a few months.

Two years ago, independent game designer Steve Swink wrote an essay, an amazing, brilliant manifesto titled “Principles of Virtual Sensation.” In this design primer, Swink lists the tenets of movement and animation, and how these principles correspond to virtual sensation, which in turn makes for what Swink simply calls “good-feeling gameplay.” But what is virtual sensation? Swink explains:

Driving a car, you have a very strong sense of the position of that car, the feel of steering and controlling it, of mastery. This is the ability that every person who’s ever learned to drive a car has: the ability to extend precise control over something outside your body. There is a great amount of pleasure in the learning and eventual mastery of such a motion translation. [...] Many people also find this pleasure in video games, where it is both distilled to its essence and free of the constraints and dangers of more physical activities. You can change the turning radius of a car, but you can’t change gravity. This experience of control is derived from an artificial kinesthesia. This is the ‘feel’ of the game, the thing that makes your mom lean left and right in her seat as she tries to play Rad Racer.

If Swink’s essay leaves you wanting more, don’t worry!

Game Feel: a Game Designer’s Guide to Virtual Sensation is over 300 pages of game design philosophy, with plenty of insights from Swink’s indie design peers. (Incidentally, Phil Fish of Fez designed Game Feel’s cover jacket.)

Game Feel drops this October.

• Amazon preorder – Game Feel: A Game Designer’s Guide to Virtual Sensation
• Steve Swink – “Principles of Virtual Sensation”
• Via