Grand Text Auto

Speaking of chatterbots… A BBC technology correspondent is eager to report that text-porn bots have passed the Turing test. The article begins by lumping apples and oranges together:

At first glance spam, pornographic text messages and video games are not contributing much to human development.

Great, thanks. But he goes on to describe how AI’s have been known to fool users, and is particularly taken with Natachata, a chatbot that operates in adult SMS text chatrooms.

On the heels of Noah and Michael’s posts from yesterday… At first it seemed like yet another sexed-up article headline: two upcoming AI-heavy interactive entertainment products described in a Popular Science blurb titled “Terror Games”.

Peek behind the graphics of two new games [The Sims 2 and Peter Molyneux’s Fable] and you’ll find the same artificial intelligence that’s at work in Pentagon-sponsored war simulations.

But the blurb offered no further explanation. Huh?

On Memory Card, her new blog, Mia Consalvo, game researcher and assistant professor at Ohio U, wonders if it’s okay to cheat at a game while researching it.

Chaim Gingold wrote this month’s IGDA Ivory Tower column.

Game developers and academics, by engaging one another, can help both of their practices mature. But what does it mean to have conversations with one another? If we’re going to play together, what are the rules of the game, and what are the motivations of its players?

Thanks to Terra Nova for linking to today’s Associated Press article about game studies, including quotes from the usual suspects.

The article will probably get printed in many local papers around the country. For example, here’s the article printed in Bixoli Mississipi’s local paper, the Sun Herald.

Save yourself the price of admission to GDC — a new “Legends of the Game Industry” Speaker Series is being hosted by The Art Institute of California – San Francisco. The first talk in the series, by Will Wright, will be held at 7pm on Feb 25, free and open to all Bay Area students, game industry professionals and the general public. (via Gamasutra)

The Christian Science Monitor has a great new article posing the question, “How should people treat creatures that seem ever more emotional with each step forward in robotic technology, but who really have no feelings?” The article briefly touches on many facets of this question. One quote that sticks out is from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA):

The turn toward having robotic animals in place of real animals is a step in the right direction… It shows a person’s recognition that they aren’t up to the commitment of caring for a real animal. Practically speaking, from PETA’s perspective, it really doesn’t matter what you do to a tin object.

On GTxA we recently touched on the issue of abusing virtual characters and the topic of blurring / fusing of fiction and reality with virtual characters.

New Products:

Tamagotchi keychain pet is back: Using infrared portals, the new Tamagotchi Plus will be able to mingle, chat and date, marry and have babies with other Tamagotchis. The original version sold 40M units. (via Slashdot Games)

Singles! Flirt Up Your Life! is shipping soon. Pick two characters to live together from a cast of twelve, and using a Sims-like interface try to coax them to get it on. Includes nudity and romantic erotic situations but no pornography. (full index of screenshots) (via GameGirlAdvance)

Charles Herold of the NYTimes gives an unusually positive review of the recently released Deus Ex sequel, an action/role-playing hybrid science fiction game, which “wants every player to have a unique experience.”

Invisible War is a wildly ambitious game, a serious attempt to shape the video game into something far grander and more complex than it has been until now. It is largely successful. The story, which is filled with compelling details and takes several ingenious twists, has many clever ideas.

He goes on to describe some its flaws, such as occasionally low-believablity AI, but overall the review is glowing. (Positive but more tempered reviews from gamer-oriented sites can be found here and here, for example.)

A reminder of Friday’s symposium at Stanford (which we originally posted about last October): Story Engines: A Public Program on Storytelling and Computer Games. Includes a panel “The Big Picture: Do Games Need Stories?” with Haden Blackman of LucasArts, Sheldon Pacotti of Ion Storm, and Will Wright of Maxis/EA.

The symposium is part of the larger Fictional Worlds, Virtual Experiences: Storytelling and Computer Games project at the Stanford Humanities Lab, and in conjuction with the “Bang the Machine” exhibit at Yerba Buena in San Francisco.

Today being Groundhog Day in U.S. (and elsewhere?) reminds me how the movie Groundhog Day suggests a model for how interactive stories could work. Rather than write up my own essay on the topic however, I’ll link to others who have already discussed this, found via Google:

A discussion on rec.arts.int-fiction, found in Stephen van Egmond’s / Magnus Olsson’s archive
Discussed in Janet Murray’s Hamlet on the Holodeck
An essay from the website TransparencyNow
“The Five Stages of Writing for Interactive” by game designer Noah Fahlstein
A mention by Dennis Jerz in “IF, literature and…”
Our Let’s do it again discussion last August

This just happened, but it seems worth mentioning anyway: Digital Independence 2004 “is a conference that unites innovators in film, video, games, music, technology, media policy and the arts… How have affordable technologies leveled the playing field and empowered independents? What new visions and voices are emerging? How will the conflicts over open source, copyright, mass media rulings, and digital standards impact independent work? How are indies changing technology—and how is technology changing indies?”

Panelists included the Howard Rheingold, executive director of Creative Commons Glenn Brown, IGF and GDC organizers, the chair of Intel’s art and entertainment research committee, and many more.

Here’s a new article highlighting some of the issues involved with creating virtual humans, including a mention of the “Uncanny Valley” phenomenon.

This is an issue for robotic and on-screen animated characters alike. We were faced with avoiding the creepiness factor when making Babyz; we did so by keeping the characters cartoony enough. But it was an issue during the design, that we focus tested. Similarly, Facade is rendered in an illustrative style. Of course more abstract faces and bodies have the advantage of being easier to implement — a double-win.

trAce‘s Digital Writer-in-Residence and recent commenter on grandtextauto, Tim Wright, has a new article of interest called Blog Fiction.

… it would seem natural for the world of the blog to become a fertile ground for new forms of digital storytelling and the development of new independent authentic fictional voices. Strange then that there are only a handful of writers out there currently experimenting with the idea of the fictional blog. …

If you’re an aspiring game designer, this looks to be a good opportunity for getting your hands dirty with creating your own game. Actually I’d imagine this would appeal both to people trying to break into the game industry, as well as experienced designers. Even if you don’t win, it’s a platform to get real experience designing and building a game — which looks good on the resume. (via GameDev.net)

Tim Wright, one of the developers of Online Caroline, poses a question that I think deserves a new discussion thread. With his permission, here’s his post:

Being partially responsible for this thread I thought I’d better chip in. When I talked about people stepping over the line I was thinking of behaviour such as:

a/A soldier in the British Army sending pictures of himself in full uniform, and then offering to kill Caroline’s boyfriend for her. Seriously.

Our making, not telling terminology debate is a reflection of a larger issue, often framed as game vs. story or ludology vs. narratology, but I’d rather frame it as high-agency vs. low-or-no-agency. Let me quickly state, I’m not saying I don’t like stories or experiences without agency — I love them! I consume tons of books and movies and comics and music — but they’re not the new form I and many others are envisioning here… I think “gamers” or “ludologists” often have a distaste for interactive stories in their current forms not because interactive stories are not “games” per se, and not even because they’re often text-based instead of visual, but because the interactive stories built to date don’t have much agency. I feel the same way. (Go here for more on story vs. game.)

Sorry to possibly set off yet another terminology debate — I’m really tired of them — but does it bother other people as much it bothers me to hear the term “digital storytelling” or worse, the oxymoron “interactive storytelling”?

If you assume a primary pleasure of interactive experiences is agency, as I do, then the suffix “-telling” should be avoided. I’m interested in experiences in which the player is collaborating with the system to help make, to co-create, to have meaningful affect on the story, not be told a story.

In a recent discussion about interactive works that try to fuse fiction and reality, the lead writer for Online Caroline mentioned how it can be disturbing if players step over the line when interacting with a virtual character who is supposed to be real and have real feelings.

I’ve noticed that when it comes to somewhat fully fleshed-out and reactive virtual characters, the first thing players (or at least males) usually try to do is push it to its limits, to try to break it, to see how far things can go — e.g., behave badly or cruelly, swear, act lewdly or inappropriately, flirt excessively, etc. So, for an experience in which a virtual character is supposed to be real, when players act inappropriately, I could see how it would seem more disturbing.

… that Jesper (“The Ludologist”, and frequent commenter on GTxA) has successfully defended his PhD, at the IT University of Copenhagen. His dissertation is entitled, “Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds“.

Congrats!

Ken Perlin, a longtime pioneer of computer graphics and interactive virtual characters at NYU, has 77 “pages of his sketchbook” online at the Whitney Artport — an extensive collection of the inspiring interactive graphical applets Ken has written over the years. He’s the January installment of the rotating-monthly Gate Pages (which also recently featured GTxA’s Noah). (via Rhizome NetArtNews)

Also still at the Artport since about a year ago, is the amazing software art group show CODeDOC — more really great stuff. (Leading me to discover CODeDOC II, part of last September’s Ars Electronica.)

An indie-oriented game site, GameTunnel, has posted its suggestions for the top ten independent games of 2003. (via Slashdot Games)

Interestingly, only one of these games was a finalist in either the 2002, 2003 or 2004 Independent Games Festival. I wonder if this is because these games just aren’t entered in the IGF, or the IGF and GameTunnel have pretty different criteria for the “best” indie games? I’m guessing GameTunnel favors popularity and fun, and IGF favors more radical designs and experimentation.

Each month on the empyre email discussion list — “an arena for the discussion of media arts practice” — a new set of people are invited to lead the discussion, and this month we have Jill Scott and two GTxA’ers, Nick and Noah. The topic: “Nova Media Storia: Histories and Characters”.

Is new media a field? Does it have a history? What history? And, how does it matter?

Those new to empyre may enjoy perusing the past guests and extensive archives.

Artist and frequent GTxA commenter Brandon Rickman has begun a new (or refurbished an old) blog called antimodal, that kicks off with a critique of Salen and Zimmerman’s Rules of Play. Added to the blogroll.

Hey everybody, a new issue of Game Studies is out, squeezed in under the wire as their second issue for 2003. The articles include:

“On Virtual Economies”, by Edward Castronova
“Sim Sin City – Some thoughts about Grand Theft Auto 3”, by Gonzalo Frasca
“‘I Lose, Therefore I Think’ – A Search for Contemplation amid Wars of Push-Button Glare”, by Shuen-shing Lee
“When Seams Fall Apart- Video Game Space and the Player”, by Laurie Taylor
“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown – Interactivity and signification in Head Over Heels”, by Jan Van Looy

(via Ludology.org)