"Remember what the dormouse said"

I'm moving to wordpress

2009-12-06T02:20:00.004+01:00

It will take a while before it feels like home - it's a bit messy (as myself) - but will be more understandable after a while!

See ya at:

http://dekcuf.wordpress.com

Machinima Night III program part 2

2009-11-01T15:27:00.012+01:00

MTV GENERATION

I cannot touch on the topic of Machinima without mentioning the music videos. It's a storytelling format which the MTV-generation understands so well and they're able to use their literacy of music videos to create their own. It's a wonderful way to be a fan of both the games and the music. I have a soft spot for the music Machinima that doesn't have a glossy feel - but rather amateur love.

I showed two very old music Machinima films. The first one is from a very well known machinima artist, who I'm sure wishes that I showed some of his newer stuff. B. Kiddo has been creating machinima for years and his artful skills in The Sims and Second Life are just awesome. But this Machinima film is one of the first I ever saw. I was so touhed by it. Although it isn't smoothly made - it's very emotional. I showed this to a girl friend of mine who thinks I'm totally weird for being interested in this stuff and would rather I focus my attention on finding a man and go shopping - and she welled up. Which of course gave me immense satisfaction!

B. Kiddo - Bitter Sweet (I'm looking into fitting it properly - meanwhile you can watch it here)

The other music Machinima I played is actually Chinese and made Everquest. I stumbled upon it by chance. It is very simple - but the song is just so catchy I can't help but love it! I'm told the song was a number one hit in China about 10 years ago (thanks KML) and I can understand why. I find myself humming the song several times a day and I enjoy simplisity of the Machinima film.

Peter Tan - Look Over Here!

If you ask me it's a beautiful way of being a fan. A true testament to the participatory culture that is evolving on the net. It's therefore such a shame that the music industry is constantly hassling these artists and taking their films, their fan worshipping of sites like YouTube.

Here's another - which just combines the ticklish fun that Little Big Planet's gameplay produces and Daft Punk.

Danteneverdies - Little Daft Punk

And lastly I want to mention the overly dramatic nature of Music Machinima made in The Sims. I have a theory that it's because of the dramatic gestures of the avatars that just makes them so perfect for drama that involves crying and pain. These gestures and The Sims Goth I'm sure are responsible for the massive amounts of The Sims Music Machinima with the music of Evanescence. I cannot tell you how many Machinima films I've seen with this soundtrack! So far, I've spared the audience - but I had decided that this year that I would expose them to some of the torture I go through by finding Machinima films for these evenings. Luckily for them, the video was broken so I couldn't show it - but you can now!

Storytelling

As Machinima advances so do the stories. There's some brilliant storytelling coming out of these games and they're just so beautifully told.

My all time favourite is Among Fables and Men by Dopefish. Someday I will write a paper on this film. The way he's made a three dimensional space take on the the form of paper and 2 dimensions is just gobsmackingly beautiful.

Tobias "Dopefish" Lundmark - Among Fables and Men (best seen in full HD here)

I think this film is the first to take the artform a step further. This is far beyond fan fiction or even participatory art - this is a well told story.

And there's plenty of good stuff coming out from several games. At this point I realised that I was running out of time. So I skipped Shelf Life - although I absolutely adore it. It's just too long for a showing on a night like this event. But it's definitely a sign of how evolved the medium of Machinima is becoming. It's hard to look at Shelf Life and think that it's made in a game. It therefore becomes rather difficult in appreciating the puppet mastery or the communication between artist and artificial intelligence. The focus becomes the story.

PixelEyesProductions - Shelf Life

MACHINIMA MASHUP STORYTELLING?

I'm not sure I can all it this. Mash-up storytelling? Hmm. Anyways - the last segment of the first part of the evening is about combining different games and game - dare I say - narratives.

Clear Skies is one of the best Machinima films I have ever seen. I'm noticing the same thing with this film as with Shelf Life - I forget to appreciate the gameplay mastery. It's hardly there - I get too wrapped up in the story to even think about the work involved behind it. And yet the creator, Ian Chisolm spent about a year just collecting footage of gameplay to this wonderful Machinima film. It's a combination of Half Life and EVE Online. I'm only going to embedd the trailer here - links for downloading the whole thing can be found at Rock Paper Shotgun.

Ian Chisholm - Clear Skies Trailer

And lastly - we have this absolutely brilliant Machinima film which comments on today's tv programs, media culture, game narratives and is just pure fun. Again - I'm forgetting the mastery of game mechanics and just really enjoying the story. Thanks for the "heads-up" Neils!

Lagspike - Top FPS

Conclusion

This is a very rough introduction to what machinima is or what I perceive machinima to be. I tried having "the machine" as a theme throughout - but as you can see, I strayed off topic some. This is just me being a fan. I would love to look more into researching, writing and talking about Machinima. I need to read up on narratology as well. I'm constantly learning new things about this medium and I love learning about it.

Thanks so much to Morten Kvamme, the curator at Landmark who lets me use their space and time to geek out about Machinima. Thank you sooo much!

Machinima Night III program part 1

2009-10-31T12:49:00.005+01:00

Phew - took some time, ey?

So the whole point with organising these Machinima evenings is to create a space for people to relax, share a beer and be introduced to what's going on in the world of Machinima. There's people who know what we're on about and there's people who are just fascinated by the medium and of course, those who are interested in New Media. I try to give an overview of what machinima is, but the more I learn about it - the more I realise that I'm just barely scratching the surface. So this year I decided to toss out objectivity and completely focus on what I wanted to focus on. I completely choked up, though. Suddenly I realised I had a microphone in my hand and people were listening to what I had to say - I haven't talked publicly in a long long time! Definitely needed the practice. Luckily I've been giving a few lectures and presentations with work lately - so I'm starting to get it down again. So anyways - I'm going to squeeze in what I meant to say inbetween talking about the program of the evening. If you don't recognise some of it - this is why.

So nuff said!

Machinima stands for machine + cinema + animation. If you think it doesn't add up with the spelling, blame Hugh Hancock who created www.machinima.com. There's also a story about a pub, a few beers and a cocktail napkin. But in essence it's machinima stands for machine + cinema + animation. It was the intention to focus the evening on the "machine"-part. What fascinates me with machinima is how the artists are communicating with a machine or an artificial intelligence to create their own narrative or story. The machine I'm talking about is the computer game where the film is made. If a machinima film is made in World of Warcraft, the artist will have to communicate with the game and understand the game mechanics in order to tell their story.

Defining Machinima

I'm usually very casual with my definition of machinima: "Films made in computer games or virtual worlds." - I feel it works. It's simple and it's so that anyone can understand it. It's a very general definition however so to show the complexities of this - I started off showing the audience the infamous Leeroy Jenkins episode.

At my first ever Machinima event I also started with this little film. I thought it was an entertaining way to show what World of Warcraft actually looks like during gameplay and back then I used it as an example of what wasn't machinima. My intention was to prove that machinima isn't replay films. There's usually a narrative or storyline involved within machinima it's not all about playing the game, it's more about playing the game to tell a story.

But a great thing happened - my audience disagreed with me. They started to question whether this Leeroy Jenkins episode was REALLY just a documentation of an incident that happened in World of Warcraft. The authenticity was questioned and if the film is a reenactment are they not telling us a story, and is it not machinima then?

Perhaps I'm confusing my definition with aesthetics. The next film looks completely different from the first. It can maybe be categorised as a celebration of WoW game aesthetics or as I prefer to think of it - a celebration of the art of machinima. The filming, the modding, the acting and the playing. Let me introduce you to one of my favourite machinima artists:

Baron Soosdon - I'm So Sick

Now the theme of the evening is to look at the way machinima artists are interacting with the game or "machine" in order to create their own stories and narrative. I feel this is an important component to defining what machinima is. Gameplay or communicating with artificial intelligence has a narratological significance in machinima films. Henry Lowood has defined it as puppet mastery. An artist must master the game and the avatars in order to create their own storyline. I feel that one of my favourite machinima films (I'll be writing that a lot in this piece) illustrates this rather eloquently. It's created in The Sims. Keep in mind that there are no magic buttons in The Sims which makes the Sims avatar angry or sad or have nightmares. The emotions are consequences of how you play with them. The Sims have a complex artificial intelligence embedded within them. While watching this film try to think of what the machinima artist has done to the avatar to make her have nightmares. In addition - I just find this film such a great omage of what you can do with avatar creation in The Sims. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

One Jovial Sim - Alice

Now - saying that machinima has to have the element of the artist communicating with an artificial intelligence or gameplay reduces the scope of machinima. Or questions it. For example, there's some beautiful films coming out of Second Life but this is a virtual world, there's little gameplaying involved. Do these films then deserve to be a part of the same genre?

My favourite film from Second Life is an illustration of a short story by Sherwood Anderson. I haven't read up on his work and I haven't researched any analysis of this story. But from seeing this cinematic interpretation of the story - I feel it's the best story ever told about writer's block.

Lainy Voom - The Dumb Man

Incidently - One Jovial Sim (Alice) and Lainy Voom often collaborate in each other's creations. Which makes you wonder - if the artists are collaborating, it must fall under the same media, right? Wouldn't that be interesting if it's the community of machinima artists that define what constitutes machinima or not?

Either way - I've concluded that there's more than enough artificial intelligence in virtual worlds like Second Life for us to appreciate the puppet mastery involved in creating films in this space.

Now - there's a new machinima "world" that I still don't understand completely and will have to look deeper into, but I feel I can't question the definition of machinima without mentioning it. The machinima "world" I'm refering to is, Moviestorm. From what I understand, this is a community that uploads environments, avatars, clothes etc. from games and virtual worlds and shares them with other machinima artists. So it seems like a machinima "world", to me. But again, I must stress that I have not fully understood the concept and tool. Most of the contributions to machinima festivals are filmed with Moviestorm and it's definitely a very strong force.

We've been a bit dark and serious in our film selection so far - so I thought I'd pick a film made with Moviestorm that made me laugh.

Phil Rice - Blast Supper

This is actually made for the Mefunk Akira competition. There was a list of things that had to be said in the film, like "That's not a chicken, that's my wife". Excellent idea! And the film is just hillarious. But is it machinima?

I don't know. Hugh Hancock, who created the whole term "machinima" says: "Of course it is!" - and for now, I'm willing to trust his expertise.

For more on the "definition"-discussion read Tracy Harwood's contribution to The Fallopian.

Machinima Night III

2009-10-24T16:10:00.006+02:00

I've promised to do a write-up of MachinimaNight III to all who attended - share the links to the films and artists. I'm going to do this back to front and start off at the last part. Mostly this is for Scott and Jill who had to leave early. I appreciate your interest and support! Thanks!

So in the course of the night I had introduced the audience to different genres and types of machinima, mostly concentrating on form and not about the creative communities within machinima making communities.

This is the ingredient of machinima that fascinates me the most and there's one group that I've been paying attention to and just downright adore. So first - let me introduce you to Olibith.

Olibith is what we might call a machinima superstar. He was initially created on a WoW role-playing server, but has become so famous that he cannot roleplay anymore - he has become a machinima superstar and his sole purpose in his little avatar life is to create machinima. It is far from a lonely life.

Olibith is a member of a machinima artist gang. I usually call them the Never Stay Tuned gang - or NST gang. But upon reflection I find the word "gang" stupid and will have to come up with a cooler name. They're a network of machinima artists who help each other out with skills and inspiration. Let me introduce you to some of them (I did not have time to show all these on Machinima Night III - but taking the freeedom to do so now):

Baron Soosdon

The avatar, Little Nikita was made in collaboration with Pink Hair. I've only seen here in a few of Baron Soosdon's machinima - he tends to vary with the use of avatars - or shall we say modelled avatars. He's much more focused on giving the audience an aestheticly impressive atmosphere than telling a story from beginning to end. I still think there's a lot of narrative in his machinima films - but my definition of narrative is rather wide at the moment.

Olibith and Baron Soosdon meet in Warcraft Movies after having created machinima by themselves.

PinkHair

Maybe you recognise someone in this machinima film? It was made in collaboration with Baron Soosdon with a little help from some others, like Olibith - see where I'm going with this?

Dopefish

Dopefish has made one of the best machinima pieces I've ever seen. He's an excellent storyteller. I'm asking for permission to upload Among Fables and Men onto YouTube so I can share it with you here. I've often wanted to do a longer review of it, but felt that my gaming skills were inadequate to give it a proper analysis. I've always thought it expressed the way that World of Warcraft is "just" a game. That underneath all the beautiful 3Dishness - there's a story and there's gamescript - but I'll get back to that another time.

Dopefish created a machinima IRC channel at Quakenet, which has been a resource for the collaborative nature of the machinima that these artists are creating.

Here's an absolute favourite of mine:

(YouTube's very frequent in taking stopping machinima on YouTube (music copyright) - so you can download it here if the embedded video doesn't work.)

This is a collection of seperate shorts by several machinima artists and I feel that it clearly exemplifies the way that each artist has their own style and expression. The style of Never Stay Tuned is also a mockery (and appreciation) of other media entertainment, which works so well in machinima. The way that avatars in a gaming world are imitating the 'real world' media - just works so well! And this group of machinima artists are smart in their creative storytelling.

It's also evident that they keep helping each other and you see that by their uniqueness in style and technique. The most obvious is Olibith, who keeps making guest appearances. He's easy to spot. Have a look at the film again and see if you can spot him in pictures on the wall, in the background a.s.o. The technique and aesthetic footprint of Baron Soosdon is very evident in his music video or does his musical taste give him away? Would I be able to recognise it as his work and not Pinkhair's if it weren't for the darkness, editing and futuristic aesthetics? And then inbetween all the hillariousness comes Dopefish's beautiful recreation of the Sony colour balls commercial, which just takes my breathe away.

Together, this group of machinima artists are creating a collective narrative. And we'll get more into that another time when I figure it out myself - hehe! I really should be reading, writing and researching this full time, huh?! I promise to get back to it soon but real life is knocking on my door.

While I work on that enjoy the latest Never Stay Tuned which also has contributions from AFK pl@yers, Ian Beckman (he was also in nr. 3) and Goldskin.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Machinima Night III

2009-10-22T08:07:00.002+02:00

Ehm...let's ignore the misspelling of my name, ey?!

Happy Birthday, sis!

2009-09-20T09:48:00.003+02:00

It's my sister's birthday today and I just wanted to give her a little public shout and hug!

Christin blogs about her WoWing and a whole lot of other great stuff - at Misc.

In fact -my sister has managed to create one of those healthy gaming family settings that you always wish you heard more about.

Christin is also involved somehow with The Slash 2 Podcast.

I adore my sister. Smart as hell and lustful for life!

Happy 29th birthday, sis!

MachinimUP or MachiniMIX

2009-08-22T17:08:00.002+02:00

I'm trying to figure out a really catchy great name for the upcoming Machinima Night at Landmark 22. October. This is what I've come up with - MachinimUP or MachiniMIX - but to be perfectly honest - I feel that's just a foolish way of hyping it all up. Why not continue to be perfectly honest, frank and to the point with Machinima Night III?

I'm officially on vacation and I'm unofficially trying to get my head focused on upcoming projects and dreams this fall so I can dive straight into them when I come home. My day job will be requiring quite a lot of attention - so I must have a few things straight soon.

This blog has helped me gain perspective so many times before - I think it's only reasonable that I should continue brainstorming here. So to whomever is interested - this is where my mind is at when it comes to this years Machinima Night.

Earlier vs now
Previous Machinima Nights have been about describing what machinima is and trying to categorise the art into genres.

I'm not sure I want to do that this year.

I think I want to start off by describing machinima by using a series of clips from machinima. I've recently bought Adobe Premiere (better be worth the frakkin money!)- which I'm hoping to get my head around as soon as possible - so editing will be a sinch.

I want to talk about these sequences and what is actually going on. I want to describe the machine part in machinima - as this is the part that often gets misunderstood in my presentations.

So first half hour will be focusing on "what's the "machine" about in machinima?"

The industry of Machinima
Then I'd really like to get into where Machinima is today. It would be perfect if I could get an overview of how many competitions there are in a year - how many movies get published - how many fans create machinima - how many submit machinima to the competitions.

I have to admit that I'm not too optimistic of managing to gather all this information in time - but it would be lovely. So any help will be greatly appreciated.

I'll write a few e-mails and do a little snooping. Of course the subject will have to start with a little history of what Machinima really is - why it's here - and why it's so popular.

I think half an hour - unless I get some really interesting information that is worth a good run through.

Copyright issues
I don't know if I want to touch on this subject. I still want this to be a topic that desserves a full night's discussion - not a little byline in an evening that's mostly about the amusing qualities of machinima.

An interesting case study could maybe be - "Why Rooster Teeth can sell Red vs. Blue DVDs". At the moment I don't know - may be a short answer - may be an interesting "Lessig got involved"- answer. Will of course be researching that as soon as possible - remember - I'm just brainstorming here.

What I enjoy most about this case study is that it gives me an opportunity to show a Red vs. Blue - clip - which is always a source of laughter and happiness in the crowd. I don't often use Rooster Teeth in my presentations because most people associate machinima with them - and I want to share with the audience that machinima is so much more. So they quite often get left out - which I'm starting to feel is rather unfair - since it is Rooster Teeth that first introduced me to machinima. So two flies in one smack, as we say in Norwegian.

But I'm not certain the subject belongs here. If I'm really good - I can do a short and understandable and thought provoking insightful little 20 min speech on the subject and then maybe a break so people can discuss it among themselves for a bit? But I'm not sure that my presentation techniques have the confidence to do that. I'm afraid that I'll more than likely just barf out the complexities of the legality issues and leave the audience confused an uninterested in what I'm saying.

I don't know. I think if I'm to bring up Copyright issues - I need to feel confident that I can express the issues clearly, to the point and with question. As American as I can get - I think.

Collaborative art
I think this will be the heart and soul of the show reel. I think I've decided to focus on the Never Stay Tuned series.

Never Stay Tuned 4 (international) from Olibith Kirin Tor on Vimeo.

How many people are involved - why did they start - who is what a.s.o. I find their machinima films so unique because of the characters they've created and the way they represent mash-up culture at it's best. Only if they're willing to collaborate with me of course. But I do love the way that they constantly contribute in each other's films and seem my like a unit at times. The true art of collaborative art can be found in this group of WoW'ers - and I would like to tell the Bergensers about it.

And as a special treat - I know a guy - a nice guy - who's made machinima. And I want him to tell us about the experience. But I don't think I've convinced him completely yet - so I'll leave him alone (till he says "yes" of course) for now.

Media
As for media - I thought I'd go all out on this one. Create posters a few weeks in advance - send press invitations and everything. If there's one thing I've learned in the last couple of years is that media attention is a good currency to have. And since I'm in the process of writing a PhD proposal with an average grade behind me - I need all the currency I can get! The more gravitas I can get behind my proposal - the closer I will be to living the life of my dreams. And it needs to be worth trying, at least. I can't let this go into my "regrets" box in life.

So what do you think?

Do you think this would be an enjoyable night? What are you missing and why?

If you don't want to leave a comment - let me know by e-mail: linnsovig gmail.com

I would love some feedback and advice! ;)

Play with your food

2009-07-09T21:02:00.007+02:00

So - things have been dead here lately ey?

Well...I'm still busy being a communications consultant, which I've started blogging about a zillion times but never seem to dare to publish. A lot of that has to do about establishing several online identities that have nothing to do with one another and a lot about being scared about practicing what I've been preaching for the last few months. Also - to be quite honest - I've been trying to train my brain to think better in Norwegian. Only reading Norwegian and only writing in Norwegian. This blog throws me off the flow of Norwegian thoughts - and I need to be good in both languages. That said!

I'm a proud member of Spillpikene (the Norwegian name for game girls - yes we like to melt several words into one in Norway). I shared my affection for the gaming chiXors on the International Women's Day. Well...since then. We've been playing Dungeons and Dragons with Game Master Hedvig (she's frekkin brilliant!) and started a blog of our own. Being four people is brilliant! The blog gets updated more often and we've all got other different points of view.

Anyway - my point is! We've started a competition - our second one. And it's so lovely that I have to translate it for English readers!

Maren says:
Play with your food, and win a Spillpike t-shirte (homemade and lovely!)

It's far past midsummer and I've decided that it's about time to give away one of our rare Spillpike-t-shirts. One has already been given away, so we have two left. This time you can win the black version.

What you have to do to enter the competition? Well..: You have to make a representation of a game you like ... with food! We're talkin ketchup, pastries, candy, spaghetti - whatever your preference. Take a picture and send it to us at post [a] spillpikene dot no.

People have already started contributing and we're sooooo enjoying it! The picture needs to be in by 15 August. And it would be lovely if you participated as well.

Will all social media have avatars in the future?

2009-05-26T06:49:00.000+02:00

I'm not sold - but Vincent Sider certainly got my attention with this slideshow (which has, btw, been resting in my browser for so long I can't remember where I found it! Sorry!).

IM, Avatars and virtual worlds.

View more OpenOffice presentations from vsider.

Tracy Harwood

2009-03-24T09:43:00.004+01:00

I've been hassling IT-journalists about getting involved with Ada Lovelace Day and now I'm sitting here on the day - completely rushed on my own contribution! Just goes to show - hassling people is a tricky thing to pull off respectfully
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So, in the spirit of Ada Lovelace Day, I would like to focus on Tracy Harwood.

We were so lucky this fall to have her visit Landmark in our humble city of Bergen, Norway for a lecture on Machinima. It was a pleasure to have her here and she inspired me (and dare I say, my mom) to keep living my life as colourful as possible.

Tracy Harwood is today a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Creative Technologies at De Montfort University. She's a professional marketer and has a PhD in negotion of buyer-seller relationships.

E-learning
In 2000 Tracy was made a lecturer of a large module, 1800 students and a teaching team of over 24 staff, delivered in 10 locations including India. Tracy, herself, says:

"A key issue I faced was ensuring students had a standard and good quality experience, and that my teaching team was adequately supported in their delivery of the module. This was not easy given the complexities of delivery and assessment, and attitude to e-learning generally at that time was pretty poor - fear of the unknown. On the ground, delivery worked out to be about 15 lecture groups and 30+ tutorial groups; staff were a mix of experienced and new teachers. Anyway, using elearning was a way to ensure all students and staff had access to a common set of resources and that I could monitor groups of students and their attendance, participation and performance in assessments with a view to improving delivery and student pass rates. After introducing it, I decided to use computer-aided assessment too. The module became an exemplar for elearning across the institution and the work I did was picked up for its student engagement and also staff development. I was fortunate to work with some fantastic colleagues who were at the forefront of elearning, including book publishers, and together we were able to implement a robust and high quality elearning experience. Colleagues and I undertook various dissemination activities which helped to spread the word about the possibilities of elearning which eventually led to the development of a university-wide policy on elearning support for students. Of course, things have changed now because there are so many different approaches to elearning, using things like virtual worlds, CAA, etc but at the time getting through to technophobic staff was probably the biggest barrier we faced -students seemed to take to it from the very start. I think now people realise that using technology is fundamental to the delivery of higher education, which seems an incredibly dated thing to say but its only 10 years ago that I can recall having to change the light bulb on the projector!"

Tracy Harwood was awarded a £50,000 National Teaching Fellowship in 2004 by the Higher Eductaion Academy for her work on e-learning and has now gone on to working with creative technologies. I think it's a natural transition! Tracy's curiosity and willingness to look to new technologies and her bravery for being technologically innovate awards her a mention on Ada Lovelace Day!

And of course - the fact that she organised the first ever European Machinima Festival makes her a heroine in my book!

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I'll be updating this as soon as I learn more. Unfortunately this became rather rushed - but the content will be worthy soon!

My women's day thank you

2009-03-08T12:14:00.014+01:00

It's International Women's Day again and time to do my annual thank you! Ada Lovelace Day is taking care of my greatfulness for women and technology - so this year I'm going to keep it on a very personal level.

In November 2006, Maren Agdestein organised a lunch where she gathered three women she had met that were writing or considering to write about computer games for their master's thesis. Seen here on the right from the left: Marianne, Me, Maren and Hedvig. At that time we called ourselves The cHixOrs, not really thinking that we'd do anything more than just meet up every now and then for a chat about games and our academic interests. But I think all of us really enjoyed geekspeaking with other women. There was just something really uplifting, fun and liberating about it.

So let me introduce you to (pictures stolen from Facebook, by the way):

Maren Agdestein - who is just such a delightful writer. She's written about games for years as a freelance journalist. She's a game critic and game journalist. Her anecdotes always tickle me so. Her mind is so colourful, imaginitive, playful and she articulates it so well. She's such an inspiration to read and listen to. Maren also has this amazing capacity to take things in her stride, which I'm completely in awe of. She's nearing the end of her Master's thesis which is an analysis of female gamers, and I can't wait to read it!

Marianne Westerlund - is also a fabulous writer. She's got so much enthusiasm and energy and such a colourful outlook on everything - it's absolutely intoxicating. She too has a sharp mind - analytical and incredibly creative. A true gamer spirit. She's also an excellent investigater. The information she manages to retrieve quickly is just dazzling. Marianne stepped into the horrific challenge of writing her thesis about Narrative and Games. You just have to admire her for diving into the sharky waters of that debate and handled it very nicely. She's finished and is now working as a copywriter/journalist for the University of Bergen's information department. She's experimenting a lot with new media techniques and she does it without fear. The woman has the courage of a lion and I admire her strength to face challenges with vigor and optimism. She's just pure delight.

Hedvig Myklebust - is also a pure delight. Filled up with enthusiasm and positive energy that just sets the room on fire. Hedvig is the ultimate girl geek, really. She's worked at Outland for years and has worked up a reputation as one of the most knowledgeable girls on - well anything geeky, really (RPG, comics, board games, anime and of course, computer games). Hedvig's quite the little information adventurer. She's smart, daring and colourful. Hedvig is writing about roleplayers, and I'm suddenly quite unsure - but I think she's specifically writing about role-players in World of Warcraft. Which is going to be a MUST READ for a lot of people, I imagine. Looking forward to seeing her brilliance on paper!

The cHixOrs evolve
Since that November day a lot has happened. Children have been born, thesis' have been handed in and some of us have moved and back again. We met rather sporadically between 2006 and 2008 but we're now trying to meed every couple of weeks.

Since fall of 2008 we've become more - what's the word? - serious?

We've visited a game design company together, Turbo Tape Games. As you can imagine, we've discussed a lot about narrative, play and games - so it was really interesting speaking with the boys at Turbo Tape about creating storyboards a.s.o. (although I'm still not sure I understood everything that was told). We're considering visiting MediaCircus later on because we've played Veum's Fall together. Veum's Fall is an ARG which we were very sceptical about. Firstly, I can't stand the Varg Veum's books, secondly, we'd heard a lot of bad stuff about it and thirdly, I guess we were all rather sceptical to ARGs in general. But we loved it! We had a few disappointments along the way, but we saw lots of places in the city we live in that we didn't know about before, was impressed by the multimedia talent behind it and the storyline made us giggle.

We're currently playing Dungeons and Dragons, with Hedvig as the fabulous Game Master. I wasn't expecting it - but I love it!! I honestly had no idea D&D was so...well...playful. We're also actively involved in attending differen games events, like the Game Seminar on the 16th.

Our "name" has been discussed a little. We've got a thread on Facebook that just makes me laugh each time I open it. In the attempt to give ourselves a cool acronym like AC/GC it's called "The Almighty Coalition of the Genderbending Chixxors Who Also Call Themselves the Game Research Group". From that, I guess you can imagine what fun we have.

I'm sure we'll evolve even more. A large part of my work is about communicating very complicated information and lately I've been playing around with the idea that this information would be at it's best if it was giftwrapped as a game. I've been talking to the girls about this and quite honestly - I feel there's potential for some good creative gaming scripts coming out of us in the future. Time will tell...

So - to the point!

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank my fellow chixxors for their inspiration, wisdom, humour, enthusiasm, creativity and pure joy of geekyness. You're all such an amazing force that I'm so thankful to be a part of! Although I'm just 'studying' games as a...well...I guess a kind of hobby at the moment...I still get so much enjoyment from our discussions.

All of these women represent everything I feel that the modern woman is today. Smart, playful, feminine, independent yet also domestic, nurturing and generally very happy about who they are, what their interests are and hungry to experience more.

ANYWAY!!
I feel so blessed to have such a great group of strong women to play with! Thanks!

Games seminar

2009-02-22T18:20:00.005+01:00

Or symposium (do I need a phd-degree to understand the differences between them?).

Floating Points 6. Games of Culture | Art of Games

Is a symposium, film screening and workshop in Boston, Massachusetts on the 20th and 21st of March.

They're livestreaming the event and I hope that will include the workshop because Friedrich Kirschner is having a workshop entitle "Introduction to Machinima" - which I would love to witness.

Impressive list of speakers - so I'll definitely be tuning in.

Concept:

Video games extend beyond the gaming console into nearly every aspect of contemporary life. They are fun. They drive innovation, consumer engagement and employee productivity. Is our culture turning everything into a game?

...AND IN BERGEN

There's also a computer games seminar here in Bergen on the 16th of March. I haven't found any online information yet and I forgot to grab a flyer from another event on Thursday. What I do know is that some of my favorite people will be there. Fredrik Sundt Breien (always such an inspiration) - Rune Klevjer (the professor guilty of introducing me to game theory and academia) and Jill Walker Rettberg. Someone else which it's embarrassing I don't remember right now. Apparently there's talk of some computer game education program here in Bergen which has made me and the chixxors very wide-eyed and curious! And I'm wondering... do I need to have a PhD to teach a class on machinima? And can I keep my glorious new job and teach about machinima on the side?

I should write some more. I've been a very bad writer for about a year - time to get back into it!

Also - it's so bizarre. I've been a fan of Jill Walker Rettberg for years, but I haven't ever been to any of her lectures or presentations. I don't know - timing has always been off somehow. So definitely looking forward to experiencing that, as well.

Machinima - fan art?

2009-02-20T23:45:00.002+01:00

I've often thought about machinima as fan art - but I've never felt completely comfortable with it. I've always felt like machinima in itself - was an artform in it's own right. But then there are such lucious films like this. Which clearly is fan based, but a voyeuristic delight none the less!

Speaking of fan art - I've started a little theory about why we're not talking enough about this in Norway. We have no word for "fan" - seriously - if you can think of something do tell me - but I don't think we have a word for 'fan'. We have supporter - which is generally considered to be football fans. But it's not even that - a football fan is a supporter, although I'm not sure that a WoW machinimator is a supporter of Blizzard. It's baffled me for a while now and there's definitely a cultural significance in being wordless on the subject. It's interesting - and just a thought to share.

Breed with me!

2009-02-15T14:01:00.002+01:00

I'm really loving Channel 4's Routes Game! Perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon if you ask me!

My thesis

2009-01-17T10:02:00.003+01:00

So I finally registrered my masters thesis in the University of Bergen's archives. I've spent the last two years meaning to dig it up and edit and tripple check references, but the will-power just was not there.

As for this blog? It's not dead just yet - I've got several posts just waiting for a read-through to be posted - so I'm not ready to cut it off just yet. But no new posts since november? That's tragic!

My enthusiasm is very focused on my glorious new job at the moment - but I'm noticing that there's a lot of what I'm doing which can be combined with what this blog is about, I'm just not on certain enough ground to write about it yet. I will, though! ;)

Thanksgiving according to Rooster Teeth

2008-11-29T13:25:00.002+01:00

Red vs. Blue is back for Thanksgiving!

Roo Reynolds - a must!

2008-11-23T16:21:00.004+01:00

I've just watched Roo Reynold's closing keynote at the ReLIVE08 (Researching Learning in Virtual Environments) conference and I'm just so smitten!

Firstly - you just have to be impressed that he came with nothing and worked through the entire conference by taking notes so he could sum up the whole conference as a closing keynote. That's ballsy! What a gift for a conference!

Roo Reynolds is in charge of social media at the BBC (I think that's a good way to sum it up), but he himself says: "I look after social media for BBC Vision, which is the TV bit (e.g. there are people with similar roles to mine in news, radio and the central 'future media & technology' teams, and I work closely with them)". If you're working with social media in any shape or form you have to follow Roo Reynold's blog. He's smart, reflective and a whole lot of fun!

I definitely recomend watching this closing keynote - the conference sounds interesting and he's got so many reflective comments. And the dude has got some major presentation skills! Very impressive, indeed.

I, of course, enjoyed the way he focused on Castronova's lecture which mention the importance of play. He has a bit about alt txt - alternate - should we focus on the alternate - why not equivalence - lovely!!!

I have to dash to Sunday night dinner - so I'm sorry for the hastiness and nonreflective writing. But go to Roo Reynolds blog and you'll find what you're looking for.

Picture taken from Roo Reynold's flickr photostream.

Life is beautiful

2008-11-23T12:56:00.006+01:00

I'm just running through my feeds before I start cracking on some more "serious" blogsposts and I've caught myself muttering "How adorable - beautiful - incredible!" on several of the articles I'm reading - so thought I'd just share some of them here. I don't know - perhaps its the beautiful weather that's put me in the lovey dovey mood - either way - I'm having an incredibly lucious Sunday!

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For those without hans, there's Air Guitar Hero
DARPA project repurposes Guitar Hero to train amputees to use artificial arms
- by Sally Adee

Rehabilitation specialists have taken to Nintendo’s Wii game console as a way to help motivate patients during physical therapy and rehabilitation. The latest addition to the Wii-hab phenomenon is perhaps its coolest—Air Guitar Hero. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have made the popular Guitar Hero game into a tool for amputees who are being fitted with the next generation of artificial arms. With a few electrodes and some very powerful algorithms, amputees can hit all the notes of Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” using only the electrical signals from their residual muscles.

- what beautiful beautiful news!
via Raph Koster
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Which reminds me of the great Bike Hero film! Guitar Hero to the streets!

via Wonderland.

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Victory or death! Yes we can!
- waltermonkey

Waltermonkey analyses newly appointed Obama FCC transition team leader, Kevin Werbach's World of Warcraft profile and what it means in the 'real world' and what we can expect from him as a FCC leader. I'm soooo charmed by this!

Now: What does this tell us about him, as a person, as a gamer, as a government official? I will attempt to translate all the dorkese.

1. - CULTURAL RELATIVISM

Every player in WoW belongs to one of two warring factions, Alliance or Horde. Werbach is Horde. Children often choose to be Alliance because they perceive them as "the good guys", but students of history (both ours and Azeroth's) recognize that Alliance culture is based on medieval European culture and Horde culture is based on the indigenous cultures that were supplanted by the West.

Werbach is a Tauren (a minotaur), which basically makes him a Native Kalimdorian. The Tauren revere nature, living in wigwams near giant totem poles. As a Shaman (see below), he could also have chosen a troll (blue-skinned Jamaican-like monster) or an orc (green-skinned Klingon-like monster), so there must be something about the cow-man that appeals to his liberal guilt.

via Boing Boing.

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Then there's this adorable xkcd that just made my heart melt!!!

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Suddenly it may be cool to be an American again
- American McGee

American McGee writes a heartwarming blogpost about how people's reaction towards his name, American, has changed through his life and how the Bush year's made it especially difficult for him.

I had more than a few “I spit on your name” events, some people who simply asked, “Why would your mother do that to you?”, and plenty of discomfort and uncertainty about what to say. What do you say to a guy whose name is born from that place where everything is going so wrong? One girl commented, “That’s stupid.”

And I had to agree. I was one of those who had said, “If Bush is elected again I’ll leave the country” - and I did it. Ironically, it didn’t save me from the fact that things were going so wrong back home, it made it even more obvious. America’s image and the concept of Americans in general suffered severe damage in the minds of people in “the rest of the world” (which, btw happens to be most of the world).

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New Study Shows Time Spent Online Important

- MacArthur foundation

OoooOOOooo - I feel like this study has been talked about for ages! So incredibly great to see the results. The fabulous Mizuko Ito has led the study.

Over three years, they interviewed over 800 young people and their parents, both one-on-one and in focus groups; spent over 5000 hours observing teens on sites such as MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and other networked communities; and conducted diary studies to document how, and to what end, young people engage with digital media.

That's heavy!

Their findings:

There is a generation gap in how youth and adults view the value of online activity
Youth are navigating complex social and technical worlds by participating online
Young people are motivated to learn from their peers online
Most youth are not taking full advantage of the learning opportunities of the Internet

None of this is particularly suprising - but it's just sooooooooo good that they have hard data which now proves what several people have been pointing out for years! This is an important study!

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That's it for now - I'm still only halfway through my feeds - so I may update later.

3D thoughts on Machinima

2008-11-15T11:20:00.006+01:00

For this years Bergen Machinima Night we were honoured by a visit from Dr. Tracy Harwood who had a fascinating presentation about what machinima is, where it is going and why.

Morten Kvamme (curator at Landmark) and I had dinner with Tracy before the event and I think we were both charmed , inspired and bedazzled. Midway through the dinner Morten observed that the three of us had different angles of interest with Machinima, hence our collective intelligence makes up a 3D perspective.

I'm focused on gameplay functioning as narrative, Tracy on the tribe culture and Morten's interested in Game Art.

Needless to say, I was elevated to some cloud up up up - way beyond consciousness.

Dr. Tracy Harwood's talk
I'm so gutted that I didn't take notes during the talk, because I'm not certain I can do it justice now. But I think I'll ask Tracy for her PP slides and see if I can sum it up from there. I had the honour of spending time with Dr. Harwood the day after and I'm having a hard time differentiating between the presentation and what we talked about after. My thoughts are filled with fun stuff to write about.

I really need to start learning from past mistakes and take pictures and take more notes! Thank you to all who came! We were just over 30 people in the audience - which we're pleased with because I didn't have a lot of time on my hands to do much advertising this year. There were some keen expressions in the audience, which was lovely to see. And of course a lot of friends who I love and adore. So thanks for coming!

International Machinima Festival in Bergen?
Having Tracy Harwood here was both an honour and such an inspirational force. She's pretty much convinced me that I should go straight ahead and start planning an International Machinima Festival here in Bergen. So I guess that will be my life for a while, now - and also my next blogpost.

But for now Thank You Tracy Harwood for coming and giving us insight into the machinima world and of course inspiration to continue to build something bigger. And Bergen Kunsthall/Landmark who've been so generous, it's just so cool that they're interested in this!

I do enjoy a good YouTube drama

2008-10-25T12:41:00.002+02:00

I can't help myself, I just can't. There's a new YouTube-series called "Hooking Up". It seems to be a gathering of the who's who of YouTube-stars, at least Lonelygirl and What the Buck guy - I'm not sure if the others are well known from something else. I love the way Facebook is such an important feature og the script. I can't help wonder if they're maybe sponsored by Facebook. But I enjoyed it anyway - I'm such a sucker for simple high-school drama.

YouTube game

2008-09-28T15:08:00.002+02:00

Seriously! I thought it was fun! A bit messy because it's hard to come back to start - but definitely worth your while.

Found at Shattered Keyboard.

New Machinima Night at Landmark

2008-09-21T13:35:00.003+02:00

Yup! We'll be going at it again. I was so pleased with the turn-out last year and I hope it will be just as succesful this year!

On the 13th of November, Tracy Harwood, the manager of the European Machinima Festival 2007 will be visiting us here in Bergen to talk about machinima. There's still some organising left. But she definitely is coming and we're really pleased about that! It will be great to have an expert to listen to!

There will of course be viewings of films. If anyone has anything new they want to show - please let me know!

Anyways...November 13th! We look forward to seeing you there!

I've been so back and forth about how to organise this event that I've completely lost track! Time to bunker down, I think. I was fiddling with the idea of creating a work shop type event - but I think I've let that idea go into the "when I have the energy to be overly ambitious" file.

I leave you now with some documentary footage of the machinamite! Enjoy!

Poster Game

2008-09-21T13:07:00.002+02:00

Molleindustria has come out with a new game called The Free Culture Game. It's interesting. I couldn't win it, but I'm sure that's the whole point behind it.

The Free Culture Game is a game about the struggle between free culture and copyright. Create and defend the common knowledge from the vectorial class. Liberate the passive consumers from the domain of the market.

Ian Bogost notes Paolo Pedercini as describing this as a 'poster game' for Exgae. It's a great new genre or concept. Lots of the flash games we see can be described as poster games. I'm quite amused by the concept.

Replay Art

2008-08-11T12:21:00.003+02:00

I've been looking for this film for AGES - but I thought it was made in Drive not Trackmania Sunrise - color me stupid, huh?! Anyhoo - it's just stunning to look at!

From what I gather, they record several gaming sessions and then play them all at the same time in replay. And there seems to be quite a lot of them, just check this one out:

Still beautiful.

I actually caught both these videos from a conversation between Jerry and Mark (WelloHorld) on Twitter.

A seven minute tour of virtual worlds

2008-08-07T23:25:00.002+02:00

Personalize Media has a video out with a summary of the virtual worlds out there. Far from all are included! Most of these are non-game social worlds and there's loads that I haven't even heard of! I was suprised to see A Tale in the Desert there, though. For one, I thought they definitely qualified as a game and second because I thought their numbers were so low that they wouldn't survive. A Tale in the Desert is a great idea - and I'm so incredibly happy that they're still alive! That really is good news.

Stolen from Raph Koster's blog.

Thoughts on analysing Machinima - part 1

2008-08-03T12:54:00.006+02:00

I'm not a big fan of the notion that machinima will replace the art of animation. Machinima is something completely different, in my opinion. Like Henry Lowood says:

"It is important to recall that the origins of machinima lie not in content production, but in gameplay" (Lowood, 2006 in Video Games and Art)

It is something that has evolved from high-performance gameplay to brilliant meaningful content, but the essence is still gameplay. The ability to master a game so well that you can bend it and form it into your own mold of content, your own story, your own expression.

Dr. Lowood again:

"Depicting machinima as high-performance play stems from its emergence from inter-relationships of play, spectatorship, technical virtuosity and storytelling in computer games. Each of these factors played a role in defining the practices of machinima as practices of game performance."(Lowood, 2006, Video Games and Art)

So how should we go about deconstructed machinima, finding it's meaning, it's aura - it's true art?

I believe there are a number of factors that need to be taken into account. Among them are:

1) The cinematic effects
2) Play performance
3) Pop cultural references - remix culture - fan culture.

WoW: Super Mario Theme

1) The camera angle tells this story from a third-person view. We know the character is running from A to Z - there is a goal at the end. It moves in a horisontal narrative (gosh - can I say that?), making it clear that the character is running towards something at the end of the screen and we wait in anticipation for what comes next. It is also a format that we know well from Supermario, so we instantly recognise that the character is on a misson of some sort and that the goal lies somewhere beyond the computer screen on the right.

I'm not completely refreshed on my Bordwell and Thompson bible (which at some point I really need to do), so please excuse the casualness of this analysis. It's just me practicing anyhoo...

2) I'd say with this movie, the manipulation of the actual game environment is more impressive than the actual gameplay performance. An impressive modding skill which gives the truest form of art by a diracker (director + hacker= diracker - which I first read about in Mark Marino's article Machinima in Europe).

But how do I even begin to deconstruct this? This is what I'm asking. How well do I, myself have to know the game to appreciate the level of modding skill? And how should I even begin to deconstruct and identify the skills brought about in making this.

Deconstructing the gameplay is the closest I've come. And I'll have to look at both World of Warcraft and Super Mario. And in some way come with a gameplay analysis of the blending of the two through the artistic technology of modding to become a spectator medium.

Puppet mastery (I'm stealing this from someone, but I can't remember who!)also has to be taken into account.

So how do you measure gameplay skill?

It's something I'll be looking into more in the next couple of months, and the next blogpost will go into more detail.

3) Henry Jenkins, of course.
This machinima film works so well because of its popculture references to both World of Warcraft, Super Mario and computer games in general. The reconstruction or remix of known media to create something that's enjoyable for a spectator is extremely important. I strongly believe that machinima cannot be properly discussed without taking this into account for it certainly is a medium that borrows from traditional media for a new storytelling process.

Personal note:
Ok - so this was supposed to be a well thought-out serious blogpost. I've been thinking about it for a while - and I figured, what's my blog for if I cannot air my own thoughts and ideas as they're being formed? I need the practice of writing about this - so be warned! You'll be hassled with little tid-bits of unfinished thoughts for a while now.

Grimm - FINALLY!

2008-07-28T22:10:00.003+02:00

Don't miss the first episode of American McGee's Grimm, which is available for free at Gametap on Thursday, 31st of July.

I've been looking forward to this for so long. McGee's an excellent...ehm...I wanna say interactive storyteller...but...fairytale converter, maybe? It's too easy to say that he's a great artist. What can I say? He manages to combine the beauty of great storytelling with the joy of wonderful gameplay mechanics in such a delightful and meaningful way.

The game will be available as episodes. This will be the firt episodic game I've played and I'm quite eager to see how well games work as episodes. Although, saying that, I'm still playing Play the News - which I suppose is also a form of episodic gaming.

McGee's been very generous in sharing the art of the game on his blog - which I've eagerly been following. I adored Alice and I love that the first episode is about a boy on a quest to find fear! I have to admit, though - the trailer put me off. It was very...uhm...American(?)! It just all became so cheap, in my opinion. But I am not deterred - I know this will be a wonderful experience!

I'm really liking the time model as well. According to Gamasutra the episodes are "designed to occupy half an hour of gameplay when rushed or an hour and half when explored more fully". That's perfect for a casual player, as my self. They'll be coming out weekly and available for free on Gametap for the first 24 hours, after that you'll have to pay. I'm really looking forward to this.

McGee quotes Gamasutra's description of the game - which I'll have to share with you as well - because it's just oh so lovely:

"In between those tellings is an unexpectedly gameplay-driven experience that is reminiscent of Katamari Damacy in its dynamic - except, instead of rolling a ball around, you are (apparently) peeing on things and filling the world with filth. In an adorable sort of way." - Chris Remo

You can read more about it at Ars Technica and Kotaku.

Steampunk in Second Life

2008-07-12T16:28:00.003+02:00

It's such a long time since I've been in Second Life - I haven't even installed it on my current computer.
Cory Doctorow (@BoingBoing) shares a video of a Steampunk island, called New Babbage and this is reason enough for me to hit the install button right away.

I'm curious, though. The steampunk city is supposed to be "bringing together the combined interests of Steampunks from around the world to a place they can roleplay and be creative" - I get the creative - because I adore steampunk art - but how do they roleplay? What's steampunk roleplaying? Definitely something to check out - I think!

Public Broadcasting goes gaming

2008-06-30T22:06:00.002+02:00

And it's about freakin time too!

NRK the Norwegian Public Broadcasting company will be releasing a free computer game for kids this fall, called Superia.

Spiller.no writes that they want the game to give kids creative freedom to make videos, animations and drawings a.s.o., and this will then be shared on the childrens tv channel or something. I'm also presuming that content will be shared between players as well - will they be able to interact with one another in the game, you think?

Either way... I'm so so so so so happy that nrk is brave and innovative enough to explore this direction. I'll have to dig a little deeper. I was just about to close down for the night when I read about this - so excuse the rushed sentences.

The gameplay that spiller.no has posted doesn't really seem all that creative or adventurous, to be honest - but I'm sure the real fun's in there somewhere!!

It's apparently created by the BBC - hmmm.... - it must be Adventure Rock, right? I wonder if the lovely Mildly Diverting and Wonderland had their interactive hands on this at some point.

Lego is binary form

2008-06-30T20:49:00.003+02:00

... and therefore is inherently digital. I like that! Great short, sweet and lovely presentation on Lego by Roo Reynolds.

| View | Upload your own

Via Wonderland

World of Workcraft

2008-06-26T22:02:00.002+02:00

I've been unbelievably slack on inspiration lately - but my fingers start itching when wonderful people like Fredrik, send me films like this -

World of Workcraft
(sorry - couldn't get the embed code to work and I can't figure out why)

Expect more soon. I've got like a dozen half-written posts ready to get published! I've just been out of poof lately!

Alice

2008-06-01T00:41:00.003+02:00

Some day I will reveal my Alice in Wonderland fascination here - but for now I give you this spectacular machinima by Jovial Productions. I mean - by golly! It's made with The Sims - how? - I honestly don't understand it! I've always liked Marilyn Manson's version of Sweet Dreams, as well - so this was just a win win for me! I love it!

Machinima, copyright and schools

2008-05-29T20:56:00.004+02:00

I had an interesting phone conversation the other day.

There's an organisation that promotes art to schools here in Norway, Kunst i Skolen. It's completely new to me, but it's existed since 1948 (way to go Norway!). So I'm still kinda dazed about this - but from what I can gather, they have these travelling exhibitions for schools (and I think members - although, I'm not sure if the schools need to be members). They've got loads of great stuff to offer, including CD-roms of collections and art for teaching purposes.

So why am I getting into this?

I was asked on Tuesday if I could put together a DVD of some Machinima films and I also offered to write a little summary of what machinima is. Now - ofcourse I'm having difficulty. Since they're an official organisation they need all the copyright details to be in order - and I'm struggling. The game companies certainly have come around the last couple of years - but the music industry - hell no. So when trying to present an art that's all about reproduction of media - fan art - remediation - or whatever we're calling it these day - what to do?

It's frustrating, and in my opinion needless, ridiculous and depriving so many of some great art. But I take comfort that they can be found online - which is just another rant waiting to burst out of me soon - but another time.

Anyhoo - I'm in desperate need of machinima with copyright issues in order. I have to play catch-up on my machinima copyright laws, but if memory serves me right Blizzard and Microsoft are fair - leaving it up to the artist as long as they don't make any money off it. I'm unsure about The Sims, though, but I'm thinking they'll be alright. What about Take 2?

Please let me know if you have any good ideas and machinima to offer.

I have a time limit on this that's insane - I basically need to send this in the post on Monday. But how could I refuse? Machinima in schools? Are you kidding me?! I love it!

The Console Wars

2008-05-03T12:00:00.000+02:00

Virtual Worlds stuff

2008-04-13T19:54:00.004+02:00

Just a little list of observations and things on my 'to read' list. I don't know why - but I've been so incredibly unfocused lately. I've actually been very social this weekend - which has been lovely but I feel I'm lagging behind on my feedburning!

1) Finland's Game Research Lab has had what looks to be a really great conference/seminar (I'm sure someday I'll actually care what the difference is) - Breaking the Magic Circle. What really struck me first was Vili Lehdonvirta's contribution, Virtual Worlds Don't Exist. I was instantly sucked in yesterday but three pages in I was rudely interrupted - and look at me now - blogging instead of reading! Vili's one of those people who manages to see clearly and keep both his feet on the ground when it comes to virtual worlds studies - and I honestly can't wait to finish his paper. Because the dude's definitely on to something.

The abstract:

I argue that much of MMO-related scholarship is implicitly based on a dichotomous "real world vs. virtual world" model, which is heavily influenced by the "magic circle" concept in game studies. I show a number of shortcoming in this perspective and propose an alternative perspective based on Anselm Strauss's social worlds (Strauss, 1978). The alternative perspective unbundles users from the technological platform and places MMO-centered social worlds in context with other worlds like religion and workplace.

I think Virtual World Studies are growing up - and that suits me fine!

2) There are now more than 100 youth oriented virtual worlds live or in development. Look - Virtual Worlds Management has a list!

3) The virtual world VizWoz is launching a virtual cinema on April 18th, according to Virtual World News. I had a 15 minute test-run of the place and I pretty much hated it. But I'm not a teen and 15 minutes is never enough for true judgment.

I'm really tickled by the virtual world cinema concept. It's something I've wanted virtual worlds to get into for a while now. I've always thought that this would be the way for stupid licensing issues to disappear. But I wasn't too happy about the fact that I needed to register if I lived in the States or not while getting an account - I, of course, lied - we'll see if I can get away with it. I'm also eager to see the quality of the films they're going to screen.

I applaud the initiative.

4) Speaking of April 18th - Funcom is together with GameSpot offering to play PvP Age of Conan from April 18th to April 20th for 15,000 gamers. I'll be unwired in Gøteborg that weekend so I haven't bothered to have a look at how I can be a part of it. Yet another sign that Age of Conan won't be delayed again, I think! I wish them luck!

5) Have to read Raph Koster's "Is there such a thing as a casual online world?"

Machinima at BitFilm Festival

2008-04-13T18:01:00.004+02:00

The BitFilm Festival is coming up and I wanna go! It's an odd - although really cool festival. It opens on May 1st and lasts til May 8th in Stuttgart - and then there's a closing event in Hamburg from 10th til 12th of July.

I wanna go for the machinima screenings on May 5th and May 6th - although the whole week looks like pure joy. I'm trying to come up with alternatives of people willing to pay me to go - any ideas anyone?

I'm having a hard time figuring out the site however. I can't seem to get my hands on which Machinima films are nominated but maybe that's the intention. According to the buzz of the blogs I follow, I now know of three.

1) Among Fables and Men - Dopefish

Goarr! Isn't this amazing. Here's an interview with him (Eddo Stern?) at Networked Performance.

Many of these videos represent elements of gamer culture that are still “officially” kept out of the game world — sex, drugs, real violence, death, etc. — but fan-based machinima, and forums postings become the spaces where these aspects of the gaming culture find an outlet, their expression in-game is repressed by the game companies censorship - they offer a glimpse into the subculture of the subculture.

2) I'm So Sick - Baron Soosdon

3) The Ballad of the Sex Junkie - Olibith

All excellent nominations. Coincidence that they're all Warcraft Movies?

BitFilm has created a virtual city, Bitropolis in Twinity.

The Bitropolis city centre consists of a cinema, a gallery, a bar and a night club. Create your avatar, enjoy cinema screenings, meet other film makers and film fans.

I've applied for access - but haven't received a beta account yet. I wonder if I might get in touch with Singapore crab dinner friend Jeremy Snyder and see if he can pull some strings. Because I think it's excellent that the festival has created a virtual city - that's the direction virtuality should be going in my opinion - it's a shame that there's not more instant access though.

So I wanna go wanna go wanna go! I've started my own paper on machinima - but so far it's just three pages of me rambling trying to figure out what it is I really want to say - I'm pleased that I've at least started, though, it took me long enough. I'm missing my books, my old computer and all the papers I've printed out.

Norwegian folkdance in AoC

2008-04-07T19:35:00.004+02:00

Well...I guess there's just no doubt that Age of Conan is going to be released on schedule - May 20th - because Funcom is sneaking in more and more little peaks to the press. I feel like a day doesn't pass by without there being something in the news about Age of Conan. Funcom is notorious for being super duper freakishly paranoid secretive, so they wouldn't start releasing stuff unless they knew they were ready.

The funny thing is that I really thought I was bored with it all now. I was very adamant in my opinion that teasing the fans for sooooooo long would slap them in the face because they would just get bored and annoyed by all the delays. I was wrong.

Just look at this - they're including Hallingdans. It's a Norwegian folk dance. I'm so impressed. My overly national romantic heart has officially melted. Video bellow is in Norwegian from Aftenposten.no, where you can distinctly hear that the movement director (?) for Age of Conan, who came up with this great idea, is from my neck of the wood - of course he's a Bergenser!

It looks like Halling is making a major come-back this year as the dance group Frikar won the judge's hearts on Norways Got Talent. Incidently it's one of Frikar who's doing the dancing for Conan as well.

I'm excited now. I just might get over the testosterone overload feeling I have against Age of Conan and go out and buy it! I adore details like this!

I wouldn't have noticed this if it wasn't for Nina's twittering, so thanks!

49% Casual Gamers play everyday

2008-04-02T19:41:00.003+02:00

Chris Bateman's got some interesting results from a survey they've done for a new player model, with 1040 responses.

Of those who classify themselves as casual gamers 49% play every day! Sounds like a statistic Jesper Juul would be interested in.

Also only 1.25% enjoy games without stories. I think that's interesting.

We've received 1,040 responses to the survey, of which 55% (576) are from North America, 30% (317) are from Western Europe or the UK, 5% (52) are from Australasia, and a few responses from everywhere else in the world besides.

The majority of respondents play games every day (66%), with many of the others playing every week (26%). Interestingly, of those that self-identified as "Hardcore", 81% play every day, and of those that self-identified as "Casual", 49% play every day. It seems that even people who see themselves as a Casual player are still playing amazingly often.

The most popular approach is to play alone (40%), with just a few playing single player games with pad passing or some similar group play (7%). The remaining players all prefer some kind of multiplayer format, whether in the same room (17%) or over the internet (19%, of which 5% is team or clan play), with the remaining 16% preferring virtual worlds and MMORPGs.

On the subject of game stories, there is overwhelming consensus, with 93% saying either that stories are very important to their enjoyment of videogames (36%) or that stories help them enjoy videogames (57%). A mere 5% say stories are not important, and just 1.25% say they prefer videogames without stories. Clearly, story occupies a vital space in the modern world of videogames – gamers love stories!

Cory Ondrejka's fabulous slideshow

2008-03-26T21:23:00.003+01:00

Cory Ondrejka explains the complexities of Virtual Worlds so wonderfully in this slideshow. It's selfexplanatory - simple - informative - and extremely tidy.

This is the third slideshare I've seen today - and they're all great. I sometimes wonder if I have it in me to focus entirely on someone speaking without a beautiful slideshow. Can I learn without visual stimulation anymore?

| View | Upload your own

So you've lost a ring ey?

2008-03-16T10:34:00.004+01:00

ARG-guru Jane McGonigal has designed a new game for the 2008 Olympics, The Lost Ring.

At the moment it seems like a sort of collective-blogging/web 2.0-story-game.
We're introduced to six characters. Ariadne, Markus, Noriko, MeiHui, Diego and Lucie. They all woke up in some form of labrynth with amnesia, some funky white fitness suit, white goggle that you can't see through - blindfold and a funky tattoo on their arm which reads: Find the lost Ring in Esperanto.

I'm quite pleased that this is truly international. French, English, German, Spanish, Chinese and I think Japanese (I can't be bothered to look up right now). I also like the way they use many different types and brands of web 2.0 media. I'm astonished by how much work they've put into it and how thorough they've been. I think Jane McGonigol's genious is clearly evident.

So these six characters are unified by the same problem. They've also realised that their bodies are well in tune, like olympic champions, which made me wince. Reading about it in blog form made me sort of urghy - it just sounds so lame.

I guess the goal of the game is to figure out the big mystery. Enter the professor Eli Hunt who coincidently has some podcasts on the ancient mysteries of the Olympic Games. I really enjoyed listening to his podcasts and I found myself wishing them to be non-fictional. I honestly felt like I was learning something new about the Olympic past and listening to a very learned archeology geek. Here's one about the lost sport of Olympia.

This was really a great way to get someone like me hooked. After all, we have become an information society - we truly do want to learn more and we love going on information safari's on the net. There's a New York Times article about this somewhere - a new study of the brain that explained why we like it so much - but I can't seem to find it at the moment. Eitherway - these podcasts are what got me hooked.

That said - I'm not sure I get what I'm supposed to be doing in this game. I don't really feel compelled to do anything except keep reading and watching and listening as this bunch figures things out. But maybe that will change in the course of time?

I'm not a language buff so I'm keeping in tune to the game through Ariadne - and unfortunately she's no LonelyGirl15. Seriously, it needed a semi-bad actress before I truly understood what a great actress LonelyGirl was. It's really hard to believe her and her charm is very pressured. But I'm sure she'll grow on me and her acting will probably become better. But right now I just found it a tad annoying.

But I'm hooked. And at some point I need to figure out what the hell this is. It's described as a strange sectret portal site - but they've managed to get loads of information from it - but I can't seem to figure it out.

For now, though, I need to find a job from 1st of May - or at least some form of income - if anyone knows of anything let me know!

Protesting in a virtual world

2008-03-11T21:53:00.004+01:00

Joseph DeLappe is an active artist protesting the war in Iraq.

On March 20th, the date of the US invasion of Iraq, DeLappe will enter America's Army, peacefully.

America's Army is an MMORPG designed by the US military which also functions as an active reqruiter. for the army.

He'll be using the login name "dead-in-Iraq" and well...I'm almost tempted to download America's Army to witness the action. But quite honestly, I'm not sure if that's a good idea. Would I be supporting America's Army or would I be supporting Joseph DeLappe?

"As of 1/17/08, I have input 3745 names. I intend to keep doing so until the end of this war. As of 1/17/08 there have been 3929 American service persons killed in Iraq" - Networked Performance

So he'll be manually(!) writing the name, age, service branch and date of death of each service person who has died to date in Iraq.

Does it all sound familiar? Well, it seems he started dead-in-iraq in 2006. It kinda gives you a perspective on matters when an artist repeats his protest 3 years in a row. That's interesting.

I have to admit I'm feeling a tad sorry for the poor MMORPG players - I mean what are they suppossed to do? Hmmm - maybe they should join him somehow? Maybe he should invite them to. It would be lovely if someone documented the discussions this sparked in-world. It seems he doesn't engage in any social conversation...well...who could blame him with 3745 US soldiers to memorialise.

It certainly made an impression on me. I think it would be cool if they could stream the protest but I worry about the privacy rights of the players.

My women's day thank you

2008-03-08T07:15:00.009+01:00

Since we've become such a connected society, I've noticed that my idols are more local. They're reachable, and I may even have talked to them. Maybe its my age, but my idols aren't billionaires (well - at least I don't think they are) or global popstars - instead my idols are nearby, within my reach and guess what? They're all women! I thought about this a few months ago and thought I'd save writing about it until this womens day. As my little tribute.
First off - by idol I mean a person that truly inspires me. It's a person I draw strength from. I don't want to be this person, I'm quite happy with who I am. But these people help me to strive for things I really want to do. I feel inspired when I'm around them or reading/hearing their work.

So as a tribute on womens day I'd like to say thank you to:

Jill Walker Rettberg-

- of course! Who didn't see that coming?!
Jill just seems to get it all right.
She's always giving lectures (although I've yet to experience one actually). She writes books like they're blogposts - or seems to at least. Look out for Digital Culture, Play, Identity: A World of Warcraft Reader due in May and Blogging in August. Jill's an excellent writer. She has that rare and wonderful ability to make things that are extremely difficult to understand, straight forward and even interesting. That's always a true sign of brilliance in my book.
Last year, when I was trying to do my own 'stuff' after mundane days at work - I drew so much inspiration from Jill. Reading her blog and keeping up with her work, played a little record in my head "Stop your wining and just do it!"

She's also just such a genuinely warm, nice and fun person! She and her husband are the kind of people you dream about inviting over for dinner!

Aleks Krotoski -

Aleks is a journalist, blogger and an academic all at the same time. I met her at the State of Play and actually uttered the words "I'm such a fan!" - it's hard to say those words without seeming like a complete nutbag!
Anyways, I love the way she's convinced The Guardian that all this social technology stuff is interesting news. She's brilliant at making things seem simple and she's a great question person. You know what I mean? Great at asking the right questions. And they're all such interesting questions, which reveal a smart mind at work with great thoughts about the future. Aleks knows what to ask.
She's also done some amazing research in Second Life and I'm keen to see what she does next.

Alice Taylor -

I'm not sure what to write about Alice except she's a brilliant blogger and she does some great work for the gaming industry! She's probably the most forward thinker on Public Broadcast Gaming - and omg - how can you not admire something like that! I've always admired her way of being such a gamer geek and keeping her femininity so out there.

To me the true heroins of today are the ones who dare to venture beyond the comforts of genderspecific roles and still be true to their nature. I love that. Way too often women have had to 'blend into' environments that aren't typical to their gender. And I absolutely adore these three women who are far from ashamed of being women, instead they embrace it and bring it with them on their professional quests. Yes - I do mean quest. Because it seems to me that these women love what they do and they love to learn more. They dive into subjects and are eager to learn more and they seem like they have such fun doing it. They're not afraid to share and all of three of them make it seem like fun being - sorry gals - but geeks, I guess. Excellent role models for all girls and women everywhere - I think!

Right - this list should be longer - and I have a few names up my sleeve, but alas - this should be published today!

I definitely want to send a big hug to my fellow chixors! Love and admire you all!

Huh - this is rather worrisome isn't it? All my role models are female gamers - huh. I'll see if I can remedy that by next year!

Things I'm going to

2008-03-05T18:57:00.004+01:00

Tomorrow I'm off to Gullstikken . It's kinda an award ceremony for the best computer games of the year, well...that's exactly what it is actually. From what I hear, its the best place to meet the whole Norwegian games industry in one place.

So I'm looking forward to seeing who's out there.

I'm also going to a free information meeting about Datalagringsdirektivet on Friday. It's about the EU directive of storage of personal information. I'm still quite confused about the whole thing, and I welcome a free meeting to inform me about what its all about.

Bow Street Runners

2008-02-17T11:09:00.005+01:00

Congrats to Channel 4's Public Broadcast Gaming initiative! And Alice Taylor!

I just tried Bow Street Runners and by golly it's amazing! I really enjoyed it! It's really good lookin' and even educational! Which seems to be the point of Public Broadcast Gaming - creating games that educate. For example - I didn't know gin had such a societal impact on London in the 18th century. I learned that just by clicking on a bottle - they called it Madame Geneva. So after the game episode I looked it up and listened to a BBC podcast on the subject - apparently it was a female craze. Really interesting!
The game is in unison with the Channel 4 series, City of Vice, which I ofcourse aim to see now that I've played the first episode of the game!

In the 1750s London’s perilous streets were run by armed gangs, corrupt night watchmen and thief takers. Then two Westminster magistrates, novelist Henry Fielding and his brother, John, obtained a grant from Parliament allowing them to bring some law and order to the crime-ridden boroughs of Central London.

Everything in the game is historically correct. Fielding startet the Bow Street Runners - policemenn in Covent Garden, which was completely run down. So you play a Bow Street Runner - you're the investigator. The sound effects are excellent, the picture, lucious and the point-and-click mechanism works really well. It pays to be curious and you really feel the atmosphere and time period. I'm really impressed. But at this point in my life I'm finding that what I think is really cool and fun, isn't always in coallition with 'the kids' - so who knows?! I wish them the best of luck!

Maybe NRKs next? They had a ski challenge game a while back, do you think they'll consider going into Public Broadcast Gaming as well - oh that would be fun! I wonder if they have an education policy? I know they have a cultural policy, but what about education?

Perhaps it will be discussed at the Computer Games As Learning conference on the 21st of april in Oslo? The conference is organised by ITU - IT-Research and Competence in Education and I'll definitely be there, probably wearing my journalism hat.
I find it so scary that I had never heard of them before! Has my head been stuck in the clouds or too far up my own ass? This has been happening to me constantly lately - there's so many organisations, networks, departments and government groups I didn't know existed before I became a journalist. It's fun to learn - but scary to realise how little I know...you know what I mean?

Anyway - Alice doesn't dissapoint - Aleks has a great interview at The Guardian.

Do I seem rushed? Well - I've just postponed all the work I was supposed to do this weekend to this sunday night - why? why do I do this to myself? So now I'm off to learn about .odf's vs. .oxml's.

Mauvais Rôle - excellent game animation film

2008-02-13T19:46:00.003+01:00

This is just gorgeous! Not machinima but animation short, although its focus is very true to the machinima spirit. The whole existential crisis of an avatar and the mash-up of computer game culture! It's really really great! Thanks Marianne for giving me a heads-up!

Age of Conan delayed - again

2008-01-21T09:00:00.000+01:00

According to Dagens It (ofcourse!) Funcom's Age of Conan is delayed, yet again to May 20th.

I worry that they're gun shy after the problems endured after the Anarchy Online release - but then again - maybe perfection upon release is the way to go. They've learned from their mistakes - but then again, I don't think perfection is completely possible before release. Is it?

While waiting, though, Massively did a great in-depth interview with Jørgen Tharaldsen (I can't believe he's not in Wikipedia - I'll have to sort that out in a sec)before Christmas, which is worth a look at. They go into the politics of rating, which I found really interesting! Akela Talamasca also shot this gameplay footage:

exploration_CD.mov

Second Life Machinima

2008-01-19T16:10:00.000+01:00

This has got to be one of the most beautiful machinima pieces I've ever seen. Yeah - you just need to see and we'll talk deconstruction later.

The Dumb Man by Sherwood Anderson

The Dumb Man from Lainy Voom on Vimeo.

via Boing Boing

Using Game Design to "foster social change"

2008-01-17T08:58:00.000+01:00

The World Wide Workshop, an organisation commited to using the internet for educational purposes of youth and children in developing communities, has created a wonderful site called MyGLife.org, through it's Globaloria Project. It's still in Beta - so I haven't been able to test it yet - but just look at this:

MyGLife.org is comprised of an open architecture of educational, programmable websites and related wikis that offer more than 100 educational activities, simulations and tutorials to play, learn, explore and contribute new ideas online.

PLAY to Learn invites participants to play with an arcade of games, puzzles, creative tools and scientific simulations and to think about them critically as game developers. Donated and open source customized tutorials allow participants to tinker with the underlying game code and learn programming skills.

LEARN to Build features an extensive library of hand-picked, custom written and open source tutorials for learning Flash, HTML, Graphic Design, Wiki, Blogging and Project Development skills.

EXPLORE Web 2.0 Resources features links to recommended online resources and lists of suggested readings that will help participants.

CONTRIBUTE Knowledge and Support encourages participants to follow-up their learning by contributing works back to the site. Professional developers and organizations worldwide can also donate work and learn how to start MyGLife programs locally.

I'm thinking this is just as good for the old folks!

I mean - it's just so freakin beautiful! I know I get carried away with these things - but I truly can't help myself. Creating a site to teach users how to design and create their own games, give them the opportunity to collaborate and communicate with each other - AND - provide open-source games to play with?! That's just - beautiful!

And to even further boost my amazement- BBC's Culture Shock has an interview with a Ms Caperton:

She also said the site will particularly target students in Israel and the
Palestinian territories, in an effort to foster greater understanding between
them.

What an effort! I certainly wish them good luck and applaud them for such an amazingly creative effort and vision. Perhaps with the One Laptop Per Child project (Nicholas Negroponte's TED talk)... naw....I won't finish that sentence - just a tad too tacky and optimistic I think - hehe

I, journalist, again - in Oslo

2008-01-15T09:14:00.000+01:00

Well - by golly. I'm off to Oslo to work as a journalist for five months. Dagens It, were kind enough to offer me the position - and I instantly jumped at it! Just think of all the stuff I'm gonna learn! I'm quite pannicked about writing quickly in Norwegian for such a serious business oriented news organisation and I'm foreseeing a bunch of stress right away. But I think it'll be worth it! There's so much I want to learn about the IT industry in Norway, in particular the game development community - I'm hoping that what interests me, will be in unison with the paper.

It's all happening rather fast, however - so I feel like I'm stuck in some "We're not in Kansas anymore" whirlwind. I'm starting by covering a conference here at home, Digitale Hverdag where there's gonna be a lot of stuff on robots, which I'm all giddy about. Don't know why, I never really cared about robots that much - but now I do. They'll be talking about robots in the workforce which I think is quite interesting. I may have been asleep the last few years, but I haven't really heard that much ado about robots since the 80s (yes - I was VERY young then). It's my impression that it all became rather dystopic - robots taking away jobs a.s.o. So does this mean that we're warming to robots more? Have we entered an age of positive technology? I suppose we have, really - which I guess I've known - so why am I suprised that robots in the workforce have become a positive force of discussion?

Anyways - the conference out of the way and then I'm off to Oslo. I've got 2 weeks to get everything organised and I'm very very confused! Thankfully there are really really generous and gorgeous people out there! Upon arrival I'll be staying in DietroVetro's apartment, out February, when Kjartan will take over. I'm eternally gratefull to them both for letting me invade! I'm still on the look-out for a room from march through june - so please let me know if you know of something! But I've got a few places to look at when I arrive - hopefully one of them will work out.

I'm eager to start and I keep waking up in the morning with a new idea for an article.

Gamers connecting through common interests - the new market?

2008-01-11T08:31:00.000+01:00

According to Red Herring, game developer start-up, Outspark (site unavailable at writing moment) has managed to secure $11 million in funding from Tencent (a Chinese internet service company who's mission is "to use Internet-related technologies for the betterment of human life"), Altos Ventures (Silicon Valley venture capital firm) and DCM (another venture capital firm in Silicon Valley).

Apparently they're combining web 2.0 applications with casual games and focusing on revenue from the sales of virtual items - such as avatar clothing a.s.o. To me it all sounds very Habbo Hotel'ish, but why wouldn't new gaming companies focus on the Habbo model?

It seems they're using independently developed games and using them within they're community. As Justin Moresco writes:

"And with an office in Seoul, Korea, Outspark hopes to tap into the
much-lauded game developer pool in the country. Both its current games, Fiesta
and Secret of the Solstic, are licensed from Korean developers.
Altos Venture general partner Han Kim said Outspark will continue to source games from Korea and then “localize” them for the North American market."

I'm intrigued by the sourcing of gamedevelopers and the localizing efforts.

They've already registered one million users in the course of five months, which seems cautiously promising. I'm intrigued.

Venture Beat writes:

"Users get a single ID and use the same currency across all of Outspark’s games,
so they don’t need to sign up multiple times for the same services. The idea is
to encourage Outspark users to connect through common interests, not just
through the games they play together."

P.S. - practicing writing articles in a hectic work day and publishing quickly - for reasons I'll come back to soon. This was read about and reported in the course of 1 hour - constantly interrupted by other things. Me thinks me needs more practice - he he!

The art of McGee

2007-12-28T12:51:00.000+01:00

American McGee's in Shanghai developing Grimm with his company, Spicy Horse Games. And lucky for the world I live in, McGee's a blogger! He was quiet there for a while - but he's now frequently sharing his brilliant creations with us, his fans. One clue as to why I like McGee's work is to be found on his 'about' page:

His stated mission is

“to create a unified production method for story telling across the interactive and film industries” and of himself, he says, “I want to be the next Walt Disney, only a little more wicked.”

It's just so gutsy, ballsy and well...I'd say a realistic goal with such a creative mind as his. I like to think of him as one of the best storytellers in game art, so I think he's well on his way to achieving this status. I'm a big fan, although, I actually haven't played Bad Day LA yet. Like, Alice - I didn't think it was quality McGee stuff - but it seems it might just be. OooOOoo - looking forward to having my account filled up again after a really expensive Christmas!

Anyways - McGee has really started sharing on his blog and I definitely recommend it. I mean, just look at what he wrote under this picture I'm sharing with you now:

"Since my days at id Software I’ve been a fan of blood, gore, lava,
and guts. Back then we used to revel in “gibs”, laugh when imps were exploded
into meaty showers of goo, and thrill to the screams of space marines bathing in
lava. With “Grimm” I’m excited to once again be dealing in a fiction where blood
fountains and rivers of lava are prevalent."
- how adorable isn't that?!

Being recognised by a stranger

2007-12-18T08:30:00.000+01:00

So extremely weird standing at the bus stop freezing my butt off in the frost of the morning at 7 am and have somebody come up to me and ask "You work for BTV right?" - "Uhm - no." "But I'm sure I saw you there" - "Well, I was interviewed on that show MM a few weeks back". And then...well...all interest was lost. A disappointed "oh yeah" and then off they went again. The word 'machinima' wasn't uttered once. And it seems working for a tv station is much more rock starish than being a guest. So what's the point of being recognised if my message never came across?! At least the stranger could have remember games and film! Utterly disappointed!

Things to do when I get home from work

2007-12-17T08:52:00.000+01:00

Check out Howard Rheingold's talk "Co-Evolution of Technology, Media and Collective Action" - at the NMC Symposium on the Evolution of Communication.

Snoop in the e-grapevine as to what on earth is going on at Linden Labs. Corey Ondrejka leaves? Because of differences with Philip Rosedale? - oh my oh my! I feel like my juicy gossipy needs are bursting! It's funny - but I wonder if we all have a favorite of the two? I hadn't thought about it before now, but they're not very similar are they? And, well, I can't lie, I definitely have a favorite - do you? And what does this mean for Second Life? A Second Life without Cory? It just seems wrong somehow - but then again, who am I to have an opinion - I'm hardly ever there!

Check out the Second Metaverse Meetup - held by The Stanford Humanities lab. There's a video of Jamais Cascio's talk "The Metaverse -- what does it include, where is it going, and how will it change our lives?" - video here (I've actually sent this link to several people already - but not had the chance to check it out myself)

What's this Metaverse Meetup site I just sumbled upon while searching for links to the last point of 'to do' - something seems awfully familiar.

Eat the entire contents of the Christmas cookie box I just got at work

Start applying for work, even though I've found the perfect job for me (how often does that happen?), but they may need some more convincing - and I'll have to find more options in the meantime.
Finish doctorate proposal

Blog about EVERYTHING - I've been way way way too quiet lately! Feel like I'm about to burst!

And that's all the time I have for after-work planning - cause I actually DO have to do some work here before Christmas.

Digital Culture, Play and Identity - a WoW Reader

2007-12-12T20:47:00.000+01:00

Keep a look out for Jill Walker Rettberg and Hilde Corneliussen's Digital Culture, Play and Identity. A World of Warcraft Reader which is now available for pre-order at amazon. The table of contents looks snazy, tasty and delicious. It's a book I'll definitely be reading no matter what I'm doing in my life at point of release. I can't tell you what a thrill it is to have two women like Hilde and Jill at the university. I keep kicking myself, though, for staying the media studies path instead of joining the Humanities. Oh well - such is life. Either way, they've been such an inspirational source for me the last couple of years - and I've never even had them as a lecturer for any class! Jill's publications can be found here and Hilde's here. Seriously, though, whenever I was going mad with the complications of thinking about virtuality, their writings always made me see a light at the end of the tunnel. This promises to be an excellent book. Contributers include: Scott Rettberg, Lisbeth Klastrup, T.L. Taylor, Ragnhild Tronstad, Tanya Krzywinska, Espen Aarseth - and more!

48 Hour Film Project comes to Second Life

2007-12-09T15:19:00.000+01:00

This is great! The 48 Hour Film Project is launched in Second Life January 11, 2008. I've gotta admit that I'm kinda tempted to try it myself - although I'm not at all familiar with Second Life - gorr - think it's been 6 months since I was there actually! But this is the kinda stuff that makes Second Life fun and brilliant!

I've already started picking out Second Life machinima I want to show on yet another machinima night. They are just so freakin' good! But last time - I wanted to keep Second Life out of the equation because they don't really represent the same kind of gameplay as expression I was shooting for last time. The Second Life machinima scene is just in a league of their own! There's so much great stuff being created there! I look forward to at least see the entries here!

via Millions of Us

Media Coverage

2007-12-02T11:14:00.000+01:00

Marianne Westerlund wrote a great piece for Bergens Tidende, the Thursday paper - unfortunately I can't find it anywhere online - which is a real bummer really. I asked most of the people who had showed up if they'd read it, but most shook their head and told me they never read the paper version anymore. Well - there's some food for thought! But she wrote a great article where she had interviewed quite a few machinima artists about their art, which was just really really interesting. There's also an interview with me - hehe - it was weird seeing the words "Says Linn Søvig while shaking her head". But really cool as well - she's a great journalist and I hope to read much much more of her stuff in the future!

Update: Oooh - they're found! Machinima article and Interview of yours truly! By the way - the picture of me is taken by my youngest nephew - James Gilbert! I thought it'd be cool if they had printed 'photo taken by James Tore Gilbert' - but alas - it didn't make it!

Morten Kvamme (my partner in crime) - the curator at Landmark (our venue) was on a hip local youth program, called Triplet (towards the end of the program - pretty much THE end of the program). He's such a relaxed positive gorgeous soul - such a natural in front of the camera. Although he was focusing on other things than me---

when I was interviewed on MM - a more adult local entertainment tv magazine. Again towards the very end! Unlike Morten - I was a nervous wreck, searched for the right words all the time and well...I say some pretty questionable things - but I've realised that there's always a way to spin it in the right direction, and at least it looks like I know what I'm talking about. Whilst Morten focused on how easy it is for people to sit by themselves and make machinima movies - I was more focused on how incredibly hard it is and that machinima films are very often the product of a community - not a single person. But both are right - which makes it really really cool! And I'm off to the gym next week - because although you know your body may be taking the toll of using exercise time to sit infront of the computer - but it's certainly an eyeopener when you see it just so clearly on tv! Eeek!

We got these tv spots thanks to the incredibly talented Ina Remme and my beautiful BT working friend Hans Øyvind - so thanks so much to them!

Snorre Bryne also wrote a piece for Dagbladet.no - which I thought would just be in the gamesblog but it was actually on the front page there for a while - so wooo hooo! Although it came out 2 hours before we were about to start - in was an incredible honour.

I was also interviewed by the student paper Studvest during the break - and I'm not sure I was completely conscious for that one. Time limitation and nervousness made me just spurt out whatever was at the top of my head - not sure when that will be published - if ever! Hehe.

The attention was nerveracking but lovely - and it was such pure joy to see that people were really interested in finding out more about machinima!

2 Films that didn't make it

2007-12-02T10:17:00.000+01:00

We never really had the opportunity to run through the whole program before the machinima night (my fault because I have to work during the day) - so I spontaneously cut 2 films from the program.

I already knew that we had too many films and that I would have to limit my time on the microphone. I wanted the films to speak for themselves - but then again - I have so much to say about these films. But in the end I was glad - because it turns out that I still get nervous with a microphone and specially when the room is filled with sceptics and people I admire so incredibly much. But I'll get into that more later.

There was just too much, so I had to cut

Tristan Pope's 'Not Just Another Love Story'

Part 1

Part 2

and

Martin Laab's 'Betrayal'

This one hurt me the most. Because I was talking to some folks after who started discussing why there weren't any political machinima - and this was my example of that - but oh well! Another time.

The machinima night program part 2

2007-12-02T10:00:00.000+01:00

1) Super Mario Theme World of Warcraft

2) Deviation

3) The Days After

Someone mentioned that the music had been changed on this - will have to investigate that a bit.

4) One Step Closer

5) The Ballad of the Noob

6) The Snow Witch

7) Fuzz

8) Shock Your Senses

This needs to be downloaded in order to get any quality worth seeing it - you can do that here.

The machinima night program part 1

2007-11-30T15:04:00.000+01:00

So - I have these visions of posting everything I said (or rather all the stuff I wanted to say) at the machinima event last night - but I know I'm absolutely knackered and the time factor is just a neverending story! So - I thought I'd just post the links to the program here - and see if I'll come by the blog at some point and comment. A lot of people are asking for links to the films - and this is a good a place as any to post the list. A paper program would've been a good idea for the night - actually. I'll have to remember that for next time.

What is Machinima?

1) The Leeroy Jenkins - episode in WoW as an example of what machinima is not!

Although someone pointed out to me at the end of the night - that he'd heard an interview with Leeroy Jenkins saying that the film isn't real. I always thought it was a bit too amazing that someone actually recorded such a legendary incident - so huh - what should we call it then? Reconstructive machinima?

2) Olibith - I'm Only Sleeping

I showed this basically to get the drawdropping effect. It's completely different than the gameplay replay of Leeroy - and it's just such a luscious video!

Dance

3) Dance Voldo Dance - Chris Brandt

I don't think I got this across well in my presentation but I dearly wanted to show this as a demonstration of how gameplay can be considered performance art as well. It's just such a beautiful video.

4) World of Warcraft Dancing

I never found the source of this video. It was really annoying and frustrating because I so wanted to show this - but thanks to the glorious technician Jonas we were able to use the one from YouTube. He had to do a lot of work with this - everything was just out of sinc but he did such a glorious job!

5) Ironforge Cossack

MTV Generation

6) Time Warp

7) Hardware Store

8) Since I Met You

9) Child In Time

Avatar's "Why am I here?" narrative in machinima

10) The Awakening

Just for fun - cause it's such a great film

11) Olibith - Sex Junkie

Help Jesper Juul in the name of Game Science

2007-11-28T09:11:00.000+01:00

It's a test that will take 10 minutes of your time.

"The test consists of you playing a game in your browser and answering some questions. The test is anonymous and takes around 10 minutes to complete"

All for the greater good!

Click her to play.

Gorr - it's beautiful!

2007-11-27T20:58:00.001+01:00

Thanx to Morten at Landmark. Sigh - thinking of having one framed! Tihi!

Updated: Ka med denne då?

2007-11-26T08:59:00.001+01:00

Update! The pros have taken over poster making - tfg! Will keep you posted!

Machinima Kveld

2007-11-25T15:44:00.000+01:00

What'cha think - can I run with this? Well - late - but there are reasons!

Yaaaaawn!

2007-11-20T08:17:00.000+01:00

Oh good golly I'm tired! Thankfully I work in a place that has as much coffee as I can drink. Last night I came home from work and just crashed on the couch - thinking the world, work, the future and especially - all things digital was just gonna have to wait till today.

I've found the logistics of organising a machinima event stressful. Since I don't know what I'm on about most of the time, I get even more stressed. It seems everyone else is just laid back and doing their thing and silence just kills me! During the past few years I've become accustomed to feeling like an e-mail spammer - but I still get overly dramatic! How dare people have other things to do than help me - for free! So I creep into my apologetic default position "so sorry, so sorry" - which to be honest, is even annoying me now.

It's been daunting converting myself to someone who actually knows something from amateur.

I also feel an immense responsibility to the venue. I don't wanna mess up and give them a bad rap when talking to the press or advertising. Advertising is, in fact, painful! It's downright embarrassing shouting out "Look! Look! Come and see what I've got to say about machinima and loads of goodies and films!". At the same time as I feel I have to. If no one comes - how can I convince people that machinima is really really interesting (hehe - just look at that wording - got lots of work to do yet). And also, there's the appreciation of the venue - I'm sure they won't be too thrilled of having three people drinking water on a thursday night.

Also - and I hate to say this - but I'm also worried about the gamer stereotype, I think you know what I mean!;9

And of course, it's probably not a good idea to voice my insecurities, doubts and feelings here on my blog - and yet I choose to do so!

So now I've got my coffee - and my Henry Lowood and I'm feeling kinda pumped! It's very odd - but amid all my nervousness and insecurities - I'm also really really REALLY looking forward to standing up and telling people about this fantastic new medium called machinima! How gameplay can become performance art. How the AI in computer games controls a lot of the storyboard. How machinima can be seen to derive from the modding culture. How this is the perfect example of prosumer culture. How this is a culture completely derived from the internet. The collaborative nature of machinima. The web 2.0'ness of machinima. The interesting way completely different narratives our brought into another narrative environment.

OMG - I can't wait! I'm jumping up and down in enthusiasm, franticness, crazyness and nervousness. The crazyness of my personal nature is certainly coming out of the woodworks for this one!

My phone is lost forever!

2007-11-15T15:40:00.000+01:00

So...dearest future employers checking out this blog - my phone number won't be working until the weekend. I'll give you a call tomorrow and we can set up an interview for monday afternoon!

Gorr - it's fun to sound confident! Hehe

And machinima enthusiasts or artists (yes - that's right - I hate the word machinimators - I call you machinima artist - deal with it) - just drop me an e-mail and I'll get in touch!

You know, suprisingly I'm quite calm about the whole experience. I mean there are several numbers lost forever - or did I remember to upload them all to my computer? I can't remember. Either way - it's quite refreshing actually! Ofcourse a little bitter since I had updated memory a.s.o. But I'm not at all worried about the phone numbers, sms', pictures or anything. I'm quite suprised by that. I guess it just feels like I'm about to start a new in some way! Anyways - just to let you know - I'm unavailable on the phone!

Have an absolutely brilliant day!

Second Life Coca Cola vending machine

2007-11-11T12:58:00.000+01:00

"Not Coca Cola but the essence of Coca Cola" - well that's branding for you. But it's really well thought out and has to be one of the best commercial ventures into virtual worlds I've seen so far. They've really embraced the collaboration era and that has to be admired. Clearly understanding that avatars are "thirsty for experience" - I'm impressed. I'll be eagerly monitoring their success. Although I was rather hopeful that there would be more "set your brand free to be played with" as discussed in the Building Businesses in Virtual Worlds panel at State of Play V. This seems to be more restricted ehm...gameplay? interaction? from what I can see. But I haven't taken the time to experiment with them myself yet - so I really shouldn't be too critical.

Disappointments of fatherhood

2007-11-11T11:58:00.000+01:00

Don't you just love the way South Park just gets it!

Some Machinima help, please?

2007-11-07T10:49:00.000+01:00

Oh deary deary me!

Either my googling skills have turned to dust or I've never been good at it. I'm trying to find the source to animpinabox's Dance World of Warcraft.

I can only find the YouTube video or Google - which will not do when showing stuff on the big screen! Anyone?

And the Village Elves which has been banned from YouTube - fooooooools!!! I can't find it anywhere.

Any hey - you brilliant Machinima makers - some of you are a tad too shy and your contact details are impossible to find! Why? Are you hassled by people like me who want bigger and better quality files so much?

What else?

Oooh - yeah! I'm missing a film for our storytelling segment. The two I have are both in The Sims - any other good storytelling machinima that's not from The Sims?

Other than that? COME!

Landmark, 9 pm - November 29th! Ooo - I'm nervous - excited and all over the place right now! Phew!

The Ballad of the Noob

2007-10-29T21:48:00.000+01:00

I can't just save everything for the event! I instantly fell for it. Such a charming story, a little bit of real life in there - and a great johnny cashish song! I love it when the producers/directors make their own music! Anyways - enjoy!

The_Ballad_of_the_Noob.wmv

That's how I like my game reviews, my friend

2007-10-23T21:53:00.000+02:00

via The Pensive Harpy via The Escapist

Aesthetics?

2007-10-18T08:43:00.000+02:00

Yesterday UiB hosted the "New Aesthetic Technologies Conference", which I really would have loved to attend! Firstly because I really want to know what my (?) university department thinks about aesthetics and new media - because I'm not sure I know. Two years ago (good golly - has it been that long?) - the brilliant Rune Klevjer put together a conference called "The Aesthetics of Play" - it's just such an excellent title, don't you think?

I remember talking to a student who was there to take notes on anything to do with aesthetics for the head of the department. Now - I really respect this student and she is just soooo much smarter than me - so when I said "Ohh - you must be franticly writing down page after page, then. It's all about aesthetics." I remember being completely gobsmacked when she said "So far I haven't heard anything about aesthetics." I felt like I was going to sink into the ground. Had I completely misunderstood everything? Ofcourse - I was still in the ignorant and arrogant faze of my masters, thinking that I understood it all because I had read a few measely papers and finished my research playing of The Sims Online. Oh the embarrassment of thinking about my stuck-up attitude at that time! I knew nothing! Although I have to admit that I kinda missed having that arrogant attitude at The State of Play conference. There, I knew I knew nothing - even though I had studied the subjects discussed for 3 years! I suppose it's a process. Oh dear - I've rambled right off subject haven't I?

Anyways - the word aesthetics has caught my eye - and I'll be trying to figure it all out. There's so many different uses of the word aesthetics in the stipend guidelines for what I'm hoping to get a phd grant from. I mean, there's a verb form here - which I don't know - 'aesthetisation' (?) and there's lots of other goodies: aesthetical practices, aesthetic classes, aesthetic studies, aesthetisation of every day life, aesthetic objects and categoriunderstanding and aesthetic value. I'm just roughly translating as I go here. I'm confused about aesthetical practices - but I feel that it has something to do with playing with aesthetics. Or perhaps I should say, the aesthetisation of aesthetics? I'm starting to doubt that "estetikk" is aesthetics, have I completely misunderstood everything, yet again? - I'm rambling again - gorr - I've sooooo missed writing freely here!

I would have really loved to hear Kjetil Jakobsen's "Phenomenology versus Archeology in New Media Studies. On Mark B Hansen's critique of Friedrich Kittler" - I would have been so much smarter after experiencing such a talk! Really freakin interesting.

And of course I would have adored getting the opportunity to experience N. Katherine Hayles. It's impossible not to worship someone who titles their book "My mother was a computer" - although I'm ashamed to say that I haven't read the whole thing yet!

But alas - I could not go! And I screamed my frustration on Mr. Rettberg's blog - so incredibly sorry about that! You would have thought I had learned to not comment when emotional - but naw - I'm obviously not a learner! I've spent my days off work on other things, such as a copyright symposium and a norwegian games event. It would have been much more time management smart of me to go yesterday - but by the time I found out about it - it was too late!

The Language thing and some heavy duty rambling on time management issues!

2007-10-17T08:14:00.000+02:00

I woke up this morning with an intense desire to blog - so at this writing moment I'm thinking today is going to be a great day!

I think absolutely everyone in my social network has been hassled with hard questions like "How do you translate game mechanics to Norwegian?". So many excellent suggestions, but I never seem to be satisfied. I'm not happy with the direct translation which would be spillmekanikk. I've been trying to write some articles for the mainstream media and at the moment half of the articles I've written have been published. I'm quite chuffed and proud about that. Firstly because the content isn't always considered newsworthy and second - I'm no freakin journalist!
Writing for the mainstream media has really been a challenge. This is why I can't just directly translate 'game mechanics', as it seems to be an industry term. Although - let me just say - I'm not too keen on underestimating the reader, either - I've been torn a few times. I had a lot of fun with treating the components of computer games as recipies. But my favourite and smartest proof reader didn't like my "a main gaming ingredient" - one of the few red comments I chose to ignore, perhaps that's why it never got printed. Either way, I really enjoyed it - but it took me forever! Translating is certainly a complicated process. But it's an important one. And the more I think about it, the more happy I am that I'm bilingual. When you're stuck with describing something you've just learned to accept as a given, like the words 'game mechanics', you really start to dwell on the meaning of the words. And to then try to explain it to people who've never played a computer game before - you really need to think things through. And what fun it is, but - really - it takes a lot of thought, effort, time and I have to admit, several moments of despair (just ask anyone on my msn)! I'm so used to thinking in English, as well - so there were a lot of high walls to climb. I have to say, my respect for journalists has just grown immensely.

Now, I'm finding myself in another dilemma. After painstakingly putting myself on the language level of the 'woman on the street' when it comes to computer games - I am now trying to write a phd proposal and finding it hard to step up to academia language again. I mean - aesthetical process? What is that supposed to mean? Suddenly I'm feeling lost and dumb and kinda intimidated. I've come to the conclusion that it's because I haven't been reading a lot lately - I'm outta practice. So now I'm setting aside some time to concentrate on reading as well.

Time management is becoming a severe priority in my life, and I'm wondering if I should cut my hours at work a bit - working 8 hours 5 days a week is starting to get in the way of all the other stuff I need to do if I'm to get anywhere further. Weekends and nights just aren't enough. But my rent has just been raised - oh deary me! But the utmost important thing I've learned about time management is that: 1) You need to acknowledge that some things are a process that just take quite a lot of time - like writing and reading - there's no use trying to these things in a hurry - little by little - but never stop being productive. 2)Do not hold off having fun til you're finished - this only leads to more despair and agony. I've actually found that if my 'fun' time is spent going to a museum, exhibition, concert - something entertaining and social - the better my 'fun' rewards (meaning - my productivity is great after experiencing something cultural) 3) Heavy duty thinking is impossible after heavy duty drinking the night before at my age - become a responsible adult! Hehe. 4) Casual games are freakin excellent for little breaks

Woo - I'm having trouble stopping writing. Such fun to just take the time to blog a bit! My feeds intake has been lacking lately! Now - I'm going to prioritise working on emails to machinima producers asking for permission and their films to be shown at a machinima night at Landmark - 29 November. I'm sooooooo excited - and yet extremely nervous! Then - print out some papers on machinima Kristine was kind enough to e-mail me - to be read when I come home tonight, after working on the impossible task of cleaning my apartment after renovation - where do I start with this mess?
This mess is the worst of my day - the other stress is a lot of fun - but I do moan a lot! Ooops - need to get back to work!

World of Warcraft Dashboard Picture, anyone?

2007-10-05T08:36:00.001+02:00

Does anyone have a really cool WoW dashboard picture they wouldn't mind me using for an article (that I'm not sure is EVER going to be published) in the local Bergen press?
I'm really looking for a dashboard so advanced that you hardly see what's happening in-world. One of those where there's so much information the interface becomes 2 dimensional instead of 3. I'm kinda trying to prove the point that there's a lot of information management that goes into playing WoW.

Free Burma

2007-10-04T10:59:00.000+02:00

Kosmodrones

2007-09-25T13:00:00.000+02:00

I always get such a thrill when I see new gaming innovation from Norway - and this time they're even from beautifully gorgeous Bergen!

These three Bergenese lads have designed a homebrew game for PSP, which I sadly do not own - so someone else will have to judge it. It's called Kosmodrones and is downloadable for free!!!!

There's a trailer - and a podcast. Looks great!

(via IT-Avisen)

Accessibility In Virtual Worlds

2007-09-18T15:11:00.000+02:00

BBC reports that IBM has designed a device that gives 3D sound "to create a sense of space" for the blind to be able to enter virtual worlds.

"Characters in the virtual world can have a "sonar" attached to them so that the user gets audible cues to alert them to when they are approaching, from which direction and how near they are. "

That's just so cool!

I remember encountering a blind man in The Sims Online. We had known each other for a while when he finally told me. And ofcourse the truth came out from annoyance. He had a voice generator from the chat and I had a tendency to write stuff like "cool!!!!!!!!!!!!" - and he would hear "cool - exclamation mark -exclamation mark - exclamation mark - exclamation mark - exclamation mark - exclamation mark - exclamation mark" in one of those female computer voices (aparently there are quite a few you can pick from) a.s.o. I remember being so embarrassed. It was a defining moment for me - I felt that if a blind man could enjoy himself in The Sims Online, well, that must mean that the gameplay and the 'fun' there had all to do with communication. It was also then that I decided to change all my 'subjects' names for my thesis. This was just treading in to too much 'real' personal territory.

They've used Active Worlds - which I applaud them for! I've been worried that IBM's spending way too much attention to Second Life - good to see them mix it up a bit!

Oooh - and on a side note, some of Areae will be revealed today, according to Virtual World News - not sure when and where I can catch some of the revealing, but I'm positive Raph will post it somewhere! I have such high expectations of this - it's almost certain that I'll be disappointed!

Community Guidelines

2007-09-17T14:49:00.000+02:00

"Online games are unique. We ask people to stay for thousands of hours.
That level of commitment comes with an inescapable emotional attachment. We
count on that attachment to stay in business.
That level of attachment causes people set the same kinds of expectations
for us that they would for a spouse or significant other, as opposed to a
dispassionate company that provides a service. We’re a lot more like someone’s
fiancee than the Cable Company"

I really enjoyed reading (via Raph Koster) Scott Hartsman's "Beta Community Guidelines". It was originally written for the Everquest II Beta in 2004 - but I think a lot is relevant now as well. In fact, I don't think these rules apply just to MMORPGs - I think any online community would be smart in developing the same...I'm more inclined to use a word such as ethics and morals, than guidelines, but ok.

It reminded me of an article at Gamasutra covering the Edinburgh Interactive Festival where 2 quotes stuck with me.

""You get a lot of protest in these things, from governance, game
mechanics, political process and griefing," Reynolds said. "People try to run
virtual worlds as a service, but people playing the game view this as a
community."

MMORPGs are communities and they are services. Which brings us to Hartsman's very first point:

1) Character or Person - never Player.
- Don’t refer to people as Players when addressing them. Either address something about the Character or have a conversation with a Person.
- Referring to people as “The Players” when addressing them in public reads like mom and dad talking about “The Kids” in front of them, when it should instead come off as if you’re having a conversation with a Person.
- Referring to people as “Our players” when addressing the media is subtly different, as it can be used to present the people who play our games with a certain amount of pride.

So I think MMORPGs are definitely, without a doubt a service - but, they need to be handled like communities. I'm still not sold with the 'let's have democratic elections' argument(well...maybe I was sold once, but I've steered in another direction now). I think that's way too much hassle for the...ehm...customers. But they need a strong customer service which takes their customers seriously and at the same time act authoritatively. There needs to be an active conversation between consumer and producer.

""We don't manage expectations well in the online world," Mulligan
conceded. "World of Warcraft are horrible at customer service, there [are] just
no managed expectations. In 9 out of 10 virtual worlds, there is no meaningful
communication [between the organization and the users]. The community says one
thing, marketing says another. This really comes down to unfulfilled promises."
(from the same Gamasutra article)

Which is another extremely relevant point. But - this is where I start scratching my head. Why then, is World of Warcraft the most popular MMORPG? Why do people still keep playing if they've got such lousy customer service and don't fulfill expectations? Isn't this then proving me wrong? Because Blizzard doesn't really have the best reputation of treating their players fairly and with respect - maybe they do? How can we explain the ongoing success of WoW if all of this is true? Why aren't there massive amounts of players leaving? Are there and I just haven't been paying attention?

Back to the Future in Vice City

2007-09-10T22:48:00.000+02:00

What better example can you get of converging media culture?! I was tickled, at least.

Good Golly, I'm published!

2007-08-28T11:00:00.000+02:00

Will you look at that? My name published in a Norwegian financial paper (well...the IT section, at least). It's all a bit scary. And by golly I've promised to come with a series of articles! The pressure is on!

To be honest, I'm quite frightened about the law of it all, I'm still not sure I comprehend all that was talked about at the conference. Will have to dig deeper, I think. And I'm suppossed to be on holiday?! Naw - no use complaining - I'm lovin' it!

State of Play Conference

2007-08-28T06:27:00.002+02:00

It was fun!
The conference started off with a bang. We got to see Glenn Thomas' "Ideal World. A Virtual Life Documentary" - which is brilliant (Glenn's also a super dooper, charming and smart man, by the way!). He's really managed to get the full compass of The Second Life story into it and I applaud him for it!
The panels were exciting and from vast disciplines - which I thought was great! Some of the conference delegates (220 attending) had some amazing questions to the panels, which brought some great insight and discussion. I'm not too comfortable writing in detail here, as I'm in the middle of writing other articles for a serious publication. I'm not used to all this journalism thinking and I'm not sure what's allowed and not in duplication matters on my own personal blog. So let me tread lightly till stuff gets published.
I've met some truly amazing people which I hope to keep in touch with. Lots of bright and colorful minds were present and I felt so privileged to meet them. All shall be mentioned when I dwell deeper into stuff here.
I found being a 'journalist' quite hard, however. Finding stuff that was news worthy for 'regular people' was challenging, which is why we're holding off publication till it's all in a lovely understandable package. It's also quite hard finding the correct Norwegian words for stuff - any Norwegian readers out there willing to have a go at 'in-world'? It's such a great way to pinpoint what you're trying to describe, "they met in-world", "in-world business transaction", I just can't seem to find the right Norwegian wording for it. I have also found a great appreciation for the word 'business' in English. I think we have about alternatives in Norwegian and I find none of the satisfactory! Speaking of which, I need to get back to work.

I, journalist

2007-08-13T08:27:00.000+02:00

Huh...exactly one week from today I'll be prancing around the Marina Mandarin Singapore with a press badge! Yup - that's right! I've actually been commissioned to write about the State of Play conference! So apparently, dreams really do come true!

It's very bizarre being all proffessional. I'm so used to waving my arms franticly in the air only to be ignored and disappointed again and again, which then is followed by a lot of bitching and complaining about how negative and stupid the Norwegian industry is. Now, I've actually managed to get an audience which I have to admit has got me a tiny little bit freaked. It's just so much more easier and comfortable sitting in the backseat complaining, than actually well...doing something constructive. So now that I have the attention, what is it really I want to say? Why exactly have I been franticly waving my hands in the air for attention?

I'm also finding it hard writing in Norwegian and even harder to get all this information to be understandable for 'the man on the street'. But let me tell you a little secret, I may be moaning and complaining about how hard and scary all this is - but in reality, I'M LOVIN IT! The superstitious side of me is worried that I'm jinxing the whole thing by writing about it here - but I'm ignoring that now! I'm too happy and too proud and way too excited! But I'm leaving the who and the where to when I actually get published!

It's also going to be odd being a fangirl actually signing up to do interviews. Oh dear me! Phew. How will I ever survive?

I've got a lot of work to do, and I haven't been able to prepare as much as I would like. A regular day job will do that to you! Also, while in Singapore I'll be getting a new kitchen and bathroom so my weekend's been busy moving the entire contents of my apartment into the bedroom. Also, my darlin sis is coming to Singapore the weekend after, so me, dad and sis will be Singapore Sling chillin - international families can be so heartbreaking and weekends like this are cherished - we'll be missing mom, though!

And ooooooOOOooo - I'm not ready to give out too many details, but let me just say that I had a meeting last week that was also very exciting. So exciting in fact that I could barely sit still and felt like I was going to explode, I really had to restrain myself to at least appear to be "normal" - although I think I failed. So in other words - Anyone know of any Norwegian machinima ehm...artists, producers, directors? And who's an expert on Machinima in Europe?

It's just all too good to be true! I'm the luckiest happiest girl alive! And who knows? Maybe, at some point I can quit my day job!

Bogost & Colbert

2007-08-08T19:55:00.000+02:00

Ian Bogost was a guest on The Colbert Report promoting his new book, "Persuasive Games. The Expressive Power of Video Games" - oh the courage!! I have to say, I was partially disappointed and partially impressed. Disappointed by Stephen Colbert, because I didn't find his jokes that amusing and impressed by Bogost because he articulates his thoughts so well - it must be pure joy to be in his class. I was expecting to have a good chuckle but instead I'm in a pondering mode. Ian Bogost says that video games are an expressive medium because "video games model the way things work". To me, there's not question - he brings up an interesting example from San Andreas where the only thing you can eat to get energy levels up is fast food a.s.o. He sums up really nicely by accepting Colbert's pun on World of Warcraft preparing him for orc invasion "You will be ready to think of the way things work", the system, the complexity. I think that's very nicely put. Video games do make you think about the way all things are interconnected and related to each other! Whew - sounds very philosophical! Persuasive Games are designed to comment on society and politics - and they manage to do this through gameplay - not interactive storytelling - but gameplay - they're really quite genius!
Will you look at that? I can embed a Comedy Central clip - lovely!

Now I need to run! I've got so much fun stuff to do and my head is just spinning with excitement and delight - need to take a breath and focus on one thing at a time!

That Was Dennis

2007-08-02T19:25:00.000+02:00

This is just absolutely brilliant! An entirely new form of machinima, at least for me. Very narrative, like someone's watching an old film and remembering odd things while watching. I'm very impressed!

Brought to us by Rusty Whispers and Lit Fuse Films, which I'm definitely checking out as soon as tonight's work is done (why does writing suddenly become so hard when you HAVE to?). It's Second Life, right? Or is this complete animation, therefore not machinima at all? Well, Kotaku calls it machinima, so it must be! ;)

The guild

2007-07-31T15:59:00.000+02:00

Oooh! A new webisode series that looks great!

Is the Second Life hype brought on by overly eager marketing types, killing Second Life?

2007-07-31T11:33:00.000+02:00

Yesterday my feed reader was bombarded with Norwegian articles and blog posts about Second Life. Now, being a 'job hunter' who wants to continue working within the virtual world field, I get quite excited about such days! When I hardly have time to read all the Norwegian news about a virtual world - that means my future job prospects are looking up, right? Ssshhhh - don't answer that - let me continue being deluded, sometimes ignorance is bliss and hopeful! ;)

The attention, it seems, comes from Wired's "How Madison Avenue Is Wasting Millions on a Deserted Second Life" by Frank Rose about how most places in Second Life are deserted and businesses aren't finding the consumer wealth they were looking for. I'm not certain what to make of it all. Two thoughts spring to mind: 1) Refreshing to see Second Life getting som critical press coverage from Wired 2) Do I really care enough about Second Life to go defend it on the different critical Norwegian blogs and websites? Not really.

BUT! Being a job hunter and all, has made me consider venturing into the marketing world and I think I should have some form of clear opinion when it comes to the matters of businesses advertising in virtual worlds, like Second Life.

Now, from what I can gather there's people in Norway traveling around the country promoting the use of Second Life using words like "It's the next big thing" - "People live their lives here!" and the usual yoo haa. I honestly don't know who these people are. I've only been to one and followed the liveblogging of another - and I have to agree with the skeptics that it does seem like a lot of hoopla hype.

The other day I met someone who worked in marketing who did the mistake of asking me what I do (or would like to do in my case). The response I got was a slammed head on the table and a big grunt and a lot of fed up moans followed by "Ohhhhhhhhhh! I'm so sick and tired of hearing about how you can live your second life online, and we have to advertise there just because some sad sods spend all there time there an blah blah blah! So sick of hearing that speech. They give it at every conference I go to!".

Well this made me wonder:

1) Just how many conferences do marketing people go to in the course of a year? Are they underground? Can I come?
2) Who's giving these presentations that's making this person sick and disgusted with me just mentioning virtual worlds?
3) Is there too much focus on the fact that people are really interacting and really earning real money and really feeling real feelings that the reality behind what Second Life can offer becomes overshadowed by hype?
4) Isn't all this desertion just demonstrating consumer and advertising trends? Marketing has changed or needs to change if it wants to be effective. I believe consumers are interested in dialog. We're not as susceptible to just being told what to buy, we want responsive media. We want companies who actually want to listen to us.

As a consumer I'm becoming increasingly annoyed with how little availability some business' offer. If I have to spend more than 5 minutes trying to find an e-mail adress or telephone number I get the feeling that this business does not want to talk to me. They really couldn't care less about me. Which doesn't exactly make me loyal.

I think the same goes for setting up business in Second Life. DnB Nor, a Norwegian bank, has set up beautifully in Second Life. But no one's there. They have to give me a reason for going there. Why not use that lovely conference senter they've built to give small lectures? Have personal consultations for consumers thinking about loans or (gasp!) investing in a Norwegian company? I'm just saying that setting up shop and just screaming "BUY! BUY! BUY!" isn't enough. And I think Second Life definitely provides a worthy platform for conversations like these. Even better now that there's a potential for Second Life to be browser based.

But I may be wrong. And all the skeptics may be right.

Update: Oh dear me! The real debate unravels on Long Tail Anderson's blog "Why I gave up on Second Life". Much smarter people than myself. On a personal note, I'm kinda finding it odd that I'm defending Second Life so much when I haven't really become a Second Lifer...uhm...yet.

The Playing Columbine Trailer

2007-07-31T08:46:00.000+02:00

The trailer to the documentary about Super Columbine Massacre RPG is out. Some may remember the controversial debate that followed after it was pulled from the Slamdance Guerrilla Gamemaker Competition. If anything at all this game has spurred great discussions about gameplay as documentary/storytelling/art. I'm not very opinionated about this documentary yet, except that I adore the debate and I'm looking forward to seeing the whole thing. But for some opinions check out Kotaku, Water Cooler Games and Game Politics.

"The top tier of Second Life is run by the women"

2007-07-19T10:13:00.000+02:00

Excellent Metaverse Territories introduced me to a great blogpost about Second Life from Broken Toys called "Utopia Hidden Underground: Another Look at SL".

All in all it sums up nicely with:

"That core of the singularity is what is actually Second Life’s core
strength, and what keeps its users struggling through the level grind and the
broken client and the lack of governmental, er, Linden oversight. Because as a
social MMO, once you get past all the clutter and dross, SL actually works. I
can honestly say that nowhere else online have I argued about Islamic
fundamentalism at one in the morning while lounging in a pool with a half-naked
demon-thing. Much like how people played Ultima Online despite its rampant
peekay and endless bugs simply because it was the promise of something new,
people find the core of SL is actually the other players. That’s something
that’s difficult to break."

It's definitely a must read. And ofcourse I was intrigued to find that the women in SL (or the female avatars at least) are the citizens in charge. I really like that and I enjoy that there's somewhere in this online universe that women dominate. Because, to be honest, putting up with male geek arrogant snobbery can be really tedious at times, not to mention stagnant. I was asked why I didn't have a closer look at what happens with gameplay politics when women are in charge (The Sims Online) at my Masters exam - and it's intrigued me ever since. I've been wanting to pull out some of my data to see if I can find some patterns for a while - but alas!

This piece also looks closely at the social classes in Second Life. Scott Jennings really puts an effort into exploring SL and sharing his expert findings (he's been around a few MMOing years).

It kinda crushes my theory, though. He points out that there's a class system, that you need to look a certain way to be 'accepted' - which I'm absolutely sure you do. But here's my thing with Second Life. I honestly don't feel like being social, I just wanna cruise and enjoy some of the wonderful things SL offers - like conferences, films, art and other performances. My theory is that I can easily enjoy Second Life as a - well - medium by being a casual random citizen (not comfortable using the word player when it comes to this place). A lot of this theory has to do with the superb invention of Slurls (a link you put on your website so that SL'ers can read what you're reporting - click on the link and automatically be transported to the place you're writing about).

Naw - lawsuits can't happen here because it's virtual FANTASY world!

2007-07-12T20:05:00.000+02:00

This is an odd tv segment. I found it interesting and just really weird (even odder - I was absolutely certain I'd blogged about the case - but apparently not, must be getting confused with my del.icio.us'ing).
So for those out of the loop:

Stroker Alderman (aka Stroker Serpentine) designed a bed where avatars could have sex in in Second Life
Selling these became a profitable business for Alderman(yes, in real life)
Someone else comes along and steals the design and starts selling the 'copy' (authenticity is really difficult in virtual matters isn't it? I mean - it's exactly the same thing)for less
Stroker Alderman ends up actually suing the avatar of the 'thief' (this is possible thanks to the recording industry's efforts on suing online personalities - yup! it has a name in the American court of law: John Doe lawsuit)

There are so many interesting things to discuss here. Let's just start off with this news segment from CNBC. The reporter, Bill Griffeth, is actually impressively to the point, kudos to him! As for the two lawyers actually litigating the case, I'm personally on a fence. Andrew S. Langsam is very adamant on defining all of this as fantasy - which I completely disagree with. But then he makes some absolutely excellent points. He points out that the defendant may be from a different country and that it's unfair to bring him into the American judicial system - too right. I can't agree with him more. It's an excellent point. He also says that this should be something legislated in a virtual court of law - yup! I agree, we just need to establish one - which is going to be a pain in the ass. But then again I also agree with the plaintiff's lawyer - Francis X. Taney, Jr, who says that this is actual commerce. Of course it is! Second Life trading cannot be waved off as 'fantasy' - definitely not!

Either way - it's a troublesome case because Second Life grants intellectual property rights to it's citizens - which I whole heartedly applaud them for, don't get me wrong, I adore them for that. But there's a whole lotta hoopla that comes with it, unfortunately. And no! I have no concluding thought!

Video (urgh - why don't these networks allow embedding scripts?)

Those Creative Spammers

2007-07-10T10:12:00.000+02:00

Goldfarmers in World of Warcraft are becoming desperate as Blizzard has now inserted a new 'text-filter on broadcast chat messages to prevent gold farmers from spamming users about their websites' - I don't get how it can work, but I guess it really does!

This just impressed me so! Dead gnomes dropping out of the sky to spell an url?! I'm sorry, that just blows me away! So now I guess WoWers will have to put up with rainy days of dead gnomes instead of text spam? I have such a hard time disrespecting such creativity, but then again I'm not a WoW'er so I'm not hassled with goldfarming spam. ;)

Via Wonderland

William Gibson coming to Second Life!

2007-07-09T15:25:00.000+02:00

Wow! It's a whole event, not just a lecture!

"Over the next few weeks - to celebrate and, yes, promote his new novel
Spook Country - we're planning a range of William Gibson activities in Second
Life; we're screening his fine and strange movie No Maps for These Territories;
there's a competition to design an avatar for the man himself; we're giving away
shipping containers packe with Gibson goodies and at the beginning of August,
William Gibson himself will be coming into Second Life to read from Spook
Country and answer questions.'"

Link

Sounds like a kids tv show only for grown-up nerds. I'll be signing on - I have no intention of trying to design his avatar (what a daunting task) but I wouldn't mind watching No Maps for These Territories in Second Life.

You know what I'd pay to see? A debate between William Gibson's Cyberspace vs. Neal Stephenson's Metaverse - with visuals! Gorr! That'd actually be a great movie, if done wisely and creatively! '

Seems like we need to sign on to get the schedule.

WoW dancin' originals

2007-07-08T14:54:00.000+02:00

This is an excellent series of clips with the WoW characters dancing right next to their creator's inspiration! I really enjoyed it! It's by animpinabox!

My sister enters the world of blogging

2007-07-08T12:42:00.000+02:00

My darling sis has started blogging! She's always been the hardcore gamer of our family and offers some interesting stories from her WoWing. A few weeks in and she's already in Cerise writing about the frustrations of being a non-stereotypical gamer customer.

She's also an avid reader and offers her thoughts on the recent books she's read.

Welcome to the world, Strumpet (honestly...I have no idea where this nic comes from).

South Korea claims tax on Virtual Goods

2007-07-03T12:05:00.000+02:00

Worlds In Motion (which I'll get back to later) reports that Korea's National Tax Service (NTS) "has begun adding the new tax automatically to all virtual transactions involving real money as of July 1st, says the report, translated as follows:

Sellers who do between 6 and 12 million won ($6,500 - $13,000)/half year in
business will have VAT auto applied by transaction's middle-man.

Sellers who do more than 12 million won/half year in business will need a
business will need a business license and will pay the tax by themselves"

My initial reaction was "Wow! What a great way to expose gold farmers!" . At the same time, though it feels like gaming is becoming increasingly more complicated. But the thing I like about it is that it's about virtual property being traded in for real-money - not taxation on the actual virtual goods. I'm glad about that. Just because people out there willing to pay $100 for my virtual iPhone doesn't mean that I should be taxed for owning it or selling it on in-world for virtual money. Also - leigha cleverly points out the obvious:

"The interesting complication comes in when you take note of the fact that,
according to the report, many online games stipulate in their terms of service
that in-game goods and currency are actually property of the developers, not the
users. Thus far, the industry has yet to clarify its stance on the issue,
so it's still unclear who, exactly, will be legally responsible for actually
paying the tax".

Too right!

Which brings us to "Worlds in Motion"! Just when you thought you had found a balance to keep your head above the rss water along comes another blog that just promises to be amazing. It's from the gamedeveloper research team - which in itself is a seal of approval in my book! ;)

WorldsInMotion.biz will report on virtual worlds as we compile information
on this increasingly important market.

Social Networks in Virtual Worlds

2007-07-01T16:13:00.000+02:00

Here's a video of one of Aleks Krotoski's presentation entitled "Social Networks in Virtual Worlds" - it was a refreshing find. Aleks doesn't focus too much on the 'OMG!' factor and is very straight to the point about her research. She's also willing to share her methods of research which I found extremely interesting and helpful. This should be useful to some people out there! ;) The more I think about my own thesis the more I wish I had spent more time on methodology techniques, so methodology has started to interest me. I feel like my thesis discusses more what we're talking about and why and chapter 2 should be something like "Ok, now we know 'what' now let's concentrate on how to really research the 'what'!".

It's a great find - but I'm writing this already late for an appointment so I haven't done enough digging from where and why this presentation was held. All I know is that it's from an event called "Massively Multi-Learner" at The University of Paisley.

Click To Play

CNN Future Summit on YouTube

2007-07-01T12:29:00.000+02:00

It's edited to the parts with glorious Nick Yee. I definitely recommend watching the whole thing although CNN's video player annoyed me some. The program is ok - nothing really new - but a great resource (specially for someone like me who's applying for work in a place filled with negative skepticism of virtual worlds)!
Trond Aas (Funcom) has an adorable response to Jimmy Wales' vision that Wikipedia will remain text based (part 6), where he shares his vision that instead of reading a speech given by Cicero in Rome you'll be able to immerse yourself in the Roman era and listen to the speech given on the streets of Rome - by looking it up on wikipedia first. I think that's just charming!

Virtual World Politics News

2007-06-29T11:03:00.001+02:00

Where to start?

How about the "u gotta be kidding me!" news:

The US Congress has announced that it will be issuing a potential taxation of virtual goods report in August. I'm a bit perplexed about this. Firstly - how are they going to define what is virtual? And second of all, I don't think we're anywhere near ready to discuss this issue 'officially'. I'm a bit worried that they're going to ruin the creative gaming freedom that these virtual worlds offer by bringing up such invasive things as taxes. And when there's just a handful of gamers this could apply to - is it really worth it? I'm all for that academics, gamers and designers discuss it, because it is important that we think about these things and have ready proposals and not in the least definitions before such matters do become official - but not the US Congress! Maybe I'm just skeptical because I'm European. I'm just not as thrilled as everyone else seems to be. Don't get me wrong, I believe in the 'real' value of virtual goods - I really do! And I abhore all the journalists writing headlines about virtual goods being fake - yet worth real money. I just think that the 'realness' of such things has to come about another way than through a governmental force like the US Congress. But I'm getting ahead of myself here, they do say 'potential'.

Ludium II is finished for this year and as usual they've done a bang up job! Just goes to show how much creative results can come out of gameplay (Ludium is a conference that's built up as a game by guru Castronova). They came up with "A Declaration of Virtual World Policy" which I think is pretty great.

A self-governance group of virtual world stakeholders should be formed
A players' bill of rights should be drafted and should include the right of free speech and the rights to assemble and organize.
A universal age verification system should be created to support the individual rights of all users
Virtual world designers should have freedom of expression
Virtual worlds should include plain-language End-User License Agreements (EULA) to enable all individuals to understand their rights
There are different types of virtual worlds with different policy implications
Access is critical to virtual worlds, so net neutrality must be maintained
Game developers shall not be liable for the actions taken by players
Fair use may apply in virtual worlds that enable amateur creation of original works
The government should provide a comprehensive package of funding for educational games research, development, and literacy

What else?! EVE!!!!! I'm so impressed with what they've been doing lately.

CCP (EVE developer)is introducing an ability for EVE players to elect "a player-staffed oversight committee that will be regularly flown to Iceland to "audit CCP's operations and report back to their player-constituents". To insure the elections are free and fair, "CCP says it will call in election monitors from universities in Europe and the United States"" (stolen from the brilliant Mark Wallace's blog 3pointD, because I'm such a lazy cut'n'paste blogger). New York Times article here. It's a thing of beauty! I'm not saying that all virtual gaming worlds should do the same, but for EVE which has such business competitive gameplay it's just perfect! And if that wasn't enough, they've now appointed an in-world lead economist!

So much more delightful than the US Congress talking about virtual world taxes! ;)

There's so much more going on - but this blogpost is getting kinda large - so I'll be back with more soon!

PS - couldn't think of an appropriate picture for this post so I slapped on a picture by my brilliantly talented friend Eva.

Second Life

2007-06-25T20:40:00.000+02:00

So I've been cruising through Second Life this evening - starting to get my grips - but my lag is just awful! I still haven't actually invested in any Linden dollars, but I suppose it's just around the corner.

I've just stopped by the Social Simulation Research Lab and found bunches of interesting reads! I'll have to print out some stuff so I can enjoy the summer as well - I want a sun friendly laptop sooo bad! Life would just be near perfect then!

But for now I'm happy to have found SLED Picayune that has taken the trouble to gather several tutorial videos. Time for me to stop being a tourist and really start getting involved with this world that I have such high hopes for - so tutorials are a blessing!

I was really impressed with DnB Nor's island (Slurl). A few weird things - but that's half the fun! The Second Life Newspaper - Finance, has a good description of their tour.

Video Subgenre

2007-06-25T19:36:00.000+02:00

Cute huh?! Stolen from Raph Koster who defines it as a subgenre. I suppose it is - but it was inevitable that these little movies would be made. Our virtual lives are a part of our real lives, so inevitably this is a recipe for expression. I've seen a few others - this The Sims one, for example. I wonder if copyright and IP law becomes a problem in such cases...

Machinima mashups

2007-06-19T21:18:00.001+02:00

I'm sure that I can describe this as a distinctive genre within machinima - when using one game to parody (?) another game. Lovely the way that the gaming sound just makes it complete - would it ever work with a rock song? This is the mixing of gameplay mechanics (although is it gameplay mechanics if we're just passively watching it?)to describe a story, in my opinion, so deserves it's own genre type within machinima.

But then I get confused when watching this superb film (embedding disabled for some mysterious reason).

Ah - what's the point of organising everything into definition boxes really?

This whole copyright licensing of media thing

2007-06-18T20:43:00.000+02:00

Like the rest of the world, I became enchanted by ITV's Britain's Got Talent when I saw Paul Potts' remarkable performance on YouTube - oh the tears! This of course led to hunger for more and I randomly went through some of the related YouTube videos. At one point I thought 'hang on - I'm sure they've got a website with better quality clips and a much better organisational overview'. And they do -yay! But no - I get this picture up. "This content is not for viewing outside of the UK due to rights reasons". Urgh! My thoughts go to the delightful Ben Hammersley's words:

The audience is actually quite happy to pay for these things. Witness the sales of DVD box-sets, or the success of the downloadable episodes of hit shows in the iTunes Music Store. Again, though, the television industry shoots itself in the foot. Would I pay for downloadable episodes of the Daily Show? Yes. Will anyone take my money from me? No. Why? Because I'm in the wrong country. Well, I tried. I'll be thinking about how little their broken business model is my problem as I boot up my torrent software, download the show, and watch the whole thing, including the adverts and any in-show sponsorship.
It's a curious business indeed that turns away customers. It's exceptionally puzzling when an industry ignores offers of cash. The reason for this seemingly counter-intuitive approach to business - where those with the supply actively avoid those with the demand - is that selling programming is not the business channels are in.

The Guardian, March 20, 2006

"Get with the programme"

It's just so freakin annoying and so pathetic and stupid!

This is also one of the fundamental reasons I get excited about what can happen with worlds such a Second Life. In my warped imagination - I see the metaverse as solving much of these licensing problems. Because Second Life can integrate other media - The Sundance Channel can have screenings there, for example. I'm well aware that broadcasting laws are so incredibly complex that I won't be able to see what I want to see anytime soon. But I've always felt that having a metaverse gives these problems a type of physicality and identity so you can see avatars as citizens - who will eventually pay taxes and licensing fees (reasonably, of course). I've always thought that building a metaverse would solve a lot of these complex legal issues - letting licensing go beyond borders by creating a own virtually bordered world - but the more I read about media and digital law the more confused I get and I feel incredibly naive for thinking such things, so I think I'll just save those thoughts for another time when I'm not as vulnerable and tired.

Anyways, I've just finished watching Good Copy Bad Copy (strongly recommended by Cory Doctorow)which focuses a lot on why media archives should be available for the public. Great viewing. With lovely understandable experts such as Yochai Benkler and Lawrence Lessig - who just make everything seem so simple and obvious. They've also got Paul Gerhardt talking about the BBC's Creative Archives - which seems so promising!

Have a look!