My unconventional thoughts about games and art

""avant game" as "before the game.""

As I understand it, and I am not saying I have understood it right, so is Jane McGonigal studying the phenomena that are before the game is played or made.

avant game is a made up word that is put to describe Jane's research in digital game studies with a twist of playfulness. The phrase avant game points to the contemporary play works as well as the philosophy of game design she is studying. This game is not so much a game that is a study.

I Love Bees is a kind of game that Jane has developed. But I really can't figure it out. But after reading TheFQA - Netninja Bee Wiki I feel so much better. As in the question about whether all the people are insane. I am as the answer, I don't believe there is a real game. It is all study, or it is me who is insane. Could be that to. I am not really sure.

Well, I guess you could call it a game. But I would rather more call it a study or a challenge. Maybe a quest to seek the truth. To collect information and to find out what has happen to a blog is a quest, not a game.

Implementation

I get the feeling of SKIN by Shelley Jackson when I see the work of by Nick Montfort and Scott Rettberg. It is all about making a statement and to see how many people will fallow and obey their will. It is the same as the roundabout dogs and flash mobs. Think of something stupid and extreme to do and see how many that are willing to follow.

But it is all about how you see it and what kind of experience you have of it. I do think it is quite cool that people are doing this. But there are so many of them now, they have lost there aura so to speak.

/cecilia

My Essay

I will base my essay on what I have written below. About how the simulated worlds of online games like SL and WOW are combined with our real world through money.
I will look upon how the culture of SL has affected the world we live in and maybe what consequences it might have in the future.

I have found three different outside articles that I will use in this essay that are all about making money in the online world. I will combined these sources with sources from the texts that we have read in class.

I will get back with more information about my essay thoughts later next week.

/CJ

Simulated Worlds

Well, better late then never as it is said. I'm am slowly trying to get on track with my self between school and Spain so to say.

My thoughts on simulated worlds.

There are many kinds of simulated worlds, online and off-line. Online we have Second Life, WOW and so on. Off-line we have Disneyland and other fairylands.
Simulated worlds are places that are built up to meet or inner desires, to for fill a fantasy of our.
Simulated worlds can in some ways complete the real world that we live in.
However, the real world and simulated worlds online has started to interfere with each other. I read the other week an article about a man in china that earns his living by playing WOW. And that there are people living of SL by building and selling houses and land to other members. In SL there is also a currency that goes hand in hand with the US dollar. What you earn in Linden $ you can get out in US $. It is just like going to another country.

When did simulated worlds stop for fill our psychological needs and started to replace our physical needs? Ones no one knew how you were in an online world, now it is all about making money and get a profit out of it.

/cecilia

YouTube brought to you by me

When going through the list of social sites, I kind off got stuck on You Tube. Mostly since I actually have my own videos to publish since I bought my digital camera.
And it is quite fun to know that you can share you videos with just any one. So far I have only uploaded two videos but I hope that there will be more of them coming.
I would like to share them with all of you since some of you are in one of the videos.

You can look at them on; http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=digcultcj

I like You Tube a lot since I like watching strange and funny movies and the site provides me with just that. The whole site is about sharing videos, and even if there is a place called community in You Tube, I still haven't really figured out how or even if you can search for other members. I can only search for videos.

However, when searching for videos, I came upon some video clips that should be X-rated and dose not really belong to this kind of site where people put up videos of their children.

Since I had a hard time finding other members, I am not really sure of the sites audience. It seems like anyone with an interest for video clips join this social site.

Of course, now in the beginning, I am not in total familiar with all the elements on the site, but that is something that will come as play with it I suppose.

Well, that is YouTube for me.

Cj.