Meaning The Tenth Victim, this is an Italian film produced in 1965 in which disagreements are avoided by following those with violent personalities to partake in "The Big Hunt". This is a global form of entertainment in which attracts people looking for to become famous and rich..There are ten rounds for each player in the event (5 for the hunter and 5 for the victor). The survivor of ten rounds become extremely rich and can freely retire from the hunt.
The film strongly follows the story of a hunter and their victim and involves a lot of story about the romance and the mind games between while the rules and justification for the games are revealed.
I really enjoyed the film when i watched it, as I didn't get to watch it with the lecture I had to watch it elsewhere. Somewhat the story brought up current news and media stories of recent times and yet it had similar elements to the story of The Hunger Games.
Thursday 29 March 2012
Critical Games Studies: Remediation and Games
In New Digital media, remediation is argued as a defining characteristic. New Media and Old Media is characterized by a spectrum ranging from Immediacy to Hypermediacy.
Immediacy
Immediacy is the media that aspires to a condition of transparency, aiming to make the viewer forget that they are watching a film of video. The use of photo-realistic images and immersive virtual reality is a great example of the techniques they would use in the industry.
Hypermediacy
These would be artifacts that are aware of and wish to display their own constructed nature, calling attention to their own constructed nature through the means of the internet and video game user interfaces.
Remediation can offer a range of conventions, we can easily find exampled of aesthetic conventions being used and passed between different media's. Photo-realism is a great examlpe of immediacy is not used to preserve to medium of photography.
Remediation usually takes place when time is needed for a new medium to develop unique content, such as games, television programs and many other aspects of media.
Immediacy
Immediacy is the media that aspires to a condition of transparency, aiming to make the viewer forget that they are watching a film of video. The use of photo-realistic images and immersive virtual reality is a great example of the techniques they would use in the industry.
Hypermediacy
These would be artifacts that are aware of and wish to display their own constructed nature, calling attention to their own constructed nature through the means of the internet and video game user interfaces.
Remediation can offer a range of conventions, we can easily find exampled of aesthetic conventions being used and passed between different media's. Photo-realism is a great examlpe of immediacy is not used to preserve to medium of photography.
Remediation usually takes place when time is needed for a new medium to develop unique content, such as games, television programs and many other aspects of media.
Critical Games Studies: Narrative and Games
This lecture was part of Robs tuition.
The narrative of a story has 3 very closely related elements of story telling,
Story
All of the elements which end up being depicted
Plot
The chain of causation (the chain of events that happen in the story)
Narrative
The order in which events are revealed
Events which happen in stories are presented in only two ways.
First Hand
Where the event is seen through the eye of the audience
Second Hand
Where the event is revealed to you by a character in the game
Facade is a game which we were shown, it is a game which heavily relies on narrative and as the user inputs narrative the game will change around it. Using complex AI the user can experience many different endings from being kicked out of the flat you are in to being killed.
The narrative of a story has 3 very closely related elements of story telling,
Story
All of the elements which end up being depicted
Plot
The chain of causation (the chain of events that happen in the story)
Narrative
The order in which events are revealed
Events which happen in stories are presented in only two ways.
First Hand
Where the event is seen through the eye of the audience
Second Hand
Where the event is revealed to you by a character in the game
Facade is a game which we were shown, it is a game which heavily relies on narrative and as the user inputs narrative the game will change around it. Using complex AI the user can experience many different endings from being kicked out of the flat you are in to being killed.
Critical Games Studies: Games Britannia Part 2
Monopolies and Mergers
This is part 2 of this mini-series on Games Britannia presented by Benjamin Woolley.
In part too Benjamin traces the surprising political and social impact the board games had on Britain over the past 200 years. Britain developed the idea of the board game as an instrument of moral instruction and exported it to America. In America it was made to promote the American Dream of free enterprise and economic success.
The documentary then went onto Monopoly, the best selling board game ever made, and how it was invented in America yet Monopoly is based on an English board known as the game for landlords, politics and communist game. After this Cluedo and Scrabble were then looked into as they are very popular games even to this day.
In present day we are in the Information Age and most British games designers have not become video games designers and leaving board games to American designers.
This is the end of this mini-series, I learnt a lot from these episodes and can see how much games have developed since the start of humans themselves.
This is part 2 of this mini-series on Games Britannia presented by Benjamin Woolley.
In part too Benjamin traces the surprising political and social impact the board games had on Britain over the past 200 years. Britain developed the idea of the board game as an instrument of moral instruction and exported it to America. In America it was made to promote the American Dream of free enterprise and economic success.
The documentary then went onto Monopoly, the best selling board game ever made, and how it was invented in America yet Monopoly is based on an English board known as the game for landlords, politics and communist game. After this Cluedo and Scrabble were then looked into as they are very popular games even to this day.
In present day we are in the Information Age and most British games designers have not become video games designers and leaving board games to American designers.
This is the end of this mini-series, I learnt a lot from these episodes and can see how much games have developed since the start of humans themselves.
Critical Games Studies: Games Britannia Part 1
Dicing with Destiny
This is another part to my series on Critical Games Studies, in this lecture we were shown a video call Games Britannia. Games britannia is a three-part series presented by historian Benjamin Woolley about popular games in Britain from the Iron Age to the Information Age.
The first part of the documentary started with an ancient Roman board game found in a Quarry at Colchester, it was named Stunway Game. This ancient game has been seen as evidence that the instinct to play games is a natural feeling and is is a large part in the mind of humanity. Humans need to eat, need to drink, need to socialize and need to play games.
There were more examples of games throughout the program such as Alea Evengelli, Hazard and Faro a game of chance and gambling.
Finally one of the most famous and most widely played game ever, Chess. Chess is a board game based around war. It was created in the 8th Century and is a game of skill with no random elements involved. It is a easy game to learn but incredibly difficult to master and play at a professional level.
That is all from Games Britannia Part 1, I will continue with the next part soon.
This is another part to my series on Critical Games Studies, in this lecture we were shown a video call Games Britannia. Games britannia is a three-part series presented by historian Benjamin Woolley about popular games in Britain from the Iron Age to the Information Age.
The first part of the documentary started with an ancient Roman board game found in a Quarry at Colchester, it was named Stunway Game. This ancient game has been seen as evidence that the instinct to play games is a natural feeling and is is a large part in the mind of humanity. Humans need to eat, need to drink, need to socialize and need to play games.
There were more examples of games throughout the program such as Alea Evengelli, Hazard and Faro a game of chance and gambling.
Finally one of the most famous and most widely played game ever, Chess. Chess is a board game based around war. It was created in the 8th Century and is a game of skill with no random elements involved. It is a easy game to learn but incredibly difficult to master and play at a professional level.
That is all from Games Britannia Part 1, I will continue with the next part soon.
Sunday 25 March 2012
Critical Games Studies: Gender and Games
This lecture was part of Robs tuition.
As part of this lecture Rob gave us text on how gender effects the game design industry. To be a successful games designer we will need to understand our audience which includes gender as the audience is either male or female (in most cases). Knowing your target audience is so important for example if you design a children's educational game but then release it at the target audience of 18-25 year old males then the game is likely to fail. Knowing the audience allows you to design the game around their interests and their ambitions as well as the themes and even advertising.
The first text we received was Segregation in a Male-Dominated industry: Women Working in the Computer Games Industry. This was based on how gender can effect the games design industry and the products from them. We are shown thought that a game which is developed with the audience of equal gender, both male and female, that the game will predominantly played by the male gender.
We also received an info-graphic showing data from 2009 based in the UK. The data show the population who play games, the percentage of people who play on consoles, what platform they use and many more. Some of the graphs show male and female others show age. From this we can see a good audience to target our game at.
For example, if we were to make a console game aimed at over 50 year old the audience is only 16% (both male and female) yet if we aimed the same game at 8-12 year old then the audience is significantly higher at 94% for males and 81% females.
Now I will go more into the readings and info-graphic.
Segregation in a Male-Dominated industry: Women Working in the Computer Games Industry (link)
This text primarily focuses on the segregation of occupations inside the games design industry based around gender and the female attitude toward working in a predominantly male industry and attitude toward the female career barriers, progression through the industry and promotion in the industry. People tend to choose occupations in which their gender is best represented, this is called segregation.
The EOC stated that occupation segregation has a negative effect on individuals, businesses and the economy which seems to be an ever grown problem not only in the UK. They also stated that the government need to address the situation in order to improve productivity, competitiveness and prosperity.
Women that are segregated into specific jobs tend to have less pay, fewer opportunities in their occupation, less job autonomy and less authority within their occupation. The higher salary jobs are believed to be more masculine rather than feminine even where duties are similar.
Segregation in the Games Design Industry
The games design industry is built up of a number of different specialties including development, production, design, level design, audio design, art and testing (Green et.al.,2007). In the 2008 Oxford Economics report figures suggested that the games design industry has over 9000 (yes over 9000) employees. A report by the online games magazine, MCV (2008) suggests that the percentage of women within the games design industry in core creation or development roles is around just 6.9%. More recent figures provided by Skillset (2009) suggest that women represent only 4% of the games design industry's workforce, a decrease from the 2006 report in which suggested 12% of the workforce was female (Skillset, 2006). The figure includes the non-developmental as well as the developmental roles women occupy in the games design industry. Developmental roles with the industry are those roles that are involved in the creative and developmental aspect of game development. These roles create everything within the games from the content, the style of play, the reward systems and ultimately influence who the target audience of the game will be.
UK National Gamers Survey 2009 (link)
This was the survey data we revived, you can check it out yourself on the link above. From the data we can easily see that the younger are groups play more games than the older age groups, but that's expected most people would assume this anyway. We also see that slightly more males play than females, this goes back into the segregation of gender but in the games design audience.
Companies will use this data to aim their game at a wider target audience, on top of other methods too for getting a more specific target audience.
Wrapping up
So from this lecture we have been informed just how important audience is when it comes to designing a game even before you plan a game. Audience is a main part in designing a game as it is in any type of media. I'm going to take his lecture and use it in my own games a lot more from now on, with my individual game being aimed at both genders and our group game based much more upon the male gender we can see how it has already affected my work.
That is all for this part, part 5 coming soon.
As part of this lecture Rob gave us text on how gender effects the game design industry. To be a successful games designer we will need to understand our audience which includes gender as the audience is either male or female (in most cases). Knowing your target audience is so important for example if you design a children's educational game but then release it at the target audience of 18-25 year old males then the game is likely to fail. Knowing the audience allows you to design the game around their interests and their ambitions as well as the themes and even advertising.
The first text we received was Segregation in a Male-Dominated industry: Women Working in the Computer Games Industry. This was based on how gender can effect the games design industry and the products from them. We are shown thought that a game which is developed with the audience of equal gender, both male and female, that the game will predominantly played by the male gender.
We also received an info-graphic showing data from 2009 based in the UK. The data show the population who play games, the percentage of people who play on consoles, what platform they use and many more. Some of the graphs show male and female others show age. From this we can see a good audience to target our game at.
For example, if we were to make a console game aimed at over 50 year old the audience is only 16% (both male and female) yet if we aimed the same game at 8-12 year old then the audience is significantly higher at 94% for males and 81% females.
Now I will go more into the readings and info-graphic.
Segregation in a Male-Dominated industry: Women Working in the Computer Games Industry (link)
This text primarily focuses on the segregation of occupations inside the games design industry based around gender and the female attitude toward working in a predominantly male industry and attitude toward the female career barriers, progression through the industry and promotion in the industry. People tend to choose occupations in which their gender is best represented, this is called segregation.
The EOC stated that occupation segregation has a negative effect on individuals, businesses and the economy which seems to be an ever grown problem not only in the UK. They also stated that the government need to address the situation in order to improve productivity, competitiveness and prosperity.
Women that are segregated into specific jobs tend to have less pay, fewer opportunities in their occupation, less job autonomy and less authority within their occupation. The higher salary jobs are believed to be more masculine rather than feminine even where duties are similar.
Segregation in the Games Design Industry
The games design industry is built up of a number of different specialties including development, production, design, level design, audio design, art and testing (Green et.al.,2007). In the 2008 Oxford Economics report figures suggested that the games design industry has over 9000 (yes over 9000) employees. A report by the online games magazine, MCV (2008) suggests that the percentage of women within the games design industry in core creation or development roles is around just 6.9%. More recent figures provided by Skillset (2009) suggest that women represent only 4% of the games design industry's workforce, a decrease from the 2006 report in which suggested 12% of the workforce was female (Skillset, 2006). The figure includes the non-developmental as well as the developmental roles women occupy in the games design industry. Developmental roles with the industry are those roles that are involved in the creative and developmental aspect of game development. These roles create everything within the games from the content, the style of play, the reward systems and ultimately influence who the target audience of the game will be.
Table Above: The percentage of men and women in each job description within the gaming industry.
UK National Gamers Survey 2009 (link)
This was the survey data we revived, you can check it out yourself on the link above. From the data we can easily see that the younger are groups play more games than the older age groups, but that's expected most people would assume this anyway. We also see that slightly more males play than females, this goes back into the segregation of gender but in the games design audience.
Companies will use this data to aim their game at a wider target audience, on top of other methods too for getting a more specific target audience.
Wrapping up
So from this lecture we have been informed just how important audience is when it comes to designing a game even before you plan a game. Audience is a main part in designing a game as it is in any type of media. I'm going to take his lecture and use it in my own games a lot more from now on, with my individual game being aimed at both genders and our group game based much more upon the male gender we can see how it has already affected my work.
That is all for this part, part 5 coming soon.
Critical Games Studies: Bibliography
This is the third part in the Critical Games Design series. Earlier in the year we were introduced to the Library resources in UCS. The library allows us to access a large selection of texts which will help us in our studies. This is a bibliography.
Adams, E. (2009) Fundamentals of game design. 2nd edn. Berkeley, CA: New Riders.
Politi, G. (2001) - Flash Art International Ed,
Jacobson, J. Hwang, Z. -Unreal Tournament For Immersive Interactive Theater Volume 45(1), pg 39 - 42, 3p
Caillois, R. 2006. "The Definition of Play. The Classification of Games". Salen. K and Zimmermann.E.The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology. London. 122-155.
Kaminka, G.A. et al., 2002. GAMEBOTS: A FLEXIBLE TEST BED FOR MULTIAGENT TEAM RESEARCH. Communications of the ACM, 45(1), pg 43-45.
Finkel, I. L. (2008) "On the Rules for The Royal Game of Ur". In I. Finkel ed. Ancient Board Games in Perspective. London: British Museum Press. pp. 16-32.
Jacobson, J. Hwang, Z. -Unreal Tournament For Immersive Interactive Theater Volume 45(1), pg 39 - 42, 3p
Caillois, R. 2006. "The Definition of Play. The Classification of Games". Salen. K and Zimmermann.E.The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology. London. 122-155.
Kaminka, G.A. et al., 2002. GAMEBOTS: A FLEXIBLE TEST BED FOR MULTIAGENT TEAM RESEARCH. Communications of the ACM, 45(1), pg 43-45.
Finkel, I. L. (2008) "On the Rules for The Royal Game of Ur". In I. Finkel ed. Ancient Board Games in Perspective. London: British Museum Press. pp. 16-32.
This was completed with the help of Zotero and Firefox which easily allow for referencing at a high standard. I hope these are correct if not please do comment to make me aware. The last reference was added after my extensive research of The Royal Game of Ur for a previous assignment.
Wrapping up
So from being introduced to Zotero a great tool for referencing I can now develop and
understand the uses of academic referencing which I have previously shown is a weak point
in my assignments.
Personally I struggled with this and using Zotero, I tried using it with Google Chrome in which you need a stand-alone version. After a lot of trial and error, a new browser and some help from other students I think I finally got there.
So that is the end of Part 3 of the Critical Games Design series. Part 4 coming soon.
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