Ludology.org

Pariah media

Comics have been the ugly duckling of media for decades. Dismissed as a form for the young, they have failed to gain the public acceptance that they deserve, in spite of magnificent works. ImageText, a new online journal on comics, is trying to change that. Their first issue is out, and it includes an article by Laurie Taylor called Compromised Divisions:Thresholds in Comic Books and Video Games.

When virtual worlds collide

Nobody moves to Denmark. It is cold, the taxes are high and don't get me started with the food. So, you may wonder why did I make such a crazy move. Well, for things like Commwork, a full day Managing Virtual Communities series of talks with 4 kick-ass presenters. The picture shows Ted Castronova, Julian Dibbell, Richard Bartle, Constance Steinkuehler and T.L. Taylor, by the "old" ITU (we are moving to a brand new building in July)

New blog: avantgaming.com

New blogs are like fresh love: it burns brightly during the first months. Great blogs keep the flame alive, while not-so-great blogs become distant memories. Avantgaming has been out for a few weeks and it is currently shinning, so give it a try and bring your sunglasses. I love their idea of an indexed list of reviews. We need more reviews. If I had a life, I would love to edit some sort of tiny little publication of game reviews. But it will have to go to my "to do" list, now I am too busy with my new Danish life. We are moving to a new apartment next week and there is a lot of stuff going on at the Center. That being said, I will run this weekend to Barcelona to visit my sister. Of course I will doubt I will have time, but if you are aware of any thing worth seeing in Barcino, email me. Hey, this post got a bit too personal. It was meant to send you guys over at Avantgaming.com. So, please do it.

Uruguayan film wins award at Cannes

And now in the "old decadent media" news :) Pablo Stoll and Juan Pablo Rebella were awarded the Critic's award at Cannes by the International Federation of Film Critics (which also awarded Farenheit 9/11. This is why can also find a link to their film Whisky at MichaelMoore.com).
rThis is the second feature film from Stoll & Rebella (their opera prima was the terrific 25 watts. We went to college together and they always dreamt of making films. I always thought they were totally nuts, since everybody knows that you cannot make films in Uruguay. Well, it is seems they were nuts indeed!

GDC Europe Call for Papers

GDC Europe's CFP is out. The deadline is in exactly 1 week, May 28th, so you better hurry up (by the way, the anouncement was made today, so it is certainly a really short deadline for a proposal, but I think it is meant to be that way considering the large amount of interest they generate).

Comments off

Comments off until further notice. Blame spamers (or Sony, Bush, The Pope, Argentinians, The Bee Gees, Strawberry Jelly or whoever you want to blame)

RTS gets real?

David Wong wants more realism on RTS games in his humorous call for the "Ultimate War Sim". Myself, I wonder if the U.S. Army will include a torture training level in America's Army. I mean, the game's FAQ states that it is "…an accurate portrayal of Soldier experiences …". Weird, I have read the full game FAQ and it doesn't include nothing about systematic torture. Maybe the Bush administration is playing their own mod. Rumsfeld, level designer? Who would have thought of it?

The Simps?

At first sight, this CNN story on videogames does not deliver much news (it includes the traditional hyped quotes as "Consumers are no longer consciously differentiating what they see in a movie and what they're playing on a game"). Well, the story did not deliver until the part it mentions that EA (or Maxis) may be involved in a Simpsons game. "The Simps"? Virtual houses in Springfield? I may be reading too much into that phrases, but being a Simpsons' fan myself, I would certainly love a Sim-like Simpsons game.

Gamelearning.net

Finally, a PhD project page that looks the way all should look! Gamelearning.net is Jacob Habgood's PhD project description and it is a pleasure to read mainly because it has great and pertinent illustrations. Many academics believe that just because they focus on so-called "content", their material does not need to be fun. That is also the case with most academic papers, which generally avoid colloquial terms and expressions. I believe that we can be precise in our ideas while trying to make our work enjoyable to read. At least, that has been the philosophy behind my reviews at gamestudies (plain English can beat academese most of the times). Of course, Jacob may have the talent or the access to people who can illustrate his site. Don't we all do? Copyright concerns aside (no, it is not a big if), there are plenty of images that could illustrate our research projects, if not on their printed versions, at least on the websites. And if your University has concern about copyrighted web images, then move your server to Uruguay or some other Third World country.
rWe should all do this not just because it may be cute, but because text by itself can be evil. Let's put some of the video part back into videogame studies!

Games we Play II

(via Ludologist.com) Cornell hosted an exhibit on 19th and 20th century games which is now over, but its website is very alive and full with interesting stuff. I was particularly interested in their political (women voting games!) and moral games section, but I am sure that different readers will find other fascinating examples of early games.