Games Cultures Week One 03032010

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Digital GamesCultures

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Today’s Lecture

Subject Outline and Course Structure

Games and the Pleasures of New Media

Formal Definitions – What is a Game?

Image by Wonderlan

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Subject Descripti

...investigates the emergence of digital

games cultures through an industrial

analytical approach and from the

perspective of the player. With

critical attention to the examination

of games production and appropriative

play practices,

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Contact Details

Dr Chris Moore [email protected]

consultation via email appointment

for Monday and Thursday

Modes of delivery: 1 hour lecture

and 2 hour computer lab seminar

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Subject Requirements

To complete the subject students must

Submit all Assignments on Time and meet the

minimum attendance requirement for

lab/tutorial AND lectures in this subject.

Attendance to lectures and tutorial

is not optional. Attendance to lectures is

necessary in order to complete the weekly

blogging task.

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Schedule1st

March - Introduction to Digital

Games Cultures

8th

March - The Archaeology of

Digital Games

15th

March - Game Spaces: Place and

Mobility

22nd

March - The Console and the

Living Room

29th

March - PC Games and Gamers

5th

April - MID SESSION RECESS

by goodrob13

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Schedule12

thApril - Appropriation and Play: Mods and Machinima

- Group Game Pitch Presentation during

Lab/Tutorial This week.

19th

April - Violent Media: in ‘Hot Coffee’

26th

April - Censorship and Regulation

3rdMay - Australian Games and Gamers

10th

May - Guest lecture

17th

May - Game Project Presentations (No Lecture)

24th

May - Game Project Presentations (No Lecture)

31st

May - (No Lecture) Short concluding seminar.

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Weekly Blogging Component

Assessed in Week 4, Wed March

24 by 8pm and in Week 10,

April Wednesday 28 by 8pm)

Weighting: Week 4: 10% + Week

10: 20%

Length: Week 4: 300 words,

Week 10: 500 words.

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‘The Pitch’

Group Game

Design Proposal

Due: WednesdayWeek 6, April 15

weighting: 10%

length: 10 minutes

by cazpoo

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Game Design Group

Presentation

due: during lab/tutorials on Wednesday Week

11 (May 19) and Wednesday Week 12 (May

26). weighting: 25%

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Game Proposal Dossier

Due: Week 14 – June 9

Length: 1500 + audio/visual materialWeight: 25%

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Why study games?

58 billion in global revenue „ bigger than

Hollywood?

global games and our cultural lives

understanding interactivity

pervasiveness of games

broader implications of digital media and social

relationships

recession proof industry?

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Kerr Aphra, Kucklich Julian,

Brereton, Pat 2006, 'New media -

new pleasures?' International

Journal of Cultural Studies,

vol. 9, no. 1, pp.63-82.

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Meaningful Content

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Pleasure and Cultural

Consumption

by meddygarnet

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Egenfeldt-Nielsen et al, 2008 Chapter 3,

'What is a game?' Understanding Video

Games The Essential Introduction

(Egenfeldt-Nielsen, Simon, Heide Smith,

Jonas, Pajares Tosca Susana) p22-

44. (Library e-reading)

What is a Game?

Formal Definitions

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What is a Game?

Johan Huzinga (1872-1945) Homo Ludens

(1938)– 

 play as primary formative element of 

human culture

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Roger Caillois (1913-1978)

Defined play as an activity which is

• Free (voluntary)

•

Separate (fixed space and time)• Uncertain (player innovation and initiative)

• Unproductive( nothing is created)

• Governed by rules• Make-believe

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Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980)

“Games are popular art, collective social reactions to the main

drive or action of any culture. Games, like institutions, are

extensions of social man and of the body politic, as technologies

are extensions of the animal organism. Both games and

technologies are counter-irritants or ways of adjusting to the

stress that occur in any social group...Games are dramatic models

of our psychological lives providing release of particular tensions.”

Marshall McLuhan (1964) Understanding Media: The Extensions of 

Man 

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Gregory Bateson (1904 -1980)

British anthropologist, social scientist and

cyberneticist framed play as

communication of meanin ful fictions.

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Thinking and Talking about

games

Williams, Dmitri, Yee, Nick, and Caplan,

Scott 2008, 'Who plays, how much and

why? Debunking the stereotypical

gamer profile', Journal of Computer-

Mediated Communication vol.13 pp.993-1018.

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Blog TopicS

• What is a Game? Compare two formal

definitions.

• Debunk a common gamer/games

stereotype.

• Do males play more than females?

• What gaming ‘pleasures’ do you enjoy?

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Henry Jenkins