This week features topics that have been discussed before, but with new angles, passions and nuances.
Develop '09:
Simon Carless (GameSetWatch) and
Brian Ashcraft (Kotaku) report that Dave Thomson of Denki spoke at the Develop Conference, calling for the end of…
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Added by Erik Hanson on July 20, 2009 at 12:00pm —
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I'm really impressed by how cohesive the conversations are starting to become out there on the internet. It makes my heart warm to know that we're moving from shouting at the darkness to shouting at each other.
Death And Resonance
Tom Cross (Gamasutra News) thinks that
emergent narrative isn't ready to truly replace more traditional narrative plot. Michael Clarkson (Discount Thoughts) may…
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Added by Erik Hanson on July 13, 2009 at 2:00pm —
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That summer lull in writing due to school schedules doesn't seem to have materialized. I'm compensating with coffee and overplaying of Judas Priest's "Electric Eye."
Narrative, Character and Emergence
Borut Pfiefer (Plush Apocalypse) thinks
games focus too much on plot and not enough on characterization.
Tom Cross (GameSetWatch's Diamond in the Rough) continues his look at narrative in…
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Added by Erik Hanson on July 6, 2009 at 12:00pm —
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Certainly no small amount of activity in the news, beaches and streets this past week, but games thinkers aren't slacking off, either.
Meaning in Games:
I don't often link to interviews, in large part because the signal-to-noise ratio tends to be fairly low, both within the format of interviews generally and within the interviews themselves. That is to say, most internet-published interviews focus on less scholarly issues, and they tend to be lengthy affairs of 5 or more…
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Added by Erik Hanson on June 29, 2009 at 12:00pm —
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In
this edition, Mike Young and I talk about the problem of fun, where games and learning are concerned. Enjoy!
Added by Roger Travis on June 24, 2009 at 1:26pm —
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Right to it:
Kimberly Unger (Gamasutra blogs) thinks toys and games are inherently more interesting in the
context of a crowd.
My take: I'm not sure if this is specifically related to Clint Hocking's demographic ideas involving "Gen X" games giving way to "Gen Y" games, but Ms. Unger's implicit endorsement of social play certainly seems an artifact of the greater social games…
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Added by Erik Hanson on June 22, 2009 at 12:00pm —
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Now with fewer complete sentences! (Sorry about that.) If anyone asks, I was distracted by
Sims 3; please ignore the paintball welts covering my torso.
James Hoffman (Gamasutra Expert blogs) on the design potential of
wealth and abundance/scarcity in games (in terms of currency and other values)
Dan Ephron at Newsweek covers the…
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Added by Erik Hanson on June 15, 2009 at 12:00pm —
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In the episode, to be found
here, I talk to VGHVI co-founder Jeff Howard about the meaning of magic systems, and about the game he's developing,
Arcana Manor. I hope you enjoy the podcast!
Added by Roger Travis on June 14, 2009 at 9:41pm —
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So as not to bury our lede, I'll start off by announcing that the VGHVI now has
a podcast! The inaugural podcast, featuring the vocal stylings of Roger Travis and Michael Abbott, explains VGHVI's goals and aspirations while discussing the "middle circle" of games writing -- the intellectual space between peer-reviewed academic writing and mainstream, mass-appeal, "news, reviews, and previews"…
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Added by Erik Hanson on June 8, 2009 at 12:00pm —
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A lot of folks who have a scholarly mind towards games spent last week preparing for and attending the Games For Change…
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Added by Erik Hanson on June 1, 2009 at 12:00pm —
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With help and encouragement from such great VGHVI friends as Michael Abbott, David Carlton and Randy Ma, VGHVI has a podcast, which is intended to be brief and semi-academic. I'll be chatting with a different VGHVI member or friend as close to weekly as I can manage about their latest thoughts on games and values matters.
Who better for the first edition than Michael Abbott, the Brainy Gamer?
Here's the…
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Added by Roger Travis on June 1, 2009 at 11:29am —
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Hope everyone had a pleasant weekend. There's a lot to cover, so let's get to it:
Well Played 1.0 was announced this week. It's a collection of games writing drawing from an all-star cast, and it's gotten a lot of attention (perhaps in part because so many of its authors have prominent blogs):
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Added by Erik Hanson on May 25, 2009 at 11:00pm —
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I hope everybody had a great weekend. The roundup will be posted this evening so that those of you in countries that celebrate Memorial Day today can start your week with a heaping helping of great intellectual conversations!
Added by Erik Hanson on May 25, 2009 at 3:30pm —
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I had been suspicious about the balance of cost and benefit in weekly attempts to sculpt the non-Newtonian mass of links I collect into some sort of coherent story. Now that a crash has made me re-write my post, I'm fairly certain that I like this more streamlined approach better. With that due ado:
Narrative & Story:
- Part 3 in Randy Smith's take on unfun…
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Added by Erik Hanson on May 18, 2009 at 1:30pm —
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Last week's biggest buzz was a tight competition between the
closing of
3D Realms (developer of
Duke Nukem Forever) and Daniel Benmergui's
latest game,
Today I Die, which…
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Added by Erik Hanson on May 11, 2009 at 12:00pm —
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Swine-Flu Boogaloo!
Welcome back. It was a hectic week for me, in part because I was suffering through a rough flu and watching news coverage of an incipient
zombie apocalypse. Both the flu and apocalypse seem to have receded somewhat.
For now.
You may be aware that
J.G. Ballard’s great mind became
one… Continue
Added by Erik Hanson on May 4, 2009 at 12:00pm —
13 Comments
Let's get this out of the way:
The gang at Critical-Distance
ran across a long-form blog post
lamenting the lack of writing and thinking in the gap between academic critical theory of games and consumer-oriented and hype-filled popular reviews. If you're at this site, or at…
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Added by Erik Hanson on April 27, 2009 at 12:00pm —
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I'm delighted to announce that Erik Hanson, known also variously as Wordsmythe and EMunnie, a brilliant young thinker and writer in the much-discussed "middle-circle" of game-criticism, has consented to be VGHVI's man in the gameblogosphere, and to post a regular "VGHVI Week in Review." I've been a great admirer of Erik's thinking and writing since I started lurking at
Gamers with Jobs two years ago. I'm thrilled that he'll be assuming this…
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Added by Roger Travis on April 20, 2009 at 1:00pm —
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Let's say something came up and you had to miss your classroom discussion last week -- or just couldn't concentrate and want to make sure you caught everything big, but you don't want to be left out and confused at the next session. That's when you hope a friend took notes for you. I am that friend. If you missed last week's games discussions on the internet, you can check my notes:
Six Days in Fallujah and Realism:
Two weeks ago, the internet was afire with news…
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Added by Erik Hanson on April 20, 2009 at 12:00pm —
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The senior fellows of the Video Games and Human Values Initiative are pleased to announce that we are now accepting submissions for publication as
Proceedings of the Video Games and Human Values Initiative. We invite anyone working in areas that touch on the relationship between video games and human values to submit papers for non-exclusive publication in the peer-reviewed setting of our Proceedings, which will be published online here.
Submissions and inquiries may be sent…
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Added by Roger Travis on February 13, 2009 at 10:25am —
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July 12-18, 2009 Week In Review
VGHVI Latest Thoughts Podcast episode 3
