Play’s Republic

There’s great story to be had in Turbine’s new MMORPG version of The Lord of the Rings, “The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar,” (TLOTROSOA, in the parlance of the fanboy). At least, that’s the take of The New York Times, in today’s issue.
One sentence, particularly striking, suggests that the reviewer has […]

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Updated!
Stephen E. Jones is a professor of English at Loyola in Chicago, where he’s just finishing up an undergrad seminar on “Video Games and Textual Studies.” It is an undergrad class, so the reading load is considerably lighter, but the syllabus still makes for interesting (comparative) reading. Be sure to check out the […]

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The British Board of Film Classification (”We are not, as some people seem to think, a Government funded or controlled body”) has just released a smattering of findings  about “Playing Video Games.”
Beyond a cursory visit to their website, I’m not familiar with the BBFC, but (if the material described in the press release is any […]

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(Updated)
Tomorrow’s conversation will be about games, public policy, political discourse, and so on. One of the interesting, motivating tensions I see here returns us to Huizinga and Caillois, and has all sorts of interesting echoes: If, per Caillois, we may read a culture by reading its games, then what are we to make […]

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The NYTimes has an interesting article this afternoon about the return of vigor to the PC gaming sector. It is interesting to think about how this market segment will be served by Vista’s integration of a game-friendly menus and displays within the OS, as well as (soon) a transparent interface to Microsoft’s XBox Live […]

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Here are some of the slides, without notes, from the lecture on The Ambiguity of Play.

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I’ve not gotten Sicart’s paper yet, but I did have a copy of his dissertation (he’s a 2006-minted PhD, and still smells like New Car). I should point out before the link that I’ve not had time to read these, so I don’t know what to expect.
Here is Miguel Sicart’s dissertation on Video Games, […]

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An industry newsletter this AM points to a new Harris poll on videogames and kids:
Percentage of households where children report that their parents limit “how much time they can spend playing games:”
* 54 percent of 8-12-year-olds
* 38 percent of 13-18s
Additionally, “71 percent of the younger group said they must abide by rules on the kinds […]

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Thanks to Jean and Cory from Linden Lab, and everyone from Georgetown for participating last night.

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