September 16, 2003
Is Open-Ended Gaming The Future?
From a recent post on slashdot
(via Kellee Santiago - 1st year IM grad)
Thanks to GameSpot for their 'GameSpotting' editorial discussing whether open-ended, emergent gaming works better than linearity in videogames. The author asks: "Should more games aspire to be "virtual sandboxes," inviting the player to run amok and experiment as much as possible? Or is there still something to be said for the tightly scripted, carefully contrived, more-cinematic gaming experience? He goes on to suggest that more open-ended titles often work better for him: "I like for a game to last me a good, long time. I also like being able to come back to a game every once in a while and not necessarily feel pressured to reach a finite conclusion", but cites Grand Theft Auto III as "representative of where emergent and scripted gaming can and should converge."
And suggestions for related readings from Leonard:
Mindjack: Thinking Outside The MUD http://www.mindjack.com/feature/gne.html great interview w/ Stewart Butterfield (whipsmart, been working on Game Neverending for the past couple of years)Posted by sfisher at September 16, 2003 01:02 PMalso: http://www.craphound.com/stewartetcon2003.txt
and on muds:
A Rape in Cyberspace
http://www.juliandibbell.com/texts/bungle.htmlMindjack in general is really good. Also for those into gaming theory:
Game Girl Advance - great features, by Justin (links.net) and Jane
http://www.gamegirladvance.com/Corrante Got Game? blog
http://www.corante.com/gotgame/Joystick 101
http://www.joystick101.org/Ludology
http://ludology.org/
Comments
After reading this post, I'm less bothered/concerned than when I had originally heard this morning that parts of an email exchange had been quoted and posted.
However, still might be worth mentioning the issue. The question of When should blogs publish private e-mails? of course has been much discussed in the past, following mostly from two histories: 1) journalistic tradition and 2) netiquette.
Some thoughts and considerations:
* Private emails (addressed to a group or individual), and even private mailing lists have different expectations of privacy than public mailing lists, forum postings, blogs
* The difference between publishing email or other personal communication content on an 'academic' vs a personal blog
* Links/URLs vs commentary, other information
* Attribution / context
Posted by: leonard at September 17, 2003 05:42 PM
Your point is well taken - thanks for raising this issue. Based on the fact that the exchange was mailed to the class mailing list (such as it is), my assumption was that if Kellee had an account on the blog, she would have posted her comment and link there. Sorry if that was incorrect. I would be interested to know if your concern would have been less if it had been posted to a protected class blog or wiki instead of the public site.
Posted by: sfisher at September 17, 2003 05:57 PM
My initial discomfort stemmed from the fact that while there were multiple recipients, it was not being bounced through a listserv. The inherent percieved social contract, for me is much different between those two cases.
My general rule is that whenever there is a case of changing communication scope, parties, or context that there needs to be a clear mutual understanding of what permissions are allowed.
So, to answer your question, based simply on my gut feelings, I think I would be just as concerned w/ a protected blog unless there was a previous agreement that messages sent to IMD recipients would be fair game for posting.
Of course, for links, it's generally less of an issue. Also, if a 'line is crossed', it'd be pretty easy to rectify (ask to have it removed, or in my case, log in and remove it).
In this case, I think the post was ok, but it's close enough that it's worth bringing up the issue so that others (especially any neophyte IM bloggers) realize some of the considerations/responsibilities that 'publishing' has, especially in a (semi?) academic context.
Posted by: leonard at September 18, 2003 01:28 AM
