      |
|||||||
|
STS 145/HPS 163. History of Computer Game Design: Technology, Culture, Business Winter 2005 |
 |
||||||
| Source: Softline 2 (March 1983). Front cover. | |||||||
|
|||||||
. Readings labeled SECTION are optional for students not enrolled in discussion section.
January 7. Introduction
Henry Jenkins, "Art Form for the Digital Age," Technology Review (Sept.-Oct. 2000). Available here: http://www.geocities.com/lgartclass/handouts/ArtfortheDigitalAge/ArtFormfortheDigitalAge.html.
Janet Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997) -- pp. 13-26.
* NO DISCUSSION SECTION MEETINGS THIS WEEK: JAN. 7, 8, 9. *
January 9. Game Research: What, Why, Where, How?
Geoffrey R. Loftus and Elizabeth F. Loftus, "Why Video Games Are Fun," pp. 10-42 in Mind at Play: The Psychology of Video Games (New York: Basic Books, 1983). Available in Coursework.
Brian Sutton-Smith, "The Toy as Machine: Video Games," pp. 57-75 in his Toys as Culture (New York: Gardner Press, 1986). Available in Coursework.
OPTIONAL FOR ALL: Henry Lowood, "Shall We Play a Game: Thoughts on the Computer Game Archive of the Future." (Conference Paper.)
January 14. Games as a Medium I: Entertainment and Communication
Steven Poole, Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution. Arcade, 2000. (Available in Bookstore.) -- pp. 65-111.
Janet Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck. MIT Press, 1997. [Available in Bookstore.]-- pp. 65-94
Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, "Computer Games," in: Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1999) -- pp. 89-103. Available in Coursework.
January 16. Games as a Medium II: Game Play vs. Narrative?
PRESENTERS: Rene Patnode and Galen Davis
Steven Poole, Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution. Arcade, 2000. (Available in Bookstore.) -- pp. 156-203
Janet Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck. MIT Press, 1997. [Available in Bookstore.]-- 97-153, 185-213, 273-84.
SECTION: Please try to complete as much of Hamlet on the Holodeck as possible for discussion of the topic of games as a narrative medium.
January 21. Writing about Games: Criticism, the Game Press and Reviews
GUESTS: Rob Smith, Editor-in-Chief, PC Gamer; and Geoff Keighley, Gameslice and "Geoff Keighley behind the Games," featured in Gamespot.
Steven Poole, Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution. Arcade, 2000. (Available in Bookstore.) -- pp. 1-44.
January 23. Writing with Games? The Quest for Interactive Storytelling.
GUEST: Chris Crawford. Chris was arguably the first "star" game designer, beginning with pioneering strategy games of the 1970s and 1980s such as Tanktics, East Front and Balance of Power. Just as significantly, he played a leading role in encouraging research, writing and discussion about game design, notably as founder of the Game Developers Conference. In recent years, he has been occupied with the creation of an authoring tool for interactive story worlds, the Erasmatron, and to this end founded Erasmatazz.
Chris Crawford, "The Art of Computer Game Design." (1982). Available here: http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/peabody/game-book/Coverpage.html or in PDF here: http://www.erasmatazz.com/free/AoCGD.pdf. Focus your atttention on Chapter 1, "What is a Game?"
Chris Crawford, "Flawed Methods for Interactive Storytelling," Interactive Entertainment Design 7 (1993-1994). Available here: http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/JCGD_Volume_7/Flawed_Methods.html
SECTION: Read throughout Crawford's "The Art of Computer Game Design," as your interests lead you, and be prepared to discuss specific points or ask questions.
January 28. Origins: From Spacewar! to Pong
ASSIGNMENT 1 DUE!! Assignment is "Games and Narrative," with "Case Study Topic." Submit via Coursework.
GUEST: Al Alcorn. Al was the circuit designer for Pong and VP for R&D at Atari, in addition to working at Apple and Ampex.. For some information about his career, see http://bb.vg-network.com/interviews/aainterview.html.
Steward Brand, "SPACEWAR: Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums," Rolling Stone (7 Dec. 1972). Available here: http://www.wheels.org/spacewar/stone/rolling_stone.html
J. M. Graetz, "The Origin of Spacewar!," Creative Computing (1981). Available here: http://www.enteract.com/~enf/lore/spacewar/spacewar.html.
Jan. 30. Origins: Adventure and Interactive Fiction
Graham Nelson, "46. A Short History of Interactive Fiction," "47. Realities and Origins," "48. A Triangle of Identities," and "49. Structure," from The Inform Designer's Manual, 4th ed. (2001. 1st ed., 1994) Available here: http://www.inform-fiction.org/manual/html/contents.html.
P. David Lebling, Mark S. Blank, and Timothy A. Anderson, "Zork: A Computerized Fantasy Simulation Game," IEEE Computer 12 (April 1979): 51-59. Available here: http://mud.co.uk/richard/zork.html or here: http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/Articles/ieee.html.
Ernest Adams, "It's Time to Bring Back Adventure Games" (1999). Available here: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/designers_notebook/19991109.htm.
February 4. The Business: Historical Overview, pt. 1
Geoff Keighley, "Haunted Glory: The Rise and Fall of Trilobyte." Available here: http://www.gamespot.com/features/btg-tri/
Dean Takahashi, Opening the X-Box: Inside Microsoft's Plan to Unleash an Entertainment Revolution. Prima Publishing, 2002. (Available in Bookstore.) -- skim chapters 1-3, read pp. 37-120 (chapters 4-10).
OPTIONAL FOR ALL (but highly recommended): David Sheff and Andy Eddy, Game Over: Press Start to Continue. GamePress, 1999.
February 6. The Business: Game Production
GUEST: Bill Swartz, Founder and managing director of Mastiff. He will be speaking about his experience and observations as marketing manager for Koei America, as part of Koei's development group, and then over a period of 12 years as managing director of Activision Japan.
February 11. Culture: The International Scene (Europe, Japan, Korea)
Ernest W. Adams, "Eurostylin’: An American Game Designer in Europe," from Game Developers' Conference 2000. Available here: http://www.designersnotebook.com/Lectures/Eurostylin_/eurostylin_.htm
Michelle Levander, "Where Does Fantasy End? Why All of South Korea is Obsessed with an Online Game Where Ordinary Folks Can Be Arms Dealers, Murderers ... and Elves," Time Magazine 157, no. 22 (June 4, 2001). Available here: http://www.time.com/time/interactive/entertainment/gangs_np.html
Steven Poole, Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution. Arcade, 2000. (Available in Bookstore.) -- pp. 137-55.
February 13. The Business: Historical Overview, pt. 2
February 18. Culture: Gender, Player Communities, and Subversion of Mainstream Games
Henry Jenkins, "'Complete Freedom of Movement': Video Games as Gendered Play Spaces." Available here: http://web.mit.edu/21fms/www/faculty/henry3/pub/complete.html. Orig. published as pp. 262-297 in From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games, eds. Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins (Cambridge, MIT Press, 1998). Available in Coursework.
Sue Morris, aka Zantique, "Online Gaming Culture: An Examination of Emerging Forms of Production and Participation in Multiplayer First-Person-Shooter Gaming." (1999). Available here: http://www.gamegirlz.com/articles/quakewomen.shtml. (Note that this essay extends over three linked web pages.)
Gerard Jones, Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence. Basic Books, 2002. (Available in Bookstore]-- pp. 77-96, 149-64.
February 20. Culture: The Violence Issue
Gerard Jones, Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence. Basic Books, 2002. [Available in Bookstore]--23-44, 97-148, 165-82. (If you have time and are profiting from this book, please read or skim the chapters not assigned.)
February 25. Technology: Shooters, Graphics, Game Engines, Machinima
ASSIGNMENT 2 DUE!! Assignment is "Culture in Game Design." Submit via Coursework.
GUEST: Jake Hughes, Crystal
Dynamics (Eidos Interactive). He was director and co-creator (with Tom Hall
and the Anachronox team) of “Anachronox: The Movie” (USA, 2001),
which received the “Best Film” and “Best Use of Technology”
awards at the first Machinima Film Festival (2002) and was also associate producer
and cinematographer for “Anachronox,” the game, while at Ion Storm.
Jake will be joined by Joey Liaw, who is presently a student in the Stanford
C.S. Department; Joey programmed the cine scriptor and particle editor for Anachronox
and is a specialist in game engine technology.
Steven Poole, Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution. Arcade, 2000. (Available in Bookstore.) -- 112-136
Marc Laidlaw, "The Egos at Id," Wired (Aug. 1996). Available here: http://www.wirednews.com/wired/archive/4.08/id.html.
Anne-Marie Schleiner, "Parasitic Interventions: Game Patches and Hacker Art" Available here: http://www.opensorcery.net/patch.html
OPTIONAL FOR ALL: Tom Hall, The Doom Bible. Revision no. .02 (Nov. 11, 1992). Available in PDF format here: http://5years.doomworld.com/doombible/doombible.pdf. This is the design document for the original Doom game, as transcribed by John Romero. See the explanation here: http://5years.doomworld.com/doombible/
OPTIONAL FOR ALL: For historical background about earlier computer graphics technology, read these essays from SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics in this order: Owen R. Rubin, "Memories of a Vector World," Steven Collins, "Game Graphics During the 8-Bit Computer Era," Noah Falstein, "Portrait of the Artists in a Young Industry," and Richard Rouse III, "Do Computer Games Need to be 3D?" The issue of SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics with these contributions is located here: http://www.siggraph.org/publications/newsletter/v32n2/index.html. Feel free to read or browse through the other contributions in this issue, as well.
February. 27. Military Gaming and Simulation
Tim Lenoir and Henry Lowood, "Theaters of War: The Military-Entertainment Complex."
Mark Pesce, "The Trigger Principle," FEED Special Report (Feb. 3, 2000). Available here: http://www.feedmag.com/essay/es288_master.html.
OPTIONAL FOR ALL: James F. Dunnigan, "Genealogy of Computer Wargames Technology" and "Designing Computer Wargames" from The Complete Wargames Handbook (1993, rev. 1997) Available here: http://www.hyw.com/Books/WargamesHandbook/6-3-gene.htm and http://www.hyw.com/Books/WargamesHandbook/7-design.htm. Provides historical background.
March 4. Technology: Making the X-Box
GUEST: Laura Fryer, Director, Xbox Advanced Technology Group (ATG), Microsoft Corporation. Laura joined the Microsoft Games Studio in 1995 as one of its first members and was lead producer for Crimson Skies, Fighter Ace, and other games. She was also one of the founders of the MSN Gaming Zone, which featured Fighter Ace as one of the first massively networked games. She joined the Xbox team in 2000.
Dean Takahashi, Opening the X-Box: Inside Microsoft's Plan to Unleash an Entertainment Revolution. Prima Publishing, 2002. (Available in Bookstore.) -- pp. 121-288, 332-41.
March 6. Sims, God Games, Games of Life
John Horton Conway, "The Fantastic Combinations of John Conway's New Solitaire Game 'Life'," Scientific American (1970): 120-23. Available here: http://ddi.cs.uni-potsdam.de/HyFISCH/Produzieren/lis_projekt/proj_gamelife/ConwayScientificAmerican.htm
Ted Friedman, "The Semiotics of Sim City," First Monday 4, no. 4 (April 5, 1999). Available here: http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue4_4/friedman/
Daniel Sieberg, "The World according to Will," Salon.com. Available here: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/02/17/wright/index.html.
OPTIONAL FOR ALL: Geoffrey Keighley, "Simply Divine: The Story of Maxis Software," Gamespot. Available here: http://www.gamespot.com/features/maxis/.
March 11. Virtual Worlds I: Legacies of D&D and Adventure -- RPGs and MUDs
Richard A. Bartle, "A Voice from the Dungeon," Practical Computing (December 1983): 126-130. Available here: http://mud.co.uk/richard/avftd.htm. If you have time, take a look at other early papers on networked MUDs in Bartle's web archive, especially "MUD Advanced Project Report" (1983), here: http://mud.co.uk/richard/mapr.htm, and the background on this report here: http://mud.co.uk/richard/maprbg.htm.
Warren Spector, "Remodeling RPGs for the New Millennium," Game Developer (Feb. 1999). Available here: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/game_design/19990115/remodeling_01.htm . (Site requires free registration.)
OPTIONAL FOR ALL: Brenda Laurel, "Toward the Design of an Interactive Fantasy System: Description and Functional Requirements," Pp. 56-87 (Adobe Acrobat page numbering) in: Atari Research Memos on the Subject of Interactive Fantasy and Related Topics." Atari Sunnyvale Research Laboratory, March 1982-November 1983. Available in Coursework.
March 13. Virtual Worlds II: The Societies of Massively Multiplayer Games
GUEST: Julian Dibbell. Julian has written extensively about virtual worlds, esp. as communities and economies. . He is the author of My Tiny Life and, most recently, "The Unreal Estate Boom" for Wired. He is currently a visiting fellow at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society.
Chip Morningstar and F. Randall Farmer, "The Lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat," in: Cyberspace: First Steps, ed. Michael Benedikt. MIT Press, 1991. -- pp. 273-301. Available in Coursework.
Julian Dibbell, "A Rape in Cyberspace, or How an Evil Clown, a Haitian Trickster Spirit, Two Wizards, and a Cast of Dozens Turned a Database Into a Society," Imaginary Realities 2, no. 4 (April 1999). Available here: http://imaginaryrealities.imaginary.com/volume2/issue4/rape_cyberspace.html. (Originally written in 1993, this essay is also available as a chapter in Dibbell's book, My Tiny Life.)
Nicholas Yee, "The Norrathian Scrolls: A Study of Everquest." Available here: http://www.nickyee.com/eqt/report.html. Read the short introductory sections and follow your interests in looking over the wealth of survey data and responses.
March 18. Case Studies
CASE STUDIES DUE TODAY at midnight. Submit via Coursework.
- Henry Lowood, 15 Dec. 2002