Richard,
I'm a little reluctant to expose this thinking to public scrutiny at
this time, but almost ten years ago I was prepared to launch a major
endeavor that was combination electronic book and game; however, I
got distracted - big time, and never really got back to it. One of
the reasons was that I really didn't have the programming
capabilities to do it without major funding from some source and I
was unwilling to sell the idea to anyone else who might eventually
distort my goals. Please disregard all the references to financing,
and a few others with respect to anticipated goals and a phone
number that is no longer is service. The basic tenants are still
sound and desirable. Perhaps, with Revolution's cross platform
capabilities and multimedia aspirations, I may eventually be able to
start work in ernest on the project.
visit: <http://members.cox.net/pepetoo/>
Some will call it a pipe dream; others may go even farther with "who
in the hell does he think he is?" You can make your own decision.
TIA,
Joe Wilkins
On Feb 2, 2007, at 10:32 AM, Richard Gaskin wrote:
Great stuff, Marielle. I was especially interested in the comments
about girl gaming.
I saw Brenda Laurel give the closing keynote at CHI-98, where she
talked about her experience doing usability research to found her
company Purple Moon (since killed by the Mattel juggernaut).
Reinforcing the observations you noted, one of the most interesting
things she noted about girl gamers is their attraction to
complexity. According to Laurel's research spanning a 10-year
period, the reason girls don't play a lot of boy-oriented games is
not because they're too difficult, but just the opposite, that the
game play is often too simplistic.
With Purple Moon, Laurel tried to create games that appealed to
girls' appreciation for complex relationships. Much of the game
play involved ethical questions in social simulation scenarios
(e.g., do I go to the birthday party for the unpopular girl or
accept the invitation for the party by the most popular girl for
the same day?), and the complexity of the issues involved certainly
carried greater variance in play than "shoot the zombie".
One of the key aspects Laurel touched on was the self-fulfilling
prophesy of game designers: having delivered games aimed at boys,
game designers look to low sales among girls as a false
reinforcement of the notion that "girls aren't into gaming".
That was one of the things I loved most about Myst when it
premiered. I don't play a lot of games, but Myst appealed to a
much broader market than games had previously addressed. It was in
many respects the first truly literate game, and its focus on
environmental immersion and long, complex puzzles was a radically
meditative departure from the shoot-em-up twitchers that continue
to dominate the market.
A thousand Myst-like games have been created since (including the
great Alida <http://www.runrev.com/spotlight_on/alida1.php>), and
while they've been fun I keep wondering if there's an entirely new
type of game waiting to be created, something as different from
everything else we've seen as Myst was for its time.
Somewhere out there is a game waiting to be created, something that
will open up the world of entertainment software to a whole new
audience that isn't currently into games.
Or as I once put it at a game developer meeting: Where is the
"Catcher in the Rye" of games, the thing that will appeal to
people who like rich, provocative entertainment but aren't
attracted to current game play models?
Maybe it'll be made by one of the readers of this list....
--
Richard Gaskin Managing Editor, revJournal
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