Ludology.org

GameSpot on The Sims Online

A really excellent report on Will Wright, Maxis and specially The Sims Online. It includes images from early prototypes as well as a deep look into the process that ended up on The Sims. And, more importantly, an early picture of little Will Wright. A must read!

Game research position available at IT Copenhagen

The IT University of Copenhagen invites applications for one position as Assistant or Associate Professor in computer games in the Department of Digital Aesthetics and Communication. The position is available from June 1st, 2003. The Department of Digital Aesthetics and Communication (DiAC) addresses aesthetic, cultural, social and communicative aspects of IT. Applications and enclosures must be submitted in English on the basis of the complete text for the vacancy available at http://www.it-c.dk/Internet/jobs/8eqJBn/.

This is a new position (the same institution posted two similar positions earlier this year). Again, this is an excellent environment for world-class game research, so maybe you should start thinking about moving to Denmark...

CFP: ICME2003

Multimedia Technologies for Gaming. ICME-IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo. July 6-9, 2003. Baltimore, EEUU.

Big trouble for Big Mac @ The Sims Online?

I must admit that I always felt that attacking McDonald's as a symbol of globalisation was a bit too simplistic - in other words I wouldn't describe French activist Jose Bové as a modern hero. Well, even if I still don't think smashing McDonald's buildings is a civilized way to go, I did was impressed by Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation which I read on a plane a couple of days ago. It's a good and enjoyable book, even if you may stop eating fast food after reading it.
Anyway, the goal of this post is to link to this article describing how players can show their anti-McDonald's/ anti-advergaming ideas at the Sims Online. This is not the first online form of online activism (remember the famous demonstration at Ultima Online) but it is certainly interesting. I haven't played The Sims Online yet but I plan to download the test version soon. I haven't decided yet if I will eat virtual burguers (several people have emailed this story to me. Thanks to all, specially the first ones, William Huber and Nick Montfort).

Danish pics

Lisbeth has posted some pics from my talk at IT Copenhagen.

Denmark, Annecy

Copenhagen went great. IT-C truly has a great team of people doing game research (even if they got their #$$@# kicked by this humble Uruguayan in the post-talk Super Monkey Ball racing contest ;). Again, these people know what they are doing and I wouldn't be surprised if they soon become one of the strongest places for ludological research in the world.

Right now I am at Annecy, a beautiful town by the French Alps, visiting some friends from Ubi Soft. I bought some French gaming magazines, but I won't be able to read them until I get to the States. My INBOX has several news that I should have posted on the site, but don't worry, they will be there in a couple of days.

PS: I just hope you NEVER have to deal with a French AZERTY keyboard. Still, you can't beat this country's food!

Coping with Copenhagen

And I am coping with it pretty well. It's my first time in Denmark, even if I have visited Scandinavia a couple of times in the past. In spite of the obvious lack of springtime that is covering right now the southern hemisphere, the city is really gorgeous. To make things even more interesting, I am hanging out with a bunch of good ol' crime partners (Susana, Lisbeth and Jesper). And since I am in Denmark, let me share this link to an interview to Espen Aarseth about racism on Hitman 2 (thanks Lisbeth).

ICEC 2003 Call-for-Papers

Second International Conference on Entertainment Computing
May 8-10, 2003; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. This is the follow-up to IWEC2002. Deadine for papers is December 31st, 2002.

Today I gave my first talk at the University of Bergen

The topic was basically simulation interpretation and rhetoric. The questions that students asked me were trully excellent and showed a clear passion for the field. It's hard to find so many students with such an interest in game studies (but, well, after all, they are Espen's students so I guess that are pretty lucky to be able to work with such a visionary). Now I am back home doing some work/reading. I just ran into this excellent paper by Ragnhild Tronstad -which is quoted on an unpublished paper by Espen Aarseth - and I thought it would be good to share it with you guys.
An important thing to remember if you ever stop by Bergen: crab sandwiches from the local fish market are excellent.

The north of the north

London was fun. Short but fun. I visited Cartoon Network’s European Headquarters and had a lot of fun while playing with the Sky iTV platform. Then I visited some friends who work for the BBC (my CNN past still haunts me).
Now I am in Bergen, where I will be giving a couple of talks on Monday and Tuesday. I just got dinner with Jill Walker and Espen Aarseth at Jill’s place. It’s funny, because I learned through her blog that I was going to be invited over for dinner before we even talked about it. Weird, but in a fun sort of way. Another thing I noticed is that it’s the first time in my life that I visit two people who live just a couple of blocks away and share most of my book interests. It may seem obvious, since all our research is closely related, but it felt quite strange. Bergen, beautiful city, glad to be around. Too bad it’s pretty cold outside. Now, I have to polish a bit my presentation.