Ludology.org

GDC Europe Day 0

The sun is shinning in London, quite a strange sight, especially for somebody coming from Copenhagen. I am staying a few blocks from Earls Court, where GDCE is being held, so this morning I went to pick up my badge. The conference as such starts tomorrow, today Microsoft runs the show by preaching the pleasures of XNA. Too boring for me, I ran out towards Picadilly to visit my friend Benjamin at CNN London.Tomorrow will be another day, I will post if they have WiFi. This afternoon I am being interviewed on radio for The World, on the BBC, about games, ideas, politics, September 12th and such.
r

Welcome to Ludology.org

If you got here through the excellent Gamespot article on games and research, well, be welcomed! Welcome to Ludology.org. Here you'll find research events, links and articles, and the occasional political rant. Make sure that you also visit Newsgaming.com and play the games, and have a drink at the Watercooler, too.
rnIf you are a usual reader and have no idea of what I am talking about, make sure you check Lauren Gonzalez's humongous report (15 pages!) on videogames and research at Gamespot.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

I soon will be off to London, where I'll be giving a talk at GDC Europe, as well as participating in a few panels. This year, things are a bit strange during videogamewhise, since there are two competing conferences and trade shows, at the same time. In addition to GDC Europe, this year there is also the European Developers Forum. I am not really fully aware of the politics behind this competition but my first thought is the more, the merrier! I'll see what I find out in London and share it with you guys after I am back.
rI'll be in the UK for the whole next week, by far the longest time that I ever stayed accross the pond. The land of the ZX Spectrum! I wouldn't be doing what I do if it wasn't for that old chap Sir Sinclair. Here's to you, Sir, and to your funny little electric car.

The Oldest Game on Earth

Virtual Girlfriend + Real Money? This has all the potential to be a very interesting case of virtual prostitution. The BBC reports on a new 3G mobile phone game developed in Hong Kong. Virtual Girlfriends are certainly not new and quite popular among Japanese gamers. But here the twist seems to be that you have to pay actual money in order to buy her virtual presents. This game seems then to mix Virtual Pets with sex and virtual economies. I do believe this sort of mix could be quite successful, as long as the presents do not cost a lot.

Beyond Newsgaming

I am still doing research in case today happens to be a sort of secret April Fools day or something like that. The New York Times reports that Senator Ted Kennedy was blocked from boarding airplanes while in the US, supposedly because his name was similar to an alias used by a supposed terrorist. Ted Kennedy! Probably the most famous US Senator in the last decades. From the Kennedys!! The richest political aristocracy in the States. If a Kennedy, a US freakin Senator, is denied boarding an airplane without explanation, imagine what could happen to a regular US citizen. Of course, just imagine the ordeal for non-US citizens, let alone Arabs or suspiciously dark-skinned folks.
rThings like this make really hard for people in the whole world not to laugh their asses off and call Americans the richest, dumbest people in the planet. Of course, such judgment is not only unfair but also wrong. There is another name for this and it is not a pretty one. It is called fascism, a well-documented decease that affect people who are afraid.
rThis story is so troubling –even more troubling that the tortures and killings in Iraq, which were expected- that I am speechless. I wish I could make a newsgame about this but, sincerely, I don’t know where to start.

Videogame anthems

A couple of years ago, I was hanging out by Shibuya with good friend Aki Jarvinen when we decided to embark on a quest for videogame soundtracks. We had heard rumours that such thing existed and we decided to prove it. So we went to one of Tokyo's largest music stores and asked the always-smiling clerk where we could find game soundtracks. Sadly, the girl's English skills were just a bit better than our Japanese ones, but we sort of understood that she said we could find them on the 4th floor. While on the escalator, we convinced ourselves that there had been a misunderstanding and, of course, she had sent us to the floor where movie soundtracks were located. We were wrong. While the selection was not to be compared with their film equivalents, there were over one hundred CDs available. I am not wrong, Aki bought Ico and Parappa's (which came quite handy when we later met Masaya Matsuura, who was kind enough to deal with our we-are-not-worthy worshipping and even signed the copy).
rThis morning, I fired up the iTunes Music Store and one of those little ads on the top caught my eye: Madden NFL 2005 soundtrack (you need to have iTunes installed to see this link). That made me wonder a bit about game music and how many game music composers create music is "interactive" and varies according to the gameplay. If millions of combinations are possible, then which one do you burn on a CD in order to sell as a soundtrack? I guess that the situation is not as different from traditional music as it looks at first sight. After all, there are infinite ways of performing the same song and that is why we are so happy to listen to unplugged, bootleg, cover and live versions. If the music depends on the player and how she performs, wouldn't it be great if we could buy, say, a soundtrack as performed by this or that player?
rOf course it is a weird idea, but really connected to what I have been researching lately: player performance in games. I will post my writings as they become available (a few months, at least). Meanwhile, I am really happy that game soundtracks are for sale and I am looking forward to see the available catalog to expand.

Political anti-doping

Fair play. That's what we all expect from gamers, particularly this week during the Olympic games. Certainly, the strange case of Greek athletes failing to show up for their anti-doping tests did cast the shadow of a doubt over the games. We need to wait now a few more days until the proper authorities run their investigations and procedures.
rIf politics is a game or not, well, that depends on your definitions. But it does indeed have plenty of elements in common, goals, rules, winner, losers, and specially the fact that everybody expects transparency and fairness. You may know, or not, that a referendum was held this weekend in Venezuela, a recall on the President Chavez (certainly quite a character). Both the Carter Center and the OEA were observers of the whole process and certified the results of the referendum.
rI wake up every morning and I read. Not the physical newspaper, but rather a selection of blogs and online newsplaces, including the BBC, Le Monde, CNN, The New York Times, LA Times, Liberation (mainly I check the headlines and, if tempted, I click) and, sometimes, the casual Argentinian or Spaniard newspaper. The whole process usually takes about half an hour. This morning I stayed home, working on my GDC Europe presentation, but I was a bit surprised about my news reading. There was the piece of news in Le Monde (top story of their website) that I could not easily find anywhere else in the other major media that I read (the info may be buried deep into some links, many clicks away from being real news). It states that the US State Department contested today the results of the Venezuelan referendum. Yes, you read it here first: the same goverment that was "elected" in Florida in 2000, is arrogant enough to embarass itself by contesting the results of an election in another country (supervised, by the way, by a former US President). The rules of the games are clear, and cheaters cannot be judges. It would be funny, but I am pretty sure that the State Department is deadly serious about it. Of course, it is good to see that most of the major online media (particularly those who update themselves regularly) helped to prevent the embarassment to prevail. One can only imagine why the French would put that story as top news in Le Monde. Probably because they (we) are mean, arrogant and evil. And maybe also to remind us who is running this world of us.
rEnough said. I will check the Olympics now. I wonder if narc dealers are the ones in charge of the anti-doping tests. I wouldn't be surprised at all.

Some of us, we call it research

More on Tokyo-planning. While the texts are far from accurate, you may enjoy these pictures of Japanese toys and Japanese arcades. Very important note: here's the link to the Gloomy shop (map included!), where it seems now they have camouflaged Gloomy and some new cool Gloomy T-shirts. I am on the way to the bank to apply for a loan... and I should get a huge suitcase, too.
rThis is the first animated GIF to ever grace the pages of Ludology. Man, these things are annoying. But I couldn't resist...

You can be our new head of departmen!

Do you have what it takes to be a fearless leader? If you do, you may want to apply for the open position of Head of Department of DIAC at ITU, in Denmark (our Center for Computer Games Research is part of DIAC). Move to Denmark and help changing the future of game research (hopefully for the better, of course! :) Here are the details of the position. Hurry up, the deadline is September 20th, 2004 at noon (yes, Danes are quite serious about their deadlines). It's not a big deal if you can't speak Danish, I will personally teach you (well, on a second thought you may want a better teacher).
rI will blindly follow your command, oh powerful, soon-to-be, whoever-you-are, new Head of Department!

Game auteurs

Clive Thompson (of collisiondetection.net) asks at Slate if videogames have auteurs.