Category Archives: University

Posts pertaining to university.

Narratology “versus” Ludology

Posted by Matthew Jones on

This essay was written for my MCC 232 (Video Game Studies) unit. As usual, I’m not 100% happy with how it came out, but given the 1500-2000 word limit on the essay for a topic that deserves much more, I think it’s passable. It was a good learning experience for me as well – any time this “debate” comes up I’d previously held up roguelikes as an example of strict Ludological principles (that aren’t your obvious choices like Tetris), but there’s enough narrative structure in most of them to deserve a look from that perspective at the very least.

A .pdf copy of this essay is available here.

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“Divergence from a story’s path is likely to make for a less satisfying story; restricting a player’s freedom of action is likely to make for a less satisfying game.”
- Greg Costikyan (Costikyan 2000, par. 1)

“Every medium has been used to tell stories. That’s true of books and theatre and radio drama and movies. It’s true of games as well.”
- Eric Goldberg (Costikyan 2000, par. 1)

Videogame studies are in their infancy when compared to other, more established fields of academic study. This has led to extensive debate within the academic community on how best to approach the study of videogames – from a purely “game” driven perspective (Ludology), or utilising the existing base of narrative studies (Narratology). The above quotes from Costikyan and Goldberg demonstrate the often “polar” nature of these debates – but I believe this is a false dichotomy. An understanding of both narratology and ludology is desirable to develop a truly critical understanding of games and game-play.

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Game Recommendations

Posted by Matthew Jones on

Uni’s over for 2010 – fairly routine subjects this semester, but I’d like to publish my Artificial Intelligence project once my marks are returned and I get clearance to do so from those involved.

In the meantime, I’ve been taking advantage of gaming sites jumping on to the Social Media / Web 2.0 bandwagon and created some recommendation lists on gog.com (Good Old Games) and Steam:

If you’re looking for some reasonably priced entertainment over the summer break (or gifts for others for Christmas) you can’t go wrong with a lot of the titles I’ve listed there.

Will Wright – Person, Product, Process and Press.

Posted by Matthew Jones on

It’s that time of semester. The below is my submission for my FDN101 – Creativity and Innovation unit. This paper was required to draw on the four P’s of creativity […] and analyse a significant creative and innovative thinker in terms of their individual characteristics, products, inventions and their processes and environment.

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Mention the name Will Wright and you’re not likely to notice an immediate impact on anyone who doesn’t have an inherent interest in game design, or sound knowledge of the history of video games in general. However, mention the names of his creative works (such as The Sims or SimCity) and it’s highly likely that the person you’re speaking to has either played them, seen them or heard of them. In analysing a creative thinker, the question “What is creativity?” needs to be asked. Mel Rhodes states in An Analysis of Creativity (1961, 305)  that:

“The word creativity is a noun naming the phenomenon in which a person communicates a new concept (which is the product). Mental activity (or mental process) is implicit in the definition, and of course no one could conceive of a person living or operating in a vacuum, so the term press is also implicit.”

This definition forms the core of Rhodes’ “Four P’s” model of creativity – consisting of Person, Product, Process, and Press. I assert that Will Wright’s upbringing and educational opportunities, personality traits, products and way of thinking conforms with Rhodes’ model of creative thinkers, qualifying Wright as significant creative and innovative thinker.

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On Privacy & Social Networking

Posted by Matthew Jones on

The text below is my essay submission for ICT108 – Introduction to Multimedia & The Internet. The essay addresses the following request: “Describe the issues surrounding privacy in social networking sites, and comment on how this may impact on the future of these sites.”.

Usual disclaimers apply. Views expressed here do not represent those of my various employers, this essay remains the intellectual property of Matthew Jones (www.proceduralcreativity.com) and may not be reproduced without express written permission from the author.

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The availability of personal information on social networking sites has given rise to a number of privacy related issues including an increase in cybercrime, passing of data to third parties and blurring the distinction between individuals personal and work lives. Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Myspace need to adapt and change as these issues come to light in order to remain sustainable as businesses.

There can be little doubt that online Social Networking has become part and parcel of Internet users’ lives. For the week ending March 13 2010, Facebook surpassed Google to become the most visited website in the United Sates (Dougherty, H. 2010), with a membership of over 400 million active users. A recent study by Network Box showed that more business traffic goes to Facebook than to any other Internet site – clocking in at 6.8% of all business Internet traffic (Nizam. 2010).

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On Classification

Posted by Matthew Jones on

R18+The following is a snippet from the online discussion on Internet Censorship that’s a required and assessable portion of my ICT 108 – Introduction to Multimedia and the Internet unit.

The problem with using “banning content that is illegal in Australia” as a justification for the filter is that you quickly hit a grey area under present legislation once you’ve excluded all the -obviously- illegal material.

Classification of all forms of media (games, films, books, etc.) is defined at the Commonwealth level by the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995. Then you have acts in place at the state level that define how the Commonweath act is enforced, as well as implementing additional levels of control.

Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Enforcement Act 1996 – Western Australia

I won’t link the other states directly here, but they’re all available on that site.

As discussed in my previous post, it is not illegal to own RC material in any state except WA – interestingly enough, however, is that there exists a customs regulation that makes video games unsuitiable for those under 18 a prohibited good for importing.

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Jane McGonigal: Gaming Can Make A Better World

Posted by Matthew Jones on

Jane McGonigal: Gaming Can Make A Better World

(Text below taken from my response to the question “Find one talk on TED.com that interests you and explain why”. This had to be roughly 200 words – there’s so much more I want to say on the subject.)

McGonigal states that by the age of 21, this generation will have spent over 10,000 hours each playing online games – the same number that Gladwell references being critical to achieving mastery in a given field. What this means is that we’re going to have a generation of master gamers.

McGonigal believes that master gamers share four key skills or traits that they have developed:

Firstly, she states that gamers have a sense of “urgent optimism” – anything is possible, no problem is insurmountable. Next, gamers are able to create a unique “social fabric” – that these problems are often best solved through collaborative effort. They also tend to be more trusting – inviting someone to play a game with you involves huge amounts of trust, in that they will stick to the rules of the game and work toward the objective at hand.

Thirdly, gamers participate in “blissful productivity” – the idea that working (in playing a game) is actually more enjoyable than relaxing. People with full time jobs will still spend upwards of 20 hours a week playing online games – making use of their recreational time to essentially work toward a goal.

Finally, gamers develop a sense of “epic meaning” – the final goal is always magnificent and ambitious in scale. When we take all of these traits and put them together, McGonigal believes we wind up with “super empowered hopeful individuals” – in the virtual world. The challenge as she sees it is transferring these skills and traits into real world application through games – or alternatively, making the real world more like virtual ones.

As someone studying Games Technology, the application of gaming and simulation toward resolving real world problems is a tremendous motivator, and one of the main reasons I started studying again in the first place.