Tag Archives: computer games

Blasphemous Geometries

The criticism of video games

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This month Blasphemous Geometries turns a conceptual corner, as Jonathan McCalmont decides to refocus the critical crosshairs on video games.

Blasphemous Geometries by Jonathan McCalmont

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Back in the 1930s, a number of physicists (including Einstein) argued that our universe is oscillatory. What this meant was that after the Big Bang, the universe expands until it reaches a certain level of density and gravitational pull, at which point it begins to contract until it ends with a Big Crunch. This idea still has some devotees. However, what made the Oscillatory Theorists interesting was the belief that after the universe had contracted back to its original singularity, it would then bounce back again; expanding until its physical limits were met and another Big Crunch was initiated. This meant that, according to the Oscillatory Theorists, the universe was stuck in a cycle of eternal destruction and rebirth. This has always struck me as a rather useful analogy for certain internet debates. “Is Science Fiction Dying?” is one such debate but another is “Where is the Lester Bangs of Video Games?”. Continue reading The criticism of video games →

Blasphemous Geometries

Genre and storytelling in video games

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This month in Blasphemous Geometries, Jonathan McCalmont takes a look at the roles of genre narratives and storytelling in the still-young media of computer and video games, questioning the received wisdom that that the form has matured noticeably from is simple puzzle-solving and goal-reaching roots.

Blasphemous Geometries by Jonathan McCalmont

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We exist in a world of brands. These days you can watch a film, read a book or comic, play a game, drink a cup of coffee and even have sex without ever leaving the vice-like economic grip of your favourite brand. As the darling of the monstrous cultural artefacts that are summer blockbusters, science fiction is at the cutting edge of what Media Studies theorists call Remediation.

Remediation is the idea that, rather than existing along a fixed technological time-line with new forms emerging fully-formed from new technology, new forms of media are produced via a process of back-and-forth between new technology and older mediums. As video game designers draw more and more hungrily upon literary and cinematic works of science fiction, it is important to think about what the process of remediation does to these works and how the process might be improved. Continue reading Genre and storytelling in video games →

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Pirates are underserved customers, says games executive

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A pirate, yesterdayThe gaming community is all a-flutter over some comments from Jason Holtman, the business development guy for games corporation Valve. [via TechDirt] The quote that’s got lips flapping is this one:

“There’s a big business feeling that there’s piracy,” he says. But the truth is: “Pirates are underserved customers.”

“When you think about it that way, you think, ‘Oh my gosh, I can do some interesting things and make some interesting money off of it.'”

Such a statement is naturally considered heresy by the gaming industry, which sees mammoth endemic piracy as eating away at its profit margins. Valve are well placed to understand digital distribution, though, thanks to their Steam service, and Holtman has evidently seen the writing on the wall as regards selling intangible products in tangible venues… perhaps he’s been learning from the mistakes of Hollywood and the record labels? [image by ioerror]

Whether piracy of digital content will ever be defeated remains an open question, of course (and seems unlikely), but it has been pointed out before that the most effective method of curbing the impact might be to minimise the reasons it happens – the biggest of which is surely the high prices. If every $80 game could be bought online for $10, would they sell eight times as many copies? How thin does that margin need to get before people stop taking the risks inherent in using cracked software?

And what ever happened to the flurry of interest in in-game advertising as a monetising strategy?

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Addiction clinic founder says computer games not addictive after all

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dualshock Playstation controllerThe headline says it all, though the recanting of video game addiction specialist Keith Bakker comes with qualifiers:

“…the more we work with these kids the less I believe we can call this addiction. What many of these kids need is their parents and their school teachers – this is a social problem.”
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“This gaming problem is a result of the society we live in today,” Mr Bakker told BBC News. “Eighty per cent of the young people we see have been bullied at school and feel isolated. Many of the symptoms they have can be solved by going back to good old fashioned communication.”

It’s easy (and very tempting) to fall back on sarcasm here, but let’s just be thankful he’s learned something and will now stop putting loner kids through some sort of twelve-step program.

Incidentally, Bakker’s findings concur with those of the National Institute of Media and the Family, which for the first year ever has used its annual MEDIAwise ‘video games score-card’ to praise the gaming industry rather than excoriate it. Times are a-changin’. [image by William Hook]

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Virus on space station searched for video game logins

USB drives transported viruses into space...NASA revealed today that some of the laptops used by astronauts on the International Space Station were infected with the computer virus Gammima.AG. The laptops, which were carried to the station in July for nutritional programs and email, were believed to be infected when they arrived.

Gamminma.AG is a year old virus that steals logins for online computer games for sale by software pirates. Computer experts say the astronauts should have disabled the ‘autorun’ command from the laptops as the virus travels by USB stick. NASA may have been caught out but there are instructions to prevent such malware automatically subverting your computer.

I wonder if the virus managed to steal any of the astronauts logins to World of Warcraft or Sins of A Solar Empire? Are avatars worth more if their user has travelled into space?

[via Google News, picture by Caro’s Lines]