Game research, online collaboration

Serious game research has eventually kicked in over the last few years, that’s for sure. But there’s one big problem: Citation. How do you cite a game? Remember the trouble with citing Wikipedia? Well, same here: Permanently-changing environment, many people involved, not necessarily clearnames and so on.

We discussed developing a dictionary of Game Studies, which would be significantly more expansive than Juul’s current and beautiful effort, and we discussed the need for standards and tools for citing games. Citing stages in games is not quite detailed enough, we need to be able to cite any game state, as well as any type of planned and emergent gemaplay, as well as player commentary and player experience. We also need to be able to cite specific game events on a code level. This of course means we need access to source code, which we would like to be able to quote by line number.

I hadn’t known about this weblog of Greg Niemeyer’s. He teaches at Berkeley’s Center for New Media and has a lot of very interesting stuff to say on gaming/cyber culture, arts and online identities. Among other things, he podcasted his recent (excellent!) lecture on  cyberculture which just ended.  (And promised he’ll keep on podcasting there, so check it out.)

And while we’re at it, check out this link, too.

Robert and his team of engineers created a l33t toolkit to support online collaboration, all combined in his gamelab portal .

It’s Greg’s note about a project by the Game Culture & Technology Lab,  a UCI-based lab researching how game metaphors, design principles, and technologies can be utilized for alternative content and context delivery:

The methods include sampling, misuse, hacking, appropriation, reverse engineering, and customization in the interest of open-source innovation and critical intervention.