Showing posts with label Games History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Games History. Show all posts
Oct 26, 2011
Oct 24, 2011
Poster Presentation for Games History
Games History poster presentation, the poster has been made to promote the mock-up computer game, RESISTANCE. The poster design was inspired by the propaganda posters from the Second World War. The poster is also found in the game itself as a recruitment poster for the resistance group in game.
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| Poster Presentation for Game Mock-up called RESISTANCE |
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| Poster in game context |
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| Parisian street in game concept art |
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| Parisian street in game concept art |
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| NPC Concept Art |
Sep 15, 2011
Games History Essay
In my Games History essay I explored the issue of official/ formal communities within MMORPGs versus the emergent organic communities that are becoming more a part of the online virtual community. To read it please click here.
Aug 13, 2011
Aug 9, 2011
Early Thesis Ideas
Practitioner's Statement:
Key issues such as the strength of such communities, the validity of their manufactured existence in a manufactured world and the ramifications of their existence in terms of both game play and the ‘real world.’ An integral aspect of this study of the evolution of the community within MMORPGs is the unavoidable designation of the ‘other’ or those that fall outside the membership of the group. The general parameters of this research will be guided by my own experience within MMORPG as a Guild Master, but will also be widened to include a diverse cross sections of games plus an historical context that may provide insight into the communal nature of gaming.
As an artist and an animator I have always been fascinated by the sense of community amongst artists and also the creation of community within the artworks themselves. It is for this reason that I am interested in investigating the growth of community in the constantly evolving art-driven realm of the MMORPG. I am intrigued specifically by the presence of communities such as in game guilds and organisations that establish a sense of identity that visually designates the individual player as being a part of a particular community.
Key issues such as the strength of such communities, the validity of their manufactured existence in a manufactured world and the ramifications of their existence in terms of both game play and the ‘real world.’ An integral aspect of this study of the evolution of the community within MMORPGs is the unavoidable designation of the ‘other’ or those that fall outside the membership of the group. The general parameters of this research will be guided by my own experience within MMORPG as a Guild Master, but will also be widened to include a diverse cross sections of games plus an historical context that may provide insight into the communal nature of gaming.
Jul 30, 2011
McLuhan- Luke Warm?
The following is a response to reading McLuhan's theory of Hot and Cold media as found within his 1964 work, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man
Reading McLuhan is like a meandering journey through ADHD territory with so many tangents and a complete preoccupation with comparing hot and cold media in countless immeasurable examples. Ideas are started and yet fail to follow through and his complete over simplification and generalisation of some examples to fit within the hot to cold paradigm is troubling, I refer in this point to the reference about the collapse of Indigenous Australian tribal culture based on axe distribution- unless this use of the word axe is a metaphor of some kind then his assessment of the situation seems to have trimmed down this event to fit within the parameters of his argument. He’s definitely a man of his time, noting his reference to ‘backward’ countries as cool and to ‘us’ (by us I’m assuming he is referring to Westernised developed and more specifically capitalist countries given the political climate during which his study was undertaken- the height of the Cold War during the 1960s).
The central point of his study of hot and cold media seems to be that hot media like movies enhance a single sense (high definition) in this case- vision, indicating that to participate in the media is a passive experience wherein the individual does not need to exert much effort in filling in the gaps on screen. In contrast at the other end of McLuhan’s spectrum is the notion of the Cold media such as a comic book which requires a higher level of participation by the reader in determining and extracting meaning from the media.
However, McLuhan’s assessment of media consumption and in turn his classification of a media as hot or cold disregards what the individual brings to the media, the depth of understanding the individual wishes to take from the media and the content of the media itself (which he seems to believe can be separated and discarded in favour of the type of media). In gaming for example a game such as Minecraft could be classified as a cool example (requiring greater participation from the individual) within what I am sure McLuhan would see as a hot medium (ie: Gaming predominantly provides information to a gamer and enhances a single sense, the visual sense). Yet it is possible to also find a Hot media for example an online facebook ‘game’ such as Farmville which is mind numbingly hot requiring very little individual input with only a single sense enhanced, the visual.
With so many medias now performing a duality of functions and enhancing multiple senses, McLuhen’s Hot to Cold scale seems to, although historiographically important to the study of media, be largely irrelevant as a method of measuring a medium such as Games that contain within it such a diverse range of genres and sub genres that determine participation levels and this is without even considering how the individual chooses to approach and participate in each individual game.
Reading McLuhan is like a meandering journey through ADHD territory with so many tangents and a complete preoccupation with comparing hot and cold media in countless immeasurable examples. Ideas are started and yet fail to follow through and his complete over simplification and generalisation of some examples to fit within the hot to cold paradigm is troubling, I refer in this point to the reference about the collapse of Indigenous Australian tribal culture based on axe distribution- unless this use of the word axe is a metaphor of some kind then his assessment of the situation seems to have trimmed down this event to fit within the parameters of his argument. He’s definitely a man of his time, noting his reference to ‘backward’ countries as cool and to ‘us’ (by us I’m assuming he is referring to Westernised developed and more specifically capitalist countries given the political climate during which his study was undertaken- the height of the Cold War during the 1960s).
The central point of his study of hot and cold media seems to be that hot media like movies enhance a single sense (high definition) in this case- vision, indicating that to participate in the media is a passive experience wherein the individual does not need to exert much effort in filling in the gaps on screen. In contrast at the other end of McLuhan’s spectrum is the notion of the Cold media such as a comic book which requires a higher level of participation by the reader in determining and extracting meaning from the media.
However, McLuhan’s assessment of media consumption and in turn his classification of a media as hot or cold disregards what the individual brings to the media, the depth of understanding the individual wishes to take from the media and the content of the media itself (which he seems to believe can be separated and discarded in favour of the type of media). In gaming for example a game such as Minecraft could be classified as a cool example (requiring greater participation from the individual) within what I am sure McLuhan would see as a hot medium (ie: Gaming predominantly provides information to a gamer and enhances a single sense, the visual sense). Yet it is possible to also find a Hot media for example an online facebook ‘game’ such as Farmville which is mind numbingly hot requiring very little individual input with only a single sense enhanced, the visual.
With so many medias now performing a duality of functions and enhancing multiple senses, McLuhen’s Hot to Cold scale seems to, although historiographically important to the study of media, be largely irrelevant as a method of measuring a medium such as Games that contain within it such a diverse range of genres and sub genres that determine participation levels and this is without even considering how the individual chooses to approach and participate in each individual game.
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