Play&Game

Another GAME JAM in Belgium!
For all of you artists and programmers who missed the Global Game Jam
in Antwerp end of January, we’ve got great news!!

C-MINE the new site in Genk with ambitions to promote the creative
industry is offering their under-construction location in Genk for the
next Belgian Jam!

When? Very soon!

*******6-7-8 th of MAY 2011*******

The Game Jam starts at 17h00 on Friday and end on Sunday at 17h00.
This time we’ve even got some real prizes to win!

Win a UNITY3D iphone or android indy license!
Interested? More info on: http://www.gamejam.be

CALL FOR SPEAKERS
Are you a game industry expert or do you think you have something
interesting to say to the Belgian gaming community?
You might be the person we are looking for to motivate our
participants at the start of the event on friday… contact me:
wim@grin.be

CALL FOR PROMOTIONAL PARTNERS:
The following game development companies support Game Jam Belgium:
- GriN Multimedia
- Sakari Games
If you are not on this list and would like to support the Game Jam
project by promoting our events to your fellow developers, network,
please contact me: wim@grin.be

During the GameHUB kick-off event yesterday a glimpse of the different pilot games was revealed … some project members were interviewed by TV Limburg.

Through the years the ‘Inter-disciplinary.net’ meetings have built a reputation of being a somewhat exotic breed among the numerous conferences in the field of media and culture studies. Paper submissions and practical questions are received very warmly (mailings usually start with a phrase like “Hi folks, I hope this mail finds you in good spirits”) and the interdisciplinary team has adopted a no-nonsense approach that values oppenness and debate, clarity and commitment. While the rules of the conference are strict (no powerpoint presentations! presence and participation in all sessions required! Oxford Style references are a must!) the atmosphere is very personal and informal, even cosy some might say. Quite different from what the academic researcher has grown accustomed to, but a very good recipe for a fruitful exchange of ideas.

The 2010 Interdisciplinary Conference on Videogame Cultures took place in Oxford, a scenery that suited the philosophy of the Interdisciplinary network very well: a city that breathes the academic tradition, calm and easygoing and above all very British. The conference included an international selection of researchers with backgrounds in -no surprise- a lot of different disciplines. In a group of 30 researchers approximately 25 papers were presented and debated in a span of 3 days. No need to say that this accounted for a very intensive program.

Most presentations on the first day focused on game theory and adopted a cultural approach. As my research interests have recently been drawn away from that domain, it was a good opportunity to catch up with new trends and new points of debate. I recall interesting discussions on the constructs of virtual embodiment -is it the same as ‘real’ embodiment, should it be considered completely virtual, or is it something in the middle?- and on the usefulness of constructs derived from game design or tabletop gaming. Many discussions evolved around the question ‘what is a game (or a good game)?’ and on the best practices to assess the social characteristics of digital gaming. Randall Nichols closed the day with a thorough analysis of the power relationships involved in the production of digital games. A different note to end the day, providing a lot of food for thought!

The second day had a lot of ‘work’ in store for me. My presentation was scheduled in the first session, along with those of colleagues Marlin Bates and Tim Christopher. We each took a different approach to answer a similar question dealing with the rhetorics of game play. In my opinion our insights complemented one another very well – proof of this was the collective discussion afterwards. The comments I received on our analysis of America’s Army opened doors for further research – more specifically regarding the fact that I analysed the responses of Flemish students to the game, and that in order to completement my insights a comparative analysis with a US sample might be useful. A collaborative research effort has already been planned!

The second and third sessions of the day were also of great relevance to me, as these sessions focused on moral and ethical aspects of digital gaming – a subject on which I am currently editing a book (with Karolien Poels). We had already contacted four presenters of that day to contribute to the book, and their lectures painted a very clear picture. Their current research fits perfectly in todays trends towards studying moral involvement and proved very solid. Discussions allowed me to make suggestions for the book chapter they are preparing. Later on, over coffee, we all got along pretty well.

In between Simon Goodson and Sarah Pearson presented the results of a series of experiments they performed on the effects of game play on violence. Their results were striking to say the least: based upon a solid and valid research instrument they didn’t find any connection between game play and post-game aggression – findings that are in contrast with most published research on the subject, and that present a number of challenges for upcoming research in video game psychology. To end the day I chaired a session on digital games and art. Again an approach that is somewhat new to me, but again an approach that provided a lot of good ideas!

During the final day I participated in the session that was centred around two books on serious gaming that have been edited by Rick Van Eck (a first book on cognitive processes, and a second book on interdisciplinary models and tools) and to which I had contributed a chapter (together with Hans Martens). While my presentation did focus on the interdiciplinary approach we took, I also got the chance to debate the main results of our investigation. It was good to see that researchers involved in game design found the model we constructed a useful tool to enhance player motivations during game play. It was also fun to meet in person these colleagues that I had been mailing around with a lot over the past months. During the evening it appeared that communicating IRL (with beers!) has a significant additional value! The final day included a number of close readings of social games, as well as a number of very interesting insights from the game developer point of view. It would have been fun to discuss some of the games they have made afterwards (or play them, why not?), but I had to catch a train to London right after the conference ended…

But that’s a different story!

Finally, a week ago I was informed that the Interdisciplinary press will edit a book that highlights the main insights that were gained during the conference. The paper that I wrote (with Tom Thysen and Karolien Poels) has been selected to be included in the book, which of course is very good news. The book, named ‘Critical Game Studies: Theory, Ideology, Methodology’, will be edited by Ewan Kirkland, Monica Evans and Adam Ruch, and will appear in the spring of 2011.

At the summer school about cross media (Trans-média, cross-média, média global: de l’album singulier aux écrans multiples), organised by the national French comics centre in Angoulême (Cité internationale de la bande dessinée et de l’image) also games popped up in various debates.
Benoît Berthou of university Paris 13 stated that while people are gradually reading less books, they are spending more time before a screen (in France the average is about 12 hours a week). For him cross media respond to a demand from the public. The cost for the development of game is about 5 million euro and involves about 100 people – which is quite different from the production of a book. He referred also to the sales figures of Blizzard Entertainment, the firm that launched World of Warcraft, with its 3,28 billion euro it surpasses the sales figures of the complete French book industry (about 2,8 billion euro). So it won’t be books that will be central in cross media enterprises, but rather games.
Books or comics about those games do only exist, because they help to sell the game even better. For example Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell is in fact a creation of Ubisoft and the The Splinter Cell novels are written under the pseudonym David Michaels by different authors. So books, be it comics or novels, become more of a derived product, also in France a firm as Ankama started with a game, but gradually went cross media and created works in other media about the same universe.
At summer school also Nicolas Devos, the lead script writer at Ankama and responsible for the backgrounds and cohesion of the scripts for the online multiplayer game worlds of Dofus and Wakfu , was one of the invited guest speakers. He explained that part of their game is free accessible but with limited functionalities, for only 5 euro one can have all the functionalities. Nicolas Devos said that some 30 million people play Dofus in 9 languages, some 250.000 play it simultaneously. They started with Dofus and developed later a sequel Wakfu, with a tv-series (on French, German, Polish and Marokkan television) and various other realisations (comics, illustrated books). Devos explained that it was quite difficult to keep such a steadily growing universe coherent and to make sure that all the employees of Ankama know the finesses the fictive universes. On the other hand, Ankama was not afraid to let a Japanese animation studio realize a bonus episode for television. The result did not look like the Ankama universe, but the French considered it as a way of renewing their approach. At the start, in 2001, they were already inspired by Japanese models. Today Ankama employs some 450 people.

Under the LSM program (Limburg Sterk Merk: Limburg strong brand), the MAD-faculty in Hasselt and Genk (Belgium) obtained substantial fundings in order to stimulate the research at PHL and MDA through doctoral fellowships, starting next academic year 2010-11. In total it concerns 7 full-time PhD-fellowships for four years in arts & design research.

The proposed project and research question of the applicant will have to match the theme of one of the MAD-faculty research groups, among them Play&Game (see our mission statement under ‘About’). In addition, there has to be a potential for upgrading the Limburg region. There are several substantive criteria that the application must meet. The detailed call is attached in the documents below (in dutch).

Interested? Contact the Play&Game research group coordinators Dirk Kenis (PHL)
or Veerle Van der Sluys (MDA).

Documents:

Oproep doctoraatsbeurzen
informatiedossier doctoraatsbeurzen LSM-MAD
sjabloon aanvraagdossier doctoraatsbeurzen LSM-MAD op project
sjabloon aanvraagdossier doctoraatsbeurzen LSM-MAD op naam