"Perhaps the academics would be better served by going to the Game Developers Conference two weeks later and learn a thing or to."
[And I agree with the points made by Dennis above -- I am busy lighting candles at this very moment.]
Ah, but the bitter truth is that I doubt that I can convince my department to send me to GDC or E3, but (as the fact that this got into the NYTimes shows) an academic conference at Princeton is the kind of thing other academics understand. These are early days and interesting times, at least for me, and I think it might be better for academic critics to be just a little humble and not try to imply that we know everything and are somehow setting ourselves in a position from which we will dispense wisdom. Critics are critics. Academics are academics. Developers are developers. Sometimes, as with Eric Zimmerman or Gonzalo Frasca, individuals can wear more than one hat, but it is still fairly rare. We can learn from each other, but I'm all for haphazard intersections rather than a fixed game plan to demand utility from my work rather than the application of curiosity with extra disciplinary knowledge.
Barry
If that isn't ironic, then I really do apologise.The original article that the journalist read back to me didn't have 'unfortunate plot twist' in it, just the declaration of my incompetence. And that was after weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks of going through Half-Life again and again. One nice thing about studying games is the way that any kind of overwhelming grasp of everything about them always seems to slip out of reach. It was after he was done and I was explaining why it might matter in the case of Half-Life that the possible spoiler crept in (although...) It is only when I give papers on games that I have to check that there aren't any spoilers. A strange thing, given that there is a declaration among many in whatever qualifies as games studies that 'games are not stories' that spoiling story (and not just gameplay elements) justly irritates players.
My paper at the conference is titled 'Can I please reload from last save game?': Getting it wrong (and right) in a nascent discipline. Perhaps I should remove the 'and right'? Can this be regarded as an apology?
Regards,
Barry
Slashdot Mirror
"Perhaps the academics would be better served by going to the Game Developers Conference two weeks later and learn a thing or to." [And I agree with the points made by Dennis above -- I am busy lighting candles at this very moment.] Ah, but the bitter truth is that I doubt that I can convince my department to send me to GDC or E3, but (as the fact that this got into the NYTimes shows) an academic conference at Princeton is the kind of thing other academics understand. These are early days and interesting times, at least for me, and I think it might be better for academic critics to be just a little humble and not try to imply that we know everything and are somehow setting ourselves in a position from which we will dispense wisdom. Critics are critics. Academics are academics. Developers are developers. Sometimes, as with Eric Zimmerman or Gonzalo Frasca, individuals can wear more than one hat, but it is still fairly rare. We can learn from each other, but I'm all for haphazard intersections rather than a fixed game plan to demand utility from my work rather than the application of curiosity with extra disciplinary knowledge. Barry
If that isn't ironic, then I really do apologise.The original article that the journalist read back to me didn't have 'unfortunate plot twist' in it, just the declaration of my incompetence. And that was after weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks of going through Half-Life again and again. One nice thing about studying games is the way that any kind of overwhelming grasp of everything about them always seems to slip out of reach. It was after he was done and I was explaining why it might matter in the case of Half-Life that the possible spoiler crept in (although...) It is only when I give papers on games that I have to check that there aren't any spoilers. A strange thing, given that there is a declaration among many in whatever qualifies as games studies that 'games are not stories' that spoiling story (and not just gameplay elements) justly irritates players. My paper at the conference is titled 'Can I please reload from last save game?': Getting it wrong (and right) in a nascent discipline. Perhaps I should remove the 'and right'? Can this be regarded as an apology? Regards, Barry