I feel like unless it becomes architectural/linguistic studies of code (which exist already), it's always going to be limited to either a) finding how coders described sections of the code in comments/names of functions and show how that's "problematic" (ie: Natives as a variable) or b) just extracting things without context because they sound interesting. I could see a really interesting, maybe super-Levi-Straussian structural analysis of code develop, but aren't the really serious questions about code mostly already covered by computer science + game theory + stuff? And the things this guy wants to study (broad identity studies w/ a nod towards critical theory/cont. phil) he would probably be better served writing about the game on a game level. Anything embedded in the code is going to occur on the surface too. You don't need to open up the code to realize that you aren't given the choice to play as the natives in the game. Going through the code to show how even if you hack the game, there still aren't sufficient options for the natives is just redundant.
― Mordy, Sunday, 11 March 2012 02:58 (twelve years ago) link
but I have yet to see it executed well.
― Andrew Kornfan, Sunday, 11 March 2012 19:14 (twelve years ago) link
i don't think it's redundant - the screenshot of the empty town it creates manifests something interesting you couldn't get at in other ways. and i think there's stuff that (if you had code-literate ppl doing this) it would make more sense to get from the code, like e.g. how the AI makes decisions about native behaviour, than to observe and reverse-engineer the design principles. (a couple things i read about how the alien team thinks on the worryingly comprehensive x-com wiki made me go 'huuuuh'. i'm not sure x-com is as interesting to deconstruct for 'meaning' though.)
― desperado, rough rider (thomp), Sunday, 11 March 2012 19:36 (twelve years ago) link
man, nothin on rps this sunday worth reading at all. fu british games journalism
― desperado, rough rider (thomp), Sunday, 11 March 2012 19:51 (twelve years ago) link
some likeminded bros of mine have started some pretty cool gaming blogs
crystalprisonzone.blogspot.comgamefeel.tumblr.com/pldevelopment.blogspot.comgamergoku.blogspot.comshutupandgame.blogspot.comfinalbrutalweapon.blogspot.com
they're mostly coming from anti-narratologist POVs
― these pretzels are makeing me horney (Hungry4Ass), Monday, 12 March 2012 00:59 (twelve years ago) link
looking forward to exploring that list
― God: Huummm (forksclovetofu), Monday, 12 March 2012 04:23 (twelve years ago) link
who are these ppl and why didn't they start one nonbuttugly blog
― desperado, rough rider (thomp), Monday, 12 March 2012 18:21 (twelve years ago) link
why do that when you can start an ironic webring
― these pretzels are makeing me horney (Hungry4Ass), Monday, 12 March 2012 18:24 (twelve years ago) link
http://crystalprisonzone.blogspot.com/2012/03/bioware-day-one-dlc-developed.html
i guess this is an example of 'critical code studies' that tells us something we couldn't know without looking at the code
xpost do they actually have little webring .gifs and stuff that i missed bcz they totally should
― desperado, rough rider (thomp), Monday, 12 March 2012 18:28 (twelve years ago) link
if 'critical code studies' consists of uncovering whether companies are lying about dlc ripping you off or not, i'm not interested in the field.
― Mordy, Monday, 12 March 2012 18:30 (twelve years ago) link
like, this isn't critical code studies. it's consumer watchdogism bolstered by code analysis.
― Mordy, Monday, 12 March 2012 18:31 (twelve years ago) link
i'm sorry i just thought it would be a thing to say that would make me sound clever
― desperado, rough rider (thomp), Monday, 12 March 2012 18:34 (twelve years ago) link
huh
― Lamp, Monday, 12 March 2012 18:34 (twelve years ago) link
aka privileging gamism + ludic components over story/narrative (if i understand it correctly)
― Mordy, Monday, 12 March 2012 18:35 (twelve years ago) link
i should start a blog, about videogames
― desperado, rough rider (thomp), Monday, 12 March 2012 19:30 (twelve years ago) link
haha tim rogers first game is out
― desperado, rough rider (thomp), Monday, 12 March 2012 19:32 (twelve years ago) link
I have it. It's kind of fun but I got bored of it pretty fast.
― polyphonic, Monday, 12 March 2012 19:43 (twelve years ago) link
i would like to blog about video games however i am terrible at updating blogs bc i lose interest and never update it.
i would like to blog about video games on someone else's blog. i think this would be ideal.
― Mordy, Monday, 12 March 2012 20:44 (twelve years ago) link
yeah blogs require too much dedication for me (ie. a nonzero amount). i'll stick to postin'
― these pretzels are makeing me horney (Hungry4Ass), Monday, 12 March 2012 21:10 (twelve years ago) link
those dudes seem to be at abt the same level of discourse as ILG, they should post here instead, that would require the less effort of not typing a different address in my web browser
― bosomy English rose (thomp), Monday, 12 March 2012 21:21 (twelve years ago) link
god, chrome has the eight most frequently visited sites and i only even use about five of those, what happened to the internet
― bosomy English rose (thomp), Monday, 12 March 2012 21:22 (twelve years ago) link
lol i wouldnt inflict ILG on them. they all post on another board im on, u should join it instead
― these pretzels are makeing me horney (Hungry4Ass), Tuesday, 13 March 2012 14:22 (twelve years ago) link
cruel!
― Mordy, Tuesday, 13 March 2012 14:31 (twelve years ago) link
lol ade. what is this other forum?
― bosomy English rose (thomp), Tuesday, 13 March 2012 15:14 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2012/03/13/bioware-plays-the-gay-card/
― s.clover, Thursday, 15 March 2012 00:04 (twelve years ago) link
one of the reasons i love tom chick
― Mordy, Thursday, 15 March 2012 00:57 (twelve years ago) link
g1
― Nhex, Thursday, 15 March 2012 02:46 (twelve years ago) link
Permalink― bosomy English rose (thomp), Tuesday, 13 March 2012 15:14 (2 days ago)
― bamcquern, Thursday, 15 March 2012 03:02 (twelve years ago) link
hope this hasn't already been posted: http://insertcredit.com/2011/09/22/who-killed-videogames-a-ghost-story/
― s.clover, Saturday, 17 March 2012 21:37 (twelve years ago) link
ah, nhex posted it back in november. still a great read.
― s.clover, Saturday, 17 March 2012 22:51 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2012/03/24/the-official-journey-review-faq/
my fave part: had no idea Chick was a Harvard divinity student who learned Hebrew
― Mordy, Sunday, 25 March 2012 01:03 (twelve years ago) link
ha for a mo I thought you meant Jack Chick lol
― Large Sack (Empty) (latebloomer), Sunday, 25 March 2012 05:15 (twelve years ago) link
well, he does clarify that in the article
― thomp, Sunday, 25 March 2012 09:53 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7793059/john-burgeson-ibm-computer-start-baseball-video-games
― Mordy, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 13:05 (twelve years ago) link
nice story!
i like this one too, even if it's a bit bloggy:
http://insertcredit.com/2012/04/09/playing-to-win-at-life/
― Nhex, Tuesday, 10 April 2012 22:31 (twelve years ago) link
more worth seeing than reading but:http://www.campbellwhyte.com/8-bit-dreams/8-bit-requim-for-a-dreams/he's selling originals for fifty bucks, i'm tempted by a few of thesehttp://www.etsy.com/listing/79423771/adventures-of-lolo-original-nes?ref=v1_other_2
― boy, was that Dan Fielding hungry for some cake! (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 12 April 2012 03:30 (twelve years ago) link
some of those are pretty neat. i would certainly not pay money for them
― Nhex, Thursday, 12 April 2012 04:08 (twelve years ago) link
i suppose i wouldn't either but i'd entertain the idea
― boy, was that Dan Fielding hungry for some cake! (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 12 April 2012 04:12 (twelve years ago) link
i guess what i'm saying is, don't do it man :P
― Nhex, Thursday, 12 April 2012 04:17 (twelve years ago) link
heh, okay
― boy, was that Dan Fielding hungry for some cake! (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 12 April 2012 04:36 (twelve years ago) link
i often feel the past couple years have been a futile waste of time but then i read a sentence like "i spent a year and a half playing starcraft 2" and momentarily feel better about myself
― thomp, Thursday, 12 April 2012 07:32 (twelve years ago) link
I bet you guys are real excited to read another long feature about JBlow, the game industry's "most cerebral developer":
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/the-most-dangerous-gamer/8928/
― polyphonic, Thursday, 12 April 2012 19:20 (twelve years ago) link
stopped here:
“It just drives home how fictional money is,” Blow said, squinting against the unseasonably bright December sun. “One day I’m looking at my bank account and there’s not much money, and the next day there’s a large number in there and I’m rich. In both cases, it’s a fictional number on the computer screen, and the only reason that I’m rich is because somebody typed a number into my bank account.” For the world’s most existentially obsessed game developer, coming into seven figures just provided another opportunity to ponder the nature of meaning in the universe.
jesus christ STFU
― original bgm, Thursday, 12 April 2012 20:11 (twelve years ago) link
tell you what, let me hold six of those figures and then call me back about existential meaning
― boy, was that Dan Fielding hungry for some cake! (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 12 April 2012 20:58 (twelve years ago) link
nothing jblow says there is as bad as whoever wrote it
― thomp, Thursday, 12 April 2012 22:35 (twelve years ago) link
^^^^^^^^^^
― I accidentally sonned your dome (stevie), Friday, 13 April 2012 06:58 (twelve years ago) link
Yeah, the bit where he tries to make out that games were wall-to-wall Call of Duty and nothing else before Braid came along is the worst.
― if, Friday, 13 April 2012 07:04 (twelve years ago) link
What I got from that article is that one of the philosophical changes made by fictional money is that it will cause some journalists to cast you as the next Howard Roark rather than say "Dude has autism-spectum disorder".
― Andrew Farrell, Saturday, 14 April 2012 07:40 (twelve years ago) link
the atlantic's such a good magazine, why would they have published this laughable profile?
― I accidentally sonned your dome (stevie), Saturday, 14 April 2012 09:25 (twelve years ago) link
this bugged me the most but it's my problem really
This means, somewhat incredibly, that Blow doesn’t believe in even trying to communicate a game’s central message in words; the medium itself, he argues, is the message.
YOU DON'T SAY
― their private gesture for bison (difficult listening hour), Saturday, 14 April 2012 14:12 (twelve years ago) link