Play’s Republic

This past weekend, Prof. Ted Castronova hosted the Second Ludium, this one on “videogames and public policy.” It was an extraordinarily interesting experience for various reasons, not the least of which was the outcome: A Synthetic Worlds Initiative-sponsored Declaration of Virtual Worlds Policy, comprising 10 planks relating to the future of virtual space. [...]

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A note about this post: Soon after publishing it, I received an amiable email from the author of the blog to which I refer below. He’s suggested I read his whitepaper in order better to understand his argument. I’ll post an update presently.
Let this link stand as a reminder that there is [...]

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The aptly-named First Person Shooter is… well, okay, it’s a play. It is the story of two young programming geniuses, their start-up company (‘JetPack Games’), and their amazing technicolor computer game: a red-hot, ultra-violent FPS game that hits the top of the market in no time, bringing its creators fame, fortune, and all sorts of [...]

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 A textbook published by gaming company Capcom, dedicated to teaching children (through use of comics) about the ins and outs of video gaming culture, industry, history, and the creative process, distributed to primary schools and libraries all over Japan?
Why can’t WE have something like that?
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/05/11/capcom-releases-japanese-textbook-about-video-games/

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This is far from new, but I just thought I’d bring it to peoples’ attention anyway.
VG Cats, an online comic by Scott Ramsoomair, did an amusing little comic on the upcoming god (?)-game Spore. Likely to be prophetic, because, well, this is just about how much freedom Will Wright’s newest simulation will probably GIVE [...]

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Following up on my betalicious post and with an effort to stick to the title of the course, here’s another Halo 3 article, this time about where the game is in development. There are some nice descriptions of the work involved and it sounds like the developers are weathering crunch mode better than I [...]

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I have no idea how many of you know about Video Games Live (visit the website) but actually it’s quite famous and I enjoyed ALL clips of their performances so far.  ……..And finally, the VGL comes to DC! June 29th and 30th! Is there anybody interested? For DC show, the National Symphony will perform at Kennedy [...]

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As the tags might suggest, this is an aside about something that I still find somewhat amusing. One topic that I always recall coming up in class about World of Warcraft is its plot- and/or lack thereof. As convoluted and nonsensical as it may be, however, I’m simply amazed that it still manages to be [...]

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 So. Doki Doki Majo Saiban, for the Nintendo DS: you’ve probably not heard of this game before, but judging by the title alone, you might be able to guess that it’s yet another quirky Japanese title that will probably never see release in U.S. stores. Here, though, there’s another good reason why this game won’t make [...]

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