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Cultural Studies Association 2011 Presentation

On Friday I will be delivering part of my dissertation chapter on whiteness and lan parties. Unfortunately I won’t be able to really take in the conference because I have to be back in town for more research at a LAN party starting Saturday.

I’m delivering another portion of the chapter next month at another conference. I’ll post those slides then but until then here’s the slides I’m going to use at the cultural studies conference:

Bulletstorm Blown Over

I’ve been a bit busy with grading and writing and job applying so I haven’t gotten around to writing about the whole Bulletstorm thing.

For those out of the loop, the while “deal” started when John Brandon wrote a story with the pithy title, “Is Bulletstorm the Worst Video Game in the World?” It isn’t of course the quality of the game that is at question but rather the morality of the game. Perhaps unsurprisingly the answer to the titular question was apparently, “yes.”

Rock, Paper, Shotgun covered the entire situation much more thoroughly than I ever could. They contacted the sources quoted by Brandon and found that nearly all of them had been quoted out of context.

While all of the sources quoted by Brandon responded to Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s requests for comments and interviews, there was one person who was curiously silent: John Brandon himself. For someone who has many articles that have been given questions for titles, he doesn’t seem to be eager to actually answer any questions himself. For a while he even protected his twitter account so that you couldn’t read it if you weren’t his friend.

I find John Brandon’s lack of comment on the issue to be really disappointing because I really would like to hear his side of the story. Why were the comments of so many of the people quoted in the article so twisted and taken out of context? Was it his doing or the editors? Why did he write the article in the first place? Why is he resistant to talking about the Bulletstorm column?

While he probably won’t ever answer any of those questions, he has unprotected his twitter account and looking back at the tweets he made immediately after the column came out but apparently before he protected his account make for interesting reading.

It looks like it begins on February 4 with his soliciting for people to comment on videogame violence:

Once the article comes out and people start twittering negative things about it, Brandon begins to have a few interactions with them:

So when called out for seemingly shoddy journalism he falls back on the old, “gamers live in their parent’s basement” line. That may be “journalism” but it certainly isn’t good journalism…

First LAN party and first LAN game?

I’m working on the intro to my dissertation on LAN parties and I realized that it might be good to talk a bit about the origins of LAN parties. So I’m wondering when the term “LAN party” first came into use. Can anyone remember hearing or using the actual term “lan party” pre-Doom?

I’m also interested in tracking down early PC lan games. I’ve tracked it back as far as games like 1990-91’s Spectre which sold a special “lan pack” but I’m wondering about games before that. I’m looking for games that functioned like traditional lan parties do where people use their own computer in the same room. I’m interested in games on personal computers and not earlier games that ran on mainframes so I don’t think things like Spacewar or even early MUDs are really what I’m looking for. I’m also not interested in games where two people would play side-by-side on the same computer.

If anyone can help me find the origin of the term “lan party” or early pc lan games I would greatly appreciate it!

The Third Fallout of the Witcher

Thanks to the Steam holiday sale I’ve just finished playing Fallout 3 and The Witcher. I’ve been thinking about them and I find the depictions of sexuality in them to be interesting.

As anyone who has played The Witcher knows, The Witcher is overtly sexual and features Sex Cards that are given out when the player has sex with someone. Of course the player, who plays as the male Geralt, can only have sex with a woman. Moreover, the sex cards have no real impact on game play. They are just trophies or notches on the belt of the player.

On the other hand, Fallout 3 takes the opposite approach and allows you to pick your sex but doesn’t really have any sexuality at all (at least that I encountered as I played it). You can’t have sex with anyone. One could argue that sexuality wouldn’t really fit in with the kitschy 50s-influenced theme of the Fallout series but there is also the fact that the SPECIAL system and the gameplay includes other realistic elements such as having to sleep and drinking alcohol so why not include sex?

As a thought exercise it is interesting to think how each game might change with the addition of a more open and non-heteronormative sexuality in the games. In Fallout 3 you can use your charisma to try to influence people but what if you could also try to bed them?

In The Witcher, there are several female characters that you not only have sex with but also have quest-based interactions. So when you encounter a woman you can try to bed her and you can also interact with her to further the game. With men you can only interact with them to further quests. Imagine how different your interactions with the men would be if you were trying to have sex with them as well? It would be a very different game.

Another aspect of these sex cards is that they are drawings of naked women. I’ve written before about how I don’t really get the point of looking at drawings of naked women and I still don’t. (I mean besides Betty Rubble, of course…) They censored these in the initial North American release but the “enhanced edition” is uncensored. I wonder if they would have made these things with naked male characters?

Apparently there won’t be any sex cards in The Witcher 2 Maybe the eventual Fallout 4 can take a little of The Witcher‘s sex and The Witcher can take some of Fallout’s flexibility.

New Year’s Resolutions 2011

I usually don’t bother making New Year’s resolutions but this year I’m making a couple.

The most important one is to finish my dissertation. I think that one’s pretty doable since I’m nearly finished with the first draft of my last chapter (I should finish it this week). I need to write the intro and conclusion too but I’m pretty sure I should be able to defend my dissertation in the fall.

The second one is related to the first: get a job. I’m sick of being a poor college student!

The third resolution is to get a couple real articles published. This will, of course, help me to get the second resolution accomplished.

The final resolutions are to learn some web programming and video editing. I’ve got the basics of both. I’ve edited some home movies, messed around with html, and I took an intro to programming course a couple years ago but I’m not well enough versed in either of those. In the New Media academic world a lot of the openings also want people to be able to teach either programming or video production and I’m not really qualified to do either.

The Supreme Court Video Game Case

On November 2nd the Supreme Court of the USA will begin hearing Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association. This is the case regarding California’s law regulating the sale of “violent” videogames to minors. There’s a lot of talk going on online about this case and whether or not such a law is needed or is constitutional. I don’t think it is needed nor do I think it is constitutional. In reading several stories and comments about the case I’ve also seen a lot of incorrect and misguided statements and so I thought it might be a good idea to write up a post clarifying the case and explaining why it is important.
First off, what does the law actually say? The full text of the law can be found in a pdf. The summary of the law states:

Existing law regulates the sale of certain merchandise, such as political items and sports memorabilia.
This bill would require violent video games to be labeled as specified and would prohibit the sale or rental of those violent video games, as defined, to minors. The bill would provide that a person who violates the act shall be liable in an amount of up to $1,000 for each violation.

The law goes on to state:

(d)  (1)  “Violent video game” means a video game in which of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being, if those acts are depicted in the game in a manner that does either of the following:
(A)  Comes within all of the following
(i)  A reasonable person, considering the game as a whole, would find appeals to a deviant or morbid interest of minors.
(ii)  It is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the community as to what is suitable for minors.
(iii)  It causes the game, as a whole, to lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.
(B)  Enables the player to virtually inflict serious injury upon images human beings or characters with substantially human characteristics in a manner which is especially heinous, cruel, or depraved in that it involves torture or serious physical abuse to the victim.
(2)  For purposes of this subdivision, the following definitions apply:
(A)  “Cruel” means that the player intends to virtually inflict a high degree of pain by torture or serious physical abuse of the victim in addition to killing the victim.
(B)  “Depraved” means that the player relishes the virtual killing shows indifference to the suffering of the victim, as evidenced by torture or serious physical abuse of the victim.
(C)  “Heinous” means shockingly atrocious. For the killing depicted a video game to be heinous, it must involve additional acts of torture or serious physical abuse of the victim as set apart from other killings.
(D)  “Serious physical abuse” means a significant or amount of injury or damage to the victim’s body which involves a substantial risk of death, unconsciousness, extreme physical pain, substantial disfigurement, or substantial impairment of the function of a
bodily member, organ, or mental faculty. Serious physical abuse, unlike torture, does not require that the victim be conscious of the abuse at the time it is inflicted. However, the player must specifically intend the abuse apart from the killing.
(E)  “Torture” includes mental as well as physical abuse of the In either case, the virtual victim must be conscious of the abuse at the time it is inflicted; and the player must specifically intend to virtually inflict severe mental or physical pain or suffering upon the victim, apart from killing the victim.
(3)  Pertinent factors in determining whether a killing depicted in a video game is especially heinous, cruel, or depraved include infliction of gratuitous violence upon the victim beyond that necessary to commit the killing, needless mutilation of the victim’s body, and helplessness of the victim.

So what’s the problem? Do I think that kids should play M for Mature rated games? No. The problem is the First Amendment. …And that’s where a lot of people commenting online make mistakes.

First, every single time I’ve seen a post online about videogame violence laws there has been at least one post amounting to something like, “What’s the big deal? This would make videogames just like movies.” This is probably the biggest misconception. In the USA no medium has its ratings regulated by law. The website filmratings.com, a site ran by the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) who actually give out the ratings, clearly states that film ratings in the USA are voluntary. The site does a good job of covering the history of ratings in the USA so if you aren’t familiar with the Hays Code and the creation of the ratings it is a worthwhile read.  The website also has a frequently asked questions section that contains the following question and answers:

Do all movies have to be rated?
No. Submitting a film for a rating is a voluntary decision made by filmmakers. However, each member of the Motion Picture Association of America has agreed to have all its theatrically released films rated, and the overwhelming majority of filmmakers have their film rated.

Is the rating system a law? If no, who enforces it?
No. The movie rating system is a voluntary system sponsored by the Motion Picture Association of America and the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO). The members of NATO enforce the system by asking for identification and refusing admission to R-rated movies by unaccompanied children or to NC-17 movies by children whether or not accompanied.  Retailers and rental stores also enforce the ratings for movies released on video. Some parents inquire about whether it is lawful for other parents to bring their very young children to R-rated films. The R rating contains the strict and explicit caution that “generally, it is not appropriate for parents to bring their young children with them to R-rated movies.”

Now, just because film ratings are voluntary in theory doesn’t mean that they aren’t more or less mandatory in practice. This is because, as their own FAQ states, “each member of the Motion Picture Association of America has agreed to have all its theatrically released films rated.” This means all the movie studios rate their films for theatrical release and if a film isn’t rated (or even if it is rated NC-17) then theaters basically won’t show it. However, just because a film basically has to be rated to be shown in theaters doesn’t mean that they don’t sell unrated films on dvd because the practice of releasing “unrated editions” of movies is very common.

Similarly the “Parental Advisory Explicit Content” stickers on some music was created by the RIAA and is also voluntary.

USA Broadcast television’s ratings were suggested by the government but according to the government:

In Section 551 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 Congress gave the broadcasting industry the first opportunity to establish voluntary ratings. The industry established a system for rating programming that contains sexual, violent or other material parents may deem inappropriate and committed to voluntarily broadcast signals containing these ratings.

Broadcast television and radio stations can and have been fined for inappropriate content but that is only broadcast and not cable or satellite. The government can regulate broadcast content because they use the airwaves which theoretically belong to the public. The only reasons cable channels censor programming is because they want to and because they don’t want advertisers to pull ads (and ad money) from their shows and cable and satellite companies to stop carrying their programming (or make it so that customers would have to specially subscribe to the channel or something which would cost the channel viewers).

Some people have claimed that because this law only applies to minors that it isn’t a First Amendment issue and we shouldn’t worry about it.  Now I’m no law talking guy and I’m guessing that most of the people writing these comments aren’t either so it doesn’t really matter if we think it is a First Amendment matter or not. What matters is what the judges think and judges both in deciding this particular law and over the years in deciding several other laws in several places including Illinois (pdfs of verdict in various appeals),   Louisiana, Oklahoma, Indianapolis, and St. Louis have all been ruled unconstitutional.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals verdict on the California case begins:

We hold that the Act, as a presumptively invalid content-based restriction on speech, is subject to strict scrutiny and not the “variable obscenity” standard from Ginsberg v. New York. Applying strict scrutiny, we hold that the Act violates rights protected by the First Amendment because the State has not demonstrated a compelling interest, has not tailored the restriction to its alleged compelling interest, and there exist less-restrictive means that would further the State’s expressed interests. Additionally, we hold that the Act’s labeling requirement is unconstitutionally compelled speech under the First Amendment because it does not require the disclosure of purely factual information;  but compels the carrying of the State’s controversial opinion.

From the verdict declaring the Oklahoma law unconstitutional:

Having viewed the portions of three games submitted by Defendants, the Court is inclined to agree. Whether the games are “suitable,” however, is not the applicable standard for the propriety of the government placing a content-based restriction on dissemination of protected speech, even dissemination to minors.

Because the Act applies only to video games and software containing “inappropriate violence,” its provisions constitute a content-based regulation on protected expression. See IDSA, 329 F.3d at 958; Blagojevich, 404 F. Supp. 2d at 1071. Hence, the attempted regulation is presumptively invalid and subject to the strictest scrutiny under the First Amendment. R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul. Under this  analysis, the Act will be upheld only if Defendants can show that the regulation is necessary to serve a compelling state interest. Strict scrutiny also requires that the Act be narrowly tailored to achieve that interest. Id. The fact that Defendants are attempting to regulate the flow of information to minors, rather than to adults, does not render the values protected by the First Amendment any less applicable. Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville. To the best of the Court’s knowledge, the Supreme Court has not “suggest[ed] that the government’s role in helping parents to be the guardians of their children’s well-being is an unbridled license to governments to regulate what minors read and view.” IDSA, 329 F.3d at 959-60; see also Blagojevich, 404 F. Supp. 2d at 1076.

[….]Defendants submit that the standard of Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629 (1968), should apply and allow the government to regulate objectionable depictions in the interest of helping parents with “protecting minors.” (See Defs.’ Resp. at 6, 10.) The Supreme Court in Ginsberg permitted enhanced regulation of distribution of sexually explicit material that is obscene as to minors but not obscene as to adults. Ginsberg, 390 U.S. at 636-40. The Ginsberg decision, however, concerned only sexually explicit or “obscene” material, which is unprotected by the First Amendment, rather than the protected expression at issue in this case. See Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15, 23 (1973). The Supreme Court has held that, when used in the context of the First Amendment, the word “obscenity” refers only to works that deal with sex. Maleng, 325 F. Supp. 2d at 1185 (citing Miller, 413 U.S. at 24 (“[W]e now confine the permissible scope of [regulation of obscene material] to works which depict or describe sexual conduct.”)). It is immaterial that the subject matter of the video games could be characterized as “disgusting or degrading.” (Defs.’ Resp. at 8). No court has expanded the definition of obscenity to include portrayals of violence, “inappropriate” or otherwise; each is a “distinct categor[y] of objectionable depiction.” Kendrick, 244 F.3d at 574; Maleng, 325 F. Supp. 2d at 1185. In contrast to Ginsberg, the Act in the instant case is attempting to regulate protected expression. Therefore, Defendants may not rely on Ginsberg as authorizing the enhanced restrictions of the Act on dissemination to minors.

Both of these cases as well as some of the others listed above focus around interpretations of obscenity and a case known as Ginsberg v. New York.   This brings up another common comment from people who do not see a problem with laws regulating the sales of videogames to minors. People will often write or say, “We don’t let kids buy alcohol, tobacco, guns, or pornography, so what’s wrong with not letting kids buy violent videogames?” The problem with this is, again, rooted in the First Amendment.

Alcohol and tobacco are drugs (or in the case of tobacco, a plant that contains a drug) and are not free speech. They are drugs that have clearly demonstrable negative effects on health. Even at that the tobacco companies fought strenuously against regulations of tobacco sales and advertising.

Guns are a Second Amendment issue and not a First Amendment issue. As little as I know about the First Amendment I know even less about the Second, so I won’t really discuss it here.

That leaves us with pornography. This is the category that violent videogames are most often compared to and with the advent of the phrase “torture porn” and similar phrases, the comparison is more muddled. Before getting to the First Amendment issues, let me point out that pornography is a genre and not a medium. Videogames are a medium. Pornographic videogames would already be subject to the same laws that regulate other forms of pornography. OK, on to the First Amendment…

As I said earlier, I’m no lawyer so all this comes from stuff I’ve read and searched for online. When you try to search for laws regulating children’s access to pornography you mainly come across articles about the legality of child porn which is not really the issue here (and of course searching for ‘children pornography -“child pornography”‘ can also get rid of articles that are relevant but also mention that phrase).

In searching, however, I’ve found that there’s not really any legal definition of “pornography.” Instead, what the federal government does define is “obscenity.” The problem with defining pornography and deciding what is and is not “pornographic” is that different people have different definitions. Are images of naked adults pornographic? What if they are in anatomy books or in art museums? What about depictions of intercourse? What if they are in sex education classes? In some societies a woman’s exposed ankle is pornographic. The Victorians were said to cover up tables so table legs wouldn’t be exposed.

Obscenity isn’t much easier to define but there is at least the Miller Test. Developed as a result of 1973’s Miller vs. California the test has three parts:

  • Whether “the average person, applying contemporary community standards”, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest,
  • Whether the work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable state law,
  • Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

With phrases like “the average person,” “community standards,” and “patently offensive,” you can see that the Miller Test is not clear cut. There were numerous cases before 1973 over obscenity and there have been numerous cases since. You will also notice that the California law is modeled after this test as have been many of the other laws that have been ruled unconstitutional.

The case which established that something not obscene for adults may be found harmful for children and regulated is the previously mentioned 1968 case Ginsberg vs. New York. In the article, “On Protecting Children from Speech.” (Chicago-Kent Law Review, Vol. 79, No. 3 (2004), pp. 3-53), Amitai Etzioni does a good job of covering the history of regulating children’s access to pornography. He writes that Ginsberb vs. New York established, “that children should not be allowed the same access to certain types of materials as adults, and that the state is entitled to pass laws aiding parents in carrying out their duties” (6). Etzioni goes on to explain that subsequent cases such as 1978’s FCC v. Pacifica Foundation (which was about broadcasting George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words”) have reaffirmed this position.

Despite these clear rulings, as with defining obscenity, the problem still remains in determining what is and isn’t “unacceptable” and “harmful to minors.” Etzioni tells us that several laws designed to protect minors from “harmful material” have been found unconstitutional including federal laws such as the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (“CDA”) and the Child Online Protection Act of 1998 (“COPA”).

The Supreme Court ruled that the CDA’s prohibitions on “indecent transmission” and “patently offensive display” violated freedom of speech as protected by the First Amendment. Though it affirmed the compelling interest of the government in “protecting minors from potentially harmful materials” on the Internet, the Court found that “the CDA places an unacceptably heavy burden on protected speech, and that the defenses do not constitute the sort of `narrow tailoring’ that will save an otherwise patently invalid unconstitutional provision.” The Court ruled that the scope of the legislation was too broad, attempting to shield those under the age of eighteen from certain content at too great an expense to adults’ access to protected speech. (Etzioni 7-8).

Similarly COPA was found unconstitutional when the court found that “COPA [was] neither narrowly tailored nor the least restrictive means available to achieve the government’s goal of protecting children from harmful online materials, and also that it impermissibly encroache[d] on speech that is constitutionally protected for adults” (Etzioni 8). Etzioni goes on to examine five other cases where laws attempting to protect children from pornography were found to be too broad and ruled unconstitutional. (It should be noted that Etzioni’s ultimate point is that there is more evidence for regulating violence than there is pornography — something I strongly disagree with. Despite this I still find his article worth reading.)

Thus, while we tend to believe that laws protecting children from pornography are well established, the truth is that they are not. Moreover, the same argument that these laws are unconstitutional because they are two broad and would have a chilling effect on free speech is also the same argument that judges have used to rule laws regulating videogame sales unconstitutional.  It seems that if pornography laws which have a long history of legislation and court rulings are still highly contentious then videogame laws which have a much shorter legislative history would be at least as contentious.

To (finally) finish, I hope that I’ve clarified some aspects of videogame laws and done a decent job of explaining why these laws have been found unconstitutional. This case is important not only because it is the first time that the Supreme Court has ruled over whether or not videogames are even deserving of protection under the First Amendment (at least one ruling that was subsequently overturned stated that videogames were NOT speech) but also because it will be important in both subsequent legislation involving videogames and regulating content for children. If the Supreme Court rules California’s laws constitutional, there will be a flood of similar laws and the videogame industry may end up deciding that M-rated games just aren’t worth making thus limiting what game creators are able to make.

I don’t know what the Supreme Court will decide. With recent rulings like the Citizens United case and the case regarding videos depicting animal cruelty the court has taken a pretty strong pro-First Amendment stance but that’s no guarantee that they will do the same in this case. If anyone has any better insights into the legalities in this case I’d love to learn about it.

Scott Pilgrim is for Hipsters

Scott Pilgrim is a tough movie for me to review. I’m not sure if I liked it. I did like it better than the comic. I read the first issue and flipped through the second. There were some good things. I chuckled a couple times. However, there was a lot I didn’t like — a lot of things that were also in the film. The number one thing I hated was the art. I’ve been a comic book fan since before I could read and while art is subjective I find little redeeming about this art. There were times I couldn’t even tell the characters apart. But I’m writing about the movie not the comic…

I’ve seen Scott Pilgrim compared to films like Napoleon Dynamite (a film that I turned off after about 20 minutes), and Juno (a film I’ve avoided seeing because the clips I’ve seen make me want to run away). So basically movies for hipsters. Scott Pilgrim is pretty much a movie for hipsters too. Now I don’t mean that if you like the film you are a hipster. I may be judgmental but I’m not that judgmental.

Now of course there is the question of “what is a hipster?” Different people may mean different things but when I think of hipsters I think of style over substance. I think of superficial appropriation of things without any depth of knowledge about them. And fixed gear bikes. What is the deal with those?

And Scott Pilgrim is about style and not substance. Sure the whole message is about Scott confronting his past blaa blaa blaa. However, saying that in the last ten minutes doesn’t really make the rest of the superficial stuff ok. I liked the style of the fights. Those were fun. Those were in my opinion a good use of style. What wasn’t were the videogame references. Those were the most superficial thing in the film.

So many people have said and written that this is a film for gamers. But they are wrong. There is no depth to the videogame references. They are all references made by a someone who seems to have had a NES as a kid and hasn’t had any contact with gaming outside of Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero since then. The most obscure reference was to Clash at Demonhead. There are tons of references to Zelda and Final Fantasy but they aren’t that subtle or obscure that they would be known to gamers.

This does make me wonder if this is just my own bias or if this is a legitimate criticism. I’m not really that into Zelda and I don’t like Final Fantasy. To be honest I’m not a console gamer and don’t really like many Japanese games — which make up the majority of the videogame references in Scott Pilgrim. If there had been a first person segment in the film maybe I would have liked it more.

However, I still think that the videogame references are shallow even if they are from games I don’t love. Most of the references in the film consist of taking fonts, sounds, or status bars from games. Beyond “hey that’s a reference to X” there’s no much else to them. It doesn’t really even make any specific references to elements of the game beyond what someone would get from looking at them for five minutes. There’s no chickens that attack you, no Phoenix Down, no warp pipes (although I guess you could argue that the way Ramona gets around is similar to that). Heck, can a player get an All Your Base?

Originally I was probably going to end this post with this. I might have talked about how Ramona has no agency in the film, or how creepy it is that Scott is going out with a high school girl, or how there seems to be some fetishization of Asianness going on (and the fact that the author is partially of Asian ancestry doesn’t dismiss that argument). However, I recently ran across a post on NPR about Scott Pilgrim that included some links to reviewers hating the film because of its videogame references.

I think that the fact that one of the quoted reviewers felt the need to start his review with “First of all, I’m not a video gamer. I have discovered more appealing ways to not have a life” or with a definition of fan service (a professional writer thinks it is ok to do that? I tell my students they will fail if they start by defining a word) and by writing, “Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World is Fan Service: The Movie, an insular, punishingly alienating experience preaching only to the faithful, devoted hearts of arrested 12-year-old boys. It’s singularly fixated on video games and shallow visions of women as one-dimensional objects to be either obtained or discarded and offers no possible point of entry to anybody over the age of 30.” shows just how large a chasm there is between videogame culture and those who don’t know anything at all about games (after all the vast majority of videogame references in the films are from games made in the 80s which means that pretty much the only people who would have a point of entry to it are people near the age of 30).

In these reviews one can see not only an ignorance of videogames but an actual distain for them. It may not hurt that the writer who claimed to have “more appealing ways to not have a life” (apparently trolling on the internet is more appealing to him. Check his responses in that reviews comments from some examples) was born in 1956 but it does show an astounding amount of willful ignorance and outright contempt for videogames. No wonder there are always news stories about “murder simulators” and the Supreme Court is going to hear a case on videogame laws .

I think this explains why Scott Pilgrim didn’t do well at the box office. If it is too hipster to appeal to the hardcore gamers and some non-gamers dismiss anything gaming related then all that leaves are the hipsters. …And they are probably too cool to actually go see any movie that anyone’s heard of any way.

Call for Papers and a Job Opening

Over at Frans Mäyrä’s blog Frans has posted a couple calls for papers:

Double CFP: Continuum Approaches to Digital Game Studies Book Series (Edited Collection on Digital Role-playing Games and Edited Collection on First Person Shooters)

These two collections will be the first two titles in a larger series of edited volumes, Approaches to Digital Game Studies, published by Continuum. Each book in the series will be organized around a thematic or functional genre of game. Although digital game genres and the criteria for defining such genres are contested and dynamic categories, exploring the promises and pitfalls of genre is precisely one of the goals the series hopes to accomplish. Additionally, the series will bring the insights of a variety of scholarly disciplines to bear on the analysis of digital games in order to better understand the nature of this medium, its role in reshaping civic life and its impact on the production, circulation and contestation of global and local cultures.

Potential chapter contributions will be vetted by the series Review Board and invited manuscripts will be reviewed by the series Editors and approved by the Review Board.

Series Review Board:

* Mia Conslavo, University of Ohio
* James Paul Gee, Arizona State University
* Helen Kennedy, University of the West of England*
* Frans Mayra, University of Tampere
* Toby Miller, University of California, Riverside*
* Torril Elvira Mortensen, University of Utrech*
* Lisa Nakamura, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
* Gareth Schott, University of Waikato
* Mark JP Wolf, Concordia University Wisconsin
(* indicates commitment still subject to final contract)

Series Editors:

* Gerald Voorhees, High Point University
* Joshua Call, Grand View University
* Katie Whitlock, California State University, Chico

Edited Collection on Digital Role-playing Games: “Dungeons, Dragons and Digital Denizens: Digital Role-playing Games”

One of the most popular and culturally significant game genres, digital role-playing games (RPGs) generate a rich tapestry of technologies, players, communities, cultures and commercial forces. This edited collection, provisionally titled, “Dungeons, Dragons and Digital Denizens: Digital Role-playing Games,” is designed for a broad academic audience and will feature essays that either examine specific games or consider the genre as a whole.

We invite scholars and critics to contribute to this edited collection of essays exploring the theory and criticism of digital RPGs. The collection will publish essays on digital RPGs that engage the theory and criticism of console, computer and/or massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). However, contributions not focused on MMORPGs are especially encouraged.

Contributions from all academic disciplines and geographic regions are invited. The collection and series aim to advance theory and criticism by bringing different voices and perspectives into conversation. However, critical inquiry is preferred.

All contributions must be the original work of the author and cannot be published elsewhere, unless author retains copyrights. For co-authored essays, all authors must agree to submission of work.

For consideration, please send an abstract to gamestudies.books@gmail.com by September 15, 2011. Abstracts should be 500 words and must outline a theoretically grounded approach to a specific game or set of games. Completed essays must be 7000 words (including notes and references) and Continuum uses Chicago Manual of Style for references. Reprints will be considered on a case by case basis.

Provisional Timeline:

* Abstracts will be accepted until September 15, 2010
* Abstracts will be evaluated and requests for manuscripts will be issued by October 15, 2010
* Completed manuscript will be required by January 15, 2010
* Revisions must be completed by March 1, 2011

Edited Collection on First Person Shooters: “Guns, Grenades and Grunts: First Person Shooter Games”

Known for their graphical extravagance and social recognition, first-person shooters have long held a highly visible position among digital games. This edited collection, provisionally titled, “Guns, Grenades, and Grunts: First-Person Shooter Games” is designed for a broad academic audience and will feature essays that either examine specific games or consider the genre as a whole.

We invite scholars and critics to contribute to this edited collection of essays exploring the theory and criticism of FPS games. The collection will publish essays on FPS games that engage the theory and criticism of console, computer and hand-held FPS games.

Contributions from all academic disciplines and geographic regions are invited. The collection and series aim to advance theory and criticism by bringing different voices and perspectives into conversation. However, critical inquiry is preferred.

All contributions must be the original work of the author and cannot be published elsewhere, unless author retains copyrights. For co-authored essays, all authors must agree to submission of work.

For consideration, please send an abstract to gamestudies.books@gmail.com by November 15, 2011. Abstracts should be 500 words and must outline a theoretically grounded approach to a specific game or set of games. Completed essays must be 7000 words (including notes and references) and Continuum uses Chicago Manual of Style for references. Reprints will be considered on a case by case basis.

Provisional Timeline:

* Abstracts will be accepted until November 15, 2010
* Abstracts will be evaluated and requests for manuscripts will be issued by January 1, 2011
* Completed manuscript will be required by April 1, 2011
* Revisions must be completed by July 15, 2011

Queries and questions may also be sent to gamestudies.books@gmail.com.

Gerald Voorhees, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Games and Interactive Media
Nido R. Qubein School of Communication
Drawer 33
High Point University
High Point, NC 27262-3598
Tel: 336.841.9174
Office: Qubein 356
http://www.communication.highpoint.edu
Co-Chair, Game Studies Area
Popular Culture Association National Conference

http://www.pcaaca.org/

Also potentially of interest is a job posting for my Department of Communication and Culture at Indiana University:

Indiana University
Department of Communication and Culture
Digital and Social Media

The Department of Communication and Culture at Indiana University invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Digital and Social Media to begin Fall 2011.

We seek a humanities-trained Ph.D. whose primary area of research expertise and training is in digital media studies focused specifically on the social dimensions and potentials of digital media. This applicant will be expected to interact productively with colleagues in one or more of the department?s three areas: Rhetoric and Public Culture; Film and Media Studies; and Performance and Ethnographic Studies. The applicant must have a well-developed research program and teaching experience in digital and social media. She or he will be responsible for developing an introductory lecture course and advanced undergraduate courses, as well as for actively shaping and teaching graduate offerings in this field of study.

We particularly encourage applicants whose research involves specialization in areas such as:

Social networking

New technologies of political advocacy

Ethnographies of new media

Convergence and participatory cultures

Digital video

Games and gaming

Candidates are expected to have a strong research agenda and a commitment to excellence in teaching. Preference will be given to those who have their Ph.D. in hand by the date of appointment. Applicants should send a letter of application, curriculum vitae, writing sample, and three letters of recommendation to: Professor Barbara Klinger, Chair, Digital/Social Media Search, Department of Communication and Culture, 800 E. 3rd Street, Indiana University, Bloomington IN 47405. Review of applications will begin December 1, 2010 and continue until the position is filled.

Indiana University is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer. The university actively encourages applications and nominations of women, minorities, applicants with disabilities, and members of other underrepresented groups.

If anyone is thinking about applying for this job and have any questions about the department or IU, feel free to contact me. My contact info can be found at the About link at the top of the page.

Blog Post About Other Blog’s Blog Posts

I ran across a few interesting blog posts recently and I thought I would share them.

The first is an old post about Goffman and Portal. For a Goffman fan like myself this was a fun article looking at the ways in which Glados’ dialog moves between on-stage and back-stage. It is a bit long but still fun.

I found that post via a post from brainygamer.com where he discusses how he managed to get Portal as a required text for a class at Wabash College. I hope that he posts some updates on this once the semester starts. I’m curious as to how well a videogame was integrated into a class that isn’t about videogames. I’m especially interested to hear how some of the instructors of the course who might not have played a modern videogame before manage with Portal. I suspect their experience will reflect that of a writer for the New Yorker trying to play modern videogames for the first time. He found that “video games—especially the vivid, violent ones—are ridiculously hard to play. They’re humbling. They break you down. They kill you over and over.” I can see some of the faculty in my department having this same reaction and that really having a negative impact on how they teach the game.

Next, in the past I did some research early depictions of videogame players in advertising and early news coverage of videogames so I found this blog post about how back in 1983 OSHA got a game called Hard Hat Mack pulled off the shelves of a store to be particularly interesting.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that I had found most of these stories from the Twitter feed of Game_reader. Finally, I find something useful on twitter!