Post on 22-Dec-2015
COM 215 Media History
Outline
Video games and convergence cultureHeavy Rain
Gaming and violence Violence, Moral Panic
Games Social change
History of Video Games
Genres, Platforms, Technologies“Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device”
History of Video Games
Genres, Platforms, Technologies
History of Video Games
History of Video Games
History of Video Games
History of Video Games
History of Video Games
History of Video Games
History of Video Games
History of Video Games
History of Video Games
History of Video Games
History of Video Games
convergence culture
content flows across multiple media platforms
cooperation between multiple media industries
migratory audiences in search of new entertainment experiences
convergence culture – transmedia stories
Digital games and Hollywood filmsNarrative element
Motion Pictures
Video games
Storytelling No control User control
Character development
Rounded (personality)
Flat (personality)
Interactivity Less interactive Highly interactive
User/audience skills
Interpretive motor skills, analytic skills, social skills
plot More linear Less linear
POV Third Person First Person
Character Development
yes ?
Conflict reconciled ?
Video game and Motion Pictures
Convergence How are games like films, and how are films
like games?
Video game and Motion Pictures
Tron (1982)The first significant interface between a motion
picture and a video game.
Photorealism and narrative immersion
Heavy Rain (Quantic Dream, 2009) interactive drama four characters (Ethan, Scott, Norman,
Madison) “Origami Killer” – serial killer of children
Virtual acting• Body motion
capture• Facial capture• Voice
Video games, photorealism, and narrative
Empathy first, story second.
Violence in video games
The legacy of Death Race (Exidy, 1976)
Video gaming’s first moral panic –
“consumers readily made the connection between the game's pixilated graphics and the film's orgy of automotive violence” (Kocurek, 2012)
Pattern for future moral panic around games . . .
Legacy of Death Race (continued)
Normalized violence Challenged culturally acceptable forms of
violence
Alternatives
Spec Ops: The Line (Zombie Studios, 2012)
Gaming as a social medium
Communities at play
How are MMORPGs, virtual worlds, and online fantasy sports built around social interaction?
Gamification - Speed Camera Lottery Drivers earn $ by driving speed limit
50% of corporate innovation will be “gamified” by 2015.
Gamification (future trend) Use of game mechanics, feedback loops,
and rewards to spur interaction and boost engagement, buy-in, loyalty, fun, and/or learning
Game-like approaches to education and problem-solving
50% of corporate innovation will be “gamified” by 2015.
Social impact games
Using games to solve real world problemsturn scientific challenges into multi-
player computer gamesolved AIDS research
problem (in 3 weeks!)
Gaming and social change
Using games to save the world and solve real world problems
Gamer superpowersurgent optimismtight social fabricblissful productivityepic meaning
Jane McGonigal – we have to start making the real world more like a game.
Gaming and social change
1. Identify a real world problem you’d like to see solved
2. What game would you create to solve real world problems?