Grand Text Auto

An anonymous “EA Spouse” writes an impassionated plea for better quality of life for game developers, describing how his/her spouse has had to work such insane hours for months on end to finish a product, that it’s upended their lives. The 400+ comments include several other very unhappy spouses and developers speaking up, several of them bitter EA employees. A parallel discussion ensues at Slashdot Games. IGDA’s Jason Della Rocca (Reality Panic) has been addressing this Quality of Life issue lately.

Those crazy kids at UC Riverside are already hosting a talk about GTA: San Andreas, having made the game available last week for students to play.

I’ve started to get quite annoyed by something I’m thinking of as the “numerist fallacy.” It seems to come up mostly in discussions with humanists and artists who are interested in software but haven’t been involved in much software development.

Its most ridiculous form is the idea that, because digital information is stored as ones and zeros, computers somehow inherently introduce binarism (black and white thinking) into situations where they are used. Luckily, this is somewhat rare. More common is the idea that somehow, if one wants to consider something like the structure of a digital archive deeply — in order to enable more informed critique — one should get down to the numerical nature of the archive and understand how the numbers are being manipulated.

Chris Crawford’s long awaited book on interactive story, in which he finally reveals his secrets and hard-won lessons learned from slaving for years to build the Erasmatron, is now out and available from New Riders. (For more on the Erasmatron, go here and scroll down for essays.)

Chris considers it “the most important book I have ever written”, and describes his goals for the book on the back-cover blurb:

There’s a new section of First Person live at electronic book review. This section, “Hypertexts and Interactives,” includes essays by:

• hypertext publishers, editors, and researchers Mark Bernstein and Diane Greco (discussing hypertext fiction and describing “two exotic hypertext systems, tools suitable for hypertext narrative but dramatically unlike the tools currently in use”),
• hypertext poet and theorist Stephanie Strickland (who, through the move captured in her title, “intends to install the stenographer, and not her employer, as the crucial creative/receptive presence in digital art”), and

In 2003 I visited the Summer Literary Seminars in St. Petersburg, Russia. It was amazing. A collection of remarkable writers and editors and students in a beautiful, fascinating environment. While I was there I talked about The New Media Reader, and Robert Coover and I did a reading/presentation of writing for digital media.

Next summer I’ll be back at SLS, this time to offer a workshop. Jonathan Lethem, William T. Vollman, and a bunch of other exciting writers will be there, and so will editors from Fence, The New York Review of Books, and Faber & Faber. Read on for my course description, and for information on a contest that awards free airfare, accommodations, and full tuition to SLS.

A reminder that paper abstracts for DiGRA’s June conference in Vancouver are due November 30, as well as indie game entries to the first Slamdance Independent Game Competition, in January in Park City, Utah, due November 29.

The website is now live for the 2005 Game Developers Conference, to be held in early March in San Francisco. The variety and quality of presentations and panels are as superb as ever (see last year’s list, post-conference impressions).

Here are this year’s sessions that should be of particular interest to GTxA folk:

In my effort to avoid doomist thoughts given the week’s events, I attended the nyc acm siggraph (future participants ?) panel presentations at Pratt Manhattan. Amit Pitaru ‘s talk was noteworthy. Trained as a pianist, he never intended to write software, but he does now, spending time between writing his own tools and using them. He demonstrated a beautiful 3D drawing tool, and in general the set of tools he develops is amazing! I highly recommend checking out his work, pretty inspirational. A nice summary and more links can be found here. While he does not argue that his work is political, I can see how his very specific ideas about how tools are created for specific needs could be applied as an activist software design strategy. Its heartening to see someone rethinking the tools they use so clearly and articulately, stripping away commercial concerns and just plain irrelevant interfaces. . .

Hello, world. Check out this map of presidential votes cast by county before you imagine that America is mostly Jesusland. (Red is all Bush, Blue is all Kerry, and purple is in between.) And if someone, such as Dick Cheney, tells you that George W. Bush got the largest number of votes of any presidential candidate in history – which is true – you can tell them that John Kerry got the second largest number of votes in history, and that more people voted against an incumbent president than ever before in our country’s history. Yes, Bush was finally elected – but not by much.

I’m suddenly inspired to make one of those new political video games. In it, you click on young apathetic voters lazing on their couches to get off their butts and vote. You click to dial phone numbers to call friends who normally wouldn’t vote in an election, and manage to get them to vote too. At a cafe and dinner table you are seated in front of family and friends who normally vote for their pocketbook, and you click as fast as you can to express your passion to vote for the larger issues.

The Subtle Technologies Festival will take place May 26-May 29, 2005, in Toronto Canada. Symposium submissions are due January 15th, 2005. This year, in addition to the usual diverse program, there is a special session celebrating the “World Year in Physics”; artists and scientists who investigate physics in their work (for scientists, presumably something different than standard disciplinary physics?), are encouraged to apply.

Recognized internationally as a unique forum that encourages new insights and collaborations between artists and scientists, Subtle Technologies challenges physicists, geneticists, engineers, mathematicians, astronomers, architects, dancers, media artists and musicians to contemplate how art and science act upon one another and reshape perspectives.

All eight installments of Implementation are now available to the world. But access to Implementation within the United States is restricted. If you are eligible to vote in the US today, you may download the final installment only after you vote. Enforcement is done using the honor system, although we aren’t kidding about the restriction.

Scott and I have been working on sticker lit for a year and a half. We’ve been disseminating the installments of Implementation since January. We are very glad to have completed the last installment of the first serialized sticker novel. Thanks to the Kelly Writers House for hosting the first reading of our sticker novel. Thanks to Rob Wittig for contributing some texts. And, thanks to everyone who participated by reading, putting up stickers, and sending us photographs, particularly Hanna and Jill.

more from Day 1, State of Play II.
The economic and work aspects of gaming were analyzed in depth on the panel Virtual Property/Real World Markets: Making a Living in a Virtual World. Aside from the current economic practices such as exchanging characters and materials on ebay (and this ebay market has been said to be significantly large enough to affect real economies, see Castronova), further economic implications lurk for all of what is being called “the play economy.” While raising far too many questions than could be answered in a 90 minute session, the issues brought forward in the discussion resulted in a compelling conversation about the social impact of games.

I guess it shouldn’t amaze me, but it does. The Bush campaign’s use of digital media and the “Internets” seems to have so far involved digitally cloning supporters, sending emails to coordinate the suppression of the minority vote, and of course blocking the world from reading its website. They also have a new game, as I’ve mentioned on here already, which is accessible globally thanks to Water Cooler Games.

The morning panel at the State of Play conference 2 here at the NY Law School was invigorating; David Johnson from the NY Law School led a discussion of Intellectual Property/Digital Property. The panelists, an amazing mix of lawyer, culture worker, and theorist, provided a glimpse at a range of approaches towards IP law in online worlds and specifically games.

Nick, Scott, Star, Dan, and Emily after IF Walkthroughs

Wednesday night at the Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania, I played host and interactor for the IF Walkthroughs event. Although Nick has done a pretty good job of familiarizing me with the world of interactive fiction (incessantly) virtually since the first moment I met him at DAC ’99, I have never felt as engaged with this form, with its heritage in the ancient riddle and the Zork games of my adolescence, as I did after interacting with Slouching towards Bedlam by Daniel Ravipinto and Star C. Foster, Nick’s work-in-progress Book and Volume, and Emily Short‘s Savoir-Faire.

In the U.S., many people don’t vote because they’re not sure of their polling place. This year the Internet will help, with sites like MyPollingPlace. Also, this year people who are told they aren’t registered to vote can cast “provisional ballots.” As electoral-vote.com tells us, “If you are sure you are in the correct polling place and the officials claim you are not registered, ask for a provisional ballot and fill it out correctly. You are entitled to one by law.“

I recently blogged about a presidential campaign site located in Uruguay, encouraging people, such as my fellow US citizens, to check out the political expression going on there, and to learn some about another country’s politics by doing this. Unfortunately, people in Uruguay and other countries are now not allowed to view the campaign Web site of the president of the United States. Netcraft offers some charts and additional details. (If you live in the US you can reach Bush’s site, or you can check to see that you can’t if you live elsewhere.) Of course, US citizens who live overseas and are voting by mail, and those who are currently overseas and will be returning to vote in person in the November 2 election, use the same networks and are also being denied access to this president’s site. John Kerry’s site is still accessible overseas.

The newest release from Rockstar Games, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, available today for the PS2, has already garnered extremely positive critical reviews, and from what I can tell looks to be a masterpiece. Interactive narrative-wise, the reviews say that like previous GTA3 titles — which in 2001 broke new ground in combining detailed virtual world simulation with freeform gameplay and mission-oriented narrative — San Andreas also has a fairly linear story, but the sheer size and scope of this new action/adventure is larger than ever. Players have three complete cities to play in — takeoffs of LA, SF and Vegas, each their own mini-societies. Furthermore, ~50% of the content is found off of the 100+ quests main storyline, including playing classic arcade games and billiards, working out at the gym if you overeat at Burger Shot, dressing well, dating women, dancing, and joyrides and racing out of the city on winding country roads.

Well, it’s been forever since I’ve had a chance to post. Lame… I’ll try to write a real post soon, but in the mean time, please enjoy this lovely job ad for two positions at Georgia Tech. If you do new media work at the intersection of theory and practice, please consider applying; we’d love to have you on the LCC team.

Budget permitting, the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture at the Georgia Institute of Technology will make two tenure-track assistant professor appointments.
1) Film and Media Studies with an emphasis on the intersection of traditional and digital media. Preference for an established research trajectory and teaching experience that could include film history, film theory, media studies, and digital technology with possible additional interests in television and cross-cultural issues.
2) Digital Media Theory and Practice. Requires evidence of sophisticated digital practice and theoretical insight in one or more of the following areas: interactive cinema or documentary, enhanced television, immersive environments, multi-user environments, games as social networks, procedural art, electronic literature, or information architecture. Both positions offer the opportunity for graduate and undergraduate teaching. Normal teaching load is 2/2. Ph.D. or appropriate terminal degree required for both positions.

This weekend, Mary Flanagan and I will be appearing at NYU Law School as the official GTxA Press Corps to cover the State of Play II: Reloaded conference. The conference program promises an intellectually stimulating couple of days, covering topics at the intersection of law and gaming such as Intellectual Property/Digital Property, Avatar Rights, Virtual Liberty, and Free Expression in Virtual Worlds, Virtual Property/Real World Markets: Making a Living in a Virtual World, The Culture of Play, and Dispute Resolution and Trust Building in Virtual Worlds. It would appear that registration is still open. I won’t be there until Friday, and probably won’t post anything until after the conference, but look for reports from us next week.

It’s a sad fact that, in the mid-1990s, as the field of digital media anticipated by Ted Nelson’s 1974 Computer Lib / Dream Machines exploded in size, the book was out of print and many new to the field were largely unfamiliar with Nelson’s work — and quite a few even with his name.

Wired magazine, the most prominent publication for new and aspiring ’90s ‘digerati,’ ran a story in June 1995 that introduced many to Nelson’s work. Unfortunately, the piece was dedicated to making Nelson out in the worst possible light — beginning with its title, ‘The Curse of Xanadu.’ Nelson was called ‘the king of unsuccessful software development.’ (I won’t link to the article, but you can find it via web search, if you’re looking for drivel.)

There are many ways of disputing the presentation of Nelson in Wired‘s article, but at this moment it might be more interesting to make a comparison with a figure from digital media’s history that Wired has presented rather differently — Nicholas Negroponte. Wired has identified Negroponte, among many glowing appellations, as ‘the Media Lab’s visionary founder.’ My question here is: What made Nelson ‘unsuccessful’ and Negroponte ‘visionary’ in Wired‘s estimation?

Jean-Michel Espitallier, poet and editor of Java, read at the Kelly Writers House yesterday, offering some poems that join mathematical principles with language and its sounds in ways that aren’t exactly Oulipian, but are certainly reminiscent of the algorithmic approaches of that group. And Espitallier’s work has something else in common with that of the Oulipo: it was playful and fun, even if it takes on rather serious topics. Espitallier and his translator, Sherry Brennan, read from the new chapbook Fantasy bouchère (Butcher Fantasy) and read several other pieces, showing a video work in progress that is based on his “De la guerre civile” (“On Civil War”). The Writers House has three of his poems (with translations) online. Of these, “De la guerre civile” (“On Civil War”), from Le Theorem d’Espitallier, is certainly the most principled in its construction.

Again I am unable to find the time write a post this week, but I think I have an even better excuse this time. (Pardon me for a moment… YYYEEEAAAHHHH!!! *cough* ahem.) (Oh, and I also just finalized an offer yesterday on our first house, which took some extra time too — we’re moving from Boston to Portland, Oregon in January.)

Anyhow, I’ll contribute links to others’ interesting writings, in case you haven’t seen them yet:

Raph Koster, lead designer of the Star Wars Galaxies MMOG and Ultima Online and an implementor of LegendMUD, has written A Theory of Fun, to be available in a few weeks. A press quote says, “Raph’s intention here is to write an Understanding Comics for computer games: an accessible, lay-oriented text that explains, finally, what this medium means…”

The Public Beta folk will soon be publishing Difficult Questions About Videogames in which 71 contributions from CEOs, developers, journalists, academics and players were culled from 969 initial responses to an open call for opinions.