Please disregard the current design, it is just a temporary solution, until I find time to produce something worthy of viewing.

[D]ie Madonnaisierung der Cultural Studies [ist] keine wirkliche Überraschung, sondern dokumentieren nur den durchschnittlichen Musikgeschmack im akademischen Milieu.¹

Und was will uns das jetzt sagen …?

I suffer from an odd disorder called This Could Be a Game Syndrome. Perhaps you can relate. I navigate through my daily routines – parenting, work, play, eating, sleeping – just like ‘normal’ people, but several times a day TCBAGS (pronounced ‘Tee-See-Bags’) strikes, and my consciousness is overtaken by an uncontrollable compulsion to translate whatever I’m doing into a video game.

The Brainy Gamer about a strange disorder – and yes, that happens to me too, all the time.

In den meisten Spielen geschieht so viel in den Spielen – aber so wenig mit den Spielern selbst.

Sarahs Kommentar nachdem sie Tale of Tales’ The Path gesehen hat. Man müsste sich diesen Satz zwischendurch wieder durchlesen, wenn man daran ist, ein Spiel zu entwerfen.

I like putting together colors with shaky self-esteem so they all end up deferring to each other.

says the designer of Braid, David Hellman.

In a study done on player interactions within World of Warcraft, a graphics-based online multiplayer game, the results found that “solable” classes, in other words classes that required the least social interactions, were the most popular classes of characters chosen, and the overall research concluded that players within the World of Warcraft community preferred to play the game “‘alone together’ — surrounded by others, but not necessarily actively interacting with them” (Ducheneaut et al. 2006, p. 415).¹

This style of play is pretty much my own – I find it interesting to have other players around myself, as they act in surprising and independent ways compared to NPCs, but I won’t interact with them much.

The fact that other people play the same way as I do as well as the fact that more and more PCs and consoles are always online makes me wonder whether that could be harnessed for new ways of interaction. Other players could be around in the game world, their avatars probably transformed in some way, to add an element of chance and randomness into the game. A horror game comes to mind, in which the positions and (re-)actions of other players are presented as ghosts for a single player.

Sorry I’m Late from Tomas Mankovsky on Vimeo.

Made me smile, so to speak.

Everything we do in terms of “content” threatens the underlying core of “game” – if done correctly, everything blends seamlessly. If not, then the best art/interface/VO/story in the world cannot salvage a damaged core.

American McGee is becoming more and more my personal hero. He seems to be one of those very few game designers out there that truly believe in games as a form of art on their own.

Of course, the fact that he just recently announced a sequel to his scary, gorgeous, brilliant Alice adds to that. I think I’ll have to buy a PS3 just for that alone.

Oh. And by the way? The lecture got just hijacked by Commando Fun.

Currently on the watchlist:

• Sexy People
• Sorry I Missed Your Party
• And now, very new: Awkward Family Photos

With the pictures in the media all brushed up, it’s almost refreshing to see all those … very, very normal people. Kinda.

Sometimes, it’s just downright scary.

I for myself don’t like competition much. Seeing yourself displayed on a single additional sheet as the very last person of the ladder of a athletics competition is not exactly helping boost your self-esteem. Picked as the last one whenever teams for football, floorball or basketball are formed neither. So what did I do?

I opted out. It was just a game. I went to out-of-school sport activities because of the people there, not because I wanted to achieve anything – after all, I wouldn’t be good enough anyway, I told myself. I avoided competition as good as possible. If I took everything as a game, as something of no importance, losing didn’t matter anymore. I could forget it, and wouldn’t care that I wasn’t as good as I wanted myself to be.

This attitude persisted throughout my life. My brother was always better at playing highly competitive computer games than I was. For me it was just a game and never supposed to feel like work. As soon as I was truly challenged, as soon as some training and persistence was required, I gave up. My brother kept going. And he made it past the challenges. I never did.

I gave up wanting to win in order to keep myself from being disappointed when I lost. Yeah, foxes and grapes come to mind …

But of course, there is another way to play games. Perceive them as contests of strength, speed, wit – whatever; as challenges to overcome and a way to assess one’s abilities. Wanting to win is necessary part of that way of play; losing just a motivation to make it better the next time.

Those two views will naturally conflict when people of both of those sides take part in one game. One side thinks that the other part is taking the game way too serious (”It’s just a game, man!”), while the other is pissed because the first isn’t taking the game serious enough (”Why play in the first place if you don’t intend to win?”).¹ The potential for mutual misunderstanding is rather high.

Nowadays, I play for two reasons: because of the people that play with me (in case of board games) or because of the story (in case of computer games). Competing is not a motivation, possibly because I’m still afraid that I’m not good enough, because I fear making a fool of myself by failing.

This past year I realised how far I can get with just a bit of ambition. Maybe it’s time to opt back in?