TheAutochthonousDiaspora

One entry found for autochthonous diaspora.

Main Entry: au·toch·tho·nous di·as·po·ra
Pronunciation: o-’täk-th&-n&s dI-’as-p(&-)r&
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek, dispersion, from diaspeirein to scatter, from dia- + speirein to sow

1: a group of people settled far from their ancestral homelands, formed or originating in the place where found.
2: the oxymoronical state of forming a community far from home and living in it, without ever meeting your bretheren, and without ever leaving where you were.

“We are after all, in the global business of world politics whether we like it or not”

The AutochthonousDiaspora is about creating, understanding and directing groups of people who come together in synthetic spaces but act in physical ones - it is about being on the butter knife’s edge of the future of political movements and the nations of the future.

Posted on Oct 1, 2006 in Brain Farts | No Comments »

Thesis submitted. There are parts I’m happy with and parts that I’m not.

The paper is an exploration of the relationship between gaming and modern military intervention in developing areas, how the two interact and the social training we may be receiving through this form of media.

Paper: All your Insurgencies are belong to us

The following is an excerpt from the conclusion. It kind of sums up the paper.

Here’s the core of the problem, today’s military hands out aid with the left hand and shoots with the right. They are in the middle of a bunch of pissed off locals who are wondering why they are there and when they are going to improve their lives rather than just get in the way. They are in countries which are not always friendly and in which the ‘enemy’ is not always apparent. Games however, still portray the military as “your dads’ army” of young men “kicking ass” and saving the day. If we keep thinking of the military like this – and keep teaching 19 year old potential recruits that the military is this glorious realm of heroes rather than the tiring schizophrenia of humanitarian soldier, then we do our soldiers a disservice. By not emotionally or psychologically preparing our society for our role as peace makers in the transition and peace spaces required for meaningful development to happen, we do ourselves a disservice. As we run up budgets which would be better spent as development aid when we get bogged down, because we thought we were getting into something completely different, we do the entire exercise of intervention a disservice. The U.S. Military can “kick ass” better than any other, without a question. What they don’t yet do as well, is what comes after “kicking ass” and are hamperedfurther by a society not prepared to commit to the transition phase and peace building phase. Games can and do play a role in preparing or misleading the public, soldiers and international elements on what military intervention, by the U.S. or any other military, are about, how militaries should interact with local populations and how old school red vs. blue thinking is not only ineffective but down right dangerous.

We need to introduce to games, and the wider media, a more humanitarian, a more holistic approach to interventions that are necessary to win peace, not just win war. By training society to think more completely about peace-making rather than just war-making, we can begin to address the disservices we are currently doing to so many groups. This can be done through fun. This can be done through games. Game companies such as Kuma\War are explicitly attempting to start a dialog based in games. This paper is attempting to begin the pulling of that dialog into the development realm. We live in a world where the military process directly involves and impacts the development process in more subtle, more complex and more enduring ways than ever. Educating the public in how these two processes are intertwined is a key step in working with the military to provide meaningful development in hostile areas. I do not claim that all current games undermine developmental or military goals, nor that they are a magic bullet. Rather, I claim that we should be asking a few questions: In the gaming industry, are we giving all the issues “proportional and symmetrical” treatment? Is the industry bringing in all the facets and complexities that make military COIN ops so challenging? Is it possible to build a better, more fun game, based on these challenges which can spread constructive, rather than destructive messages?

Posted on Dec 27, 2007 in Uncategorized | No Comments »

I opened my gifts under the tree today and what do I find? A bright shiny green  XO Laptop from, the people over  at the OLPC [project (thanks parents!!)

I\ve been giving it a  test run and firt thingsyou will notice from my horrible typing is thatthe keyboardtkes a little getting usedto. but then,  it wasn’t designed for hands my size was it?

I had some troubles figuring out exactly where the connect section was for my home wi-fi (you have to go out to the neighbourhood view to find it, while there is an indicator of status on the desktop - would have made more sense to put a connect dialogue on the indicator as well as in the neighbourhood if you ask me) I’ve also managed to get the screen into fulll screen mode and am not 100% sure how to get it out of it (a warning or indicator of how to escape fullscreen would have been nice guys) .

The screen is sharp and easy to read (for something this small and at this price) . I have yet to try (find) the other mode for the screen so  I can’t comment on that yet.

The speakers and photo quality of the camera are pretty damn good, recording  for video  it relatively low quality. but that is probably to be expected.

There is an odd bug in the browser, right now there is no caret or cursor  to show me where I am typing and the right click context menu doesn’t work (but it does still tell me when my spelling is wrong, I just can’t correct it).

The construction seems fairly solid, I think I expected it to be more rubberized than it is to absorb shocks better, but will do. The buttons on the screen look a little cheap (they don\tfully line up with their holes in the casing) and it seems weird to have the keyboard be dust/spill resistant and covered in this slightly annoying rubber when the screen buttons are so open. It would fit much better if the buttons were more like the keyboard in my opinion.

On the topic of the buttons, having the left arrow keys work like a joystick when the screen is in “tablet” mode would add huge amounts of functionality in my opinion. right now you seem to only be able to scroll up and down, left and right,but not control the cursor (which is still visible, andif it was covering something you  would have to un-swivel the screen to move it)

There is no fan, woohoo.

More later. this thing is great

Posted on Dec 26, 2007 in Uncategorized | No Comments »

The world is turning on it’s head

An Indian and a Mexican now claim the top two spots on the riches people in the world list.

Number 5 is an Indian as well…

When 3 of the top 5 richest people in the world are from developing countries (partly because the number 3 and 4 are giving a lot of their money away) it really says something about the powerhouses of the future.

It also says a lot about economic polarization in developing countries. That 60 some billion dollars comes from somewhere - $50 from each man woman and child in India roughly. And when a significant proportion of the population is living on $1-$2 a day, well, lets just say that’s a very strong polarization.

It will be interesting to see if these richest people leave their country, give back to their country, give to other countries or reverse the flow of investment from developing to developed countries. With so much money concentrated at the top of a very steep pyramid, it will be interesting to see what happens.

The world is a mess.

Posted on Nov 3, 2007 in Unfinished Thoughts | No Comments »

OK, so I sat down last week and churned out a VERY ROUGH first draft. This is where I think I’m going with this thesis. Feel free to download it and read through it and post any comments or feedback that you think might be useful (not that there are any “you” who read this thing)

This is mostly just an emergency dump in case my hard disk dies or something goes horribly wrong - I havn’t even spell checked this version yet so don’t expect much

3/4 draft of thesis

Posted on Oct 30, 2007 in Thesis | No Comments »

OK, so the thesis has been struggling from lack of, well, anything

I got distracted and the thesis was the first thing to suffer. I am going to make a concerted effort to churn out a very very rough first draft next week.

Watch this space

Posted on Oct 14, 2007 in Thesis | No Comments »

An unscheduled update to the BaM series - I started my “Oh why did I do this to myself” campaign against our resident trolls and flame posters (we have a “Flame Wars board” which has turned into “Troll-spam-biggotry Wars” and I’m trying to drag it up without any bans or revolts - it’s harder but in the long run, much more rewarding. Anyhoo, I’m going through about 30-40 PMs sent and an equal number received in a 2 hour shift right now…It’s phun…

Anyhoo, inspired the PM is your friend BaM, so here it is:

=============

OK, I’m not technically on shift today but I am
working on procrastination and dealing with my new “friends” in the
flame wars. So while I wait for a couple PMs to come in, I thought I’d
write about them.

Being a Mod 201 - The PM is your bestest best friend

Nobody likes being called out in
public. It puts them on the defensive immediately and they shut down
and oppose themselves to you as fast and as hard as they can. We all
know this, we all have seen it.

The PM however is quick, quiet and surprisingly effective.
People’s public and private attitudes are two very different things. I
can have great chats with people who declare their hatred for me in
public in rather colourful ways simply by PMing them with a friendly attitude.

Coming back to that “being human“
thing, if you are human in a PM, people will generally be human back.
If you are “mod-stick” to them, then they will be “up-the-ass” back at
you.

Most mod work should be negotiations
behind the scenes, it works wonders, it keeps people from hating you
and you get to know some pretty interesting people and will have some
laughs at how different people can be in public and private. (Right now
I’m sending about 30-40 a day…and I’m only supposed to be working 2
hours a day. There is a lot of back and forth.)

Be careful though. Private Message does not mean private. Expect anything (but rarely everything) to be posted with rather creative edits attached to it.

So - Avoid backing people into a corner by dealing with them in
private. People will be much more friendly if you treat them as equals
in private and with a friendly attitude. Avoid saying anything that can
be mis-construed, twisted or otherwise posted embarrassingly on the
forum - or don’t and let us all laugh at you

Have a good weekend guys.

Twill

Posted on Oct 14, 2007 in Community Management | No Comments »

Nope, it’s not an attempt to insult you, but people forget common sense is your best friend.

I’d like to thank bedub1 again for keeping me on my toes and inspiring today’s BaM with

And so begins

Being a Moderator 103 - Common Sense

So lets recap: Be a Member first and have a personality that makes you human. (I think that sums it up so far)

Now, lets add the quid-pro-quo to this

Common sense rules the day.

Yes, it does. But being a jackass is just going to make your job harder and a LOT less fun in the long run.

Power is given by people to those they respect. It cannot be forced, it
cannot be taken and no amount of titles, powers or tools will get
someone to listen to you if they dont want to and being a jackass
(whatever that means to the person you are talking to) is one of the
fastest ways to losing that respect - even if it gains you some in
other areas.

Using a little bit of common sense (you all know what that is, dont pretend you’re clueless and avoid pretending you dont have any
) about what people actually mean, even if their wording is a bit off,
about what their intentions are or what is going to piss them off if
you reply with it, will get you a lot farther than shutting people down
and reacting off the cuff.

Putting other moderators down or making their jobs harder is just
as bad, if not worse because then you are just going to make enemies on
the team you have to work with. You are all smart people, you know when
you do it, and if someone says you did - listen to them, even if you
dont agree because it’s not what you see that matters here, it’s what others see and how they react to it.

So yes, be a member first, be a jackass, be whatever you want to be,
but be aware that all you might be doing is making your own life more
difficult and your own time on the CC boards less fun because lets
admit it, people generally dont like assholes but the hate asshole
moderators and if you have that title, then that puts you in the
“person to hate” column. Common sense will get you far in life…it
will get you most everywhere as a mod.

Have a good one, may it be sensical.

Posted on Oct 12, 2007 in Community Management | No Comments »

OK, yesterday I beat to death the fact that

You are first and always a community member, second a player, and distant third, a moderator..

Bedub1, one our wonderful chat mods (for those of you who dont know)
asked the question “Is that really true?” pointing out that

Well, here is my answer, in a roundabout way (and perhaps a more controversial stance on Community Management):

Being a mod 102 - Why mods should have a personality

You are first and always a community member, second a player, and distant third, a moderator. <–This is how you should see yourself

You are a part of “the powers that be” <–This is how most people, especially newbies, will see you - no matter what I, or anyone else, tells them

You are a tool <–This is how your most problematic people will see you

You will be seen by others as a representative of the site for which
you work, which you are. But this is something which, for your sanity
and enjoyment, I want to change a little bit.

<Harsh reality check warning>: mods
have influence over the site, they are privy to information others are
not, but they are not admins (and there are distinct up-sides to this
fact, like the fact that you can pass the responsibility buck up to
admins). Mods do not make business altering decisions for the most
part, they do not set official policy and no mod will ever get rich doing what they do (believe me, I have tried several times)</end warning>

But community members don’t realize this and hold you to admin standards
and that puts a lot of pressure on you to try to live up to those
standards. So you generally get screwed from both fronts. (BTW, at CC
we do try to give all staff a much much much larger degree of influence
than most sites you might end up working for will, in everything from
community policies to coding direction. If we ever stop listening to
you, or if you ever feel ignored, please please please, do tell me or
Lack because that’s just not fair)

If you then become power hungry and trigger-happy with your mod
tools, people will see you simply as someone out to “cut down on free
speech” and an enforcer of the rules (there will be an entire “Being a mod” on this one later)

So, let’s recap: See yourself as a member first but you need to be aware that people will see you as an admin and or robot tool of the guideline monster.

So why is personality important:

You are human. And you are allowed to be. As a “Member first” I fully expect you to keep being who you are.

Mod powers do not come on a stick which needs to be surgically implanted in your rear end (mine were, but I got a special edition that wicked (one of our mods) will tell you all about, I’m sure).
The danger is that people see ONLY the mod-stick-up-the-ass because you
do become drier, more “the rules say” and more “higher than thou” then
you will just be re-enforcing the opinion that You are a tool because, well, at that point you are.

If you look human, you feel human, you taste human and smell human, you probably are human. And that is a good thing.

Be seen to have a sense
of humour. Give as good as you get[see footnote 1 below]. Play around
with people just like other members do. Stick to what you know and do
that. If I picked you (or if I get to train you) for the mod squad,
chances are you weren’t too offensive in the first place, so just keep
being who you are. If you get too offensive, I will let you
know…believe me I will

When you lock posts, do it with a sense of humour. If you are
chastising someone, make people laugh (at you, not the person, that
only makes enemies).

If you think that someone is flaming on the general forum flame them back but in a kosher way:

Go f*ck yourself mod azzholes

could be responded to in several ways:

Dont: This violates rule number 27.1 of paragraph 94 of rule book 3. <—tool

Dont: How dare you tell me to
f*ck myself you insignificant piece of sh1t <—you take the bait,
they win and will come back for more

Dont:… <—that would be you ignoring the problem and it will come back

Do: What was that? you like to
play with little boys’ rear ends? Thread locked before DatelineNBC
catches up with you. Phew, glad we saved you from that.

Do: Awwww, was someone not
hugged enough as a child? Why don’t I go ahead and hug you with a nice
big fat thread lock and point you towards the Flame Wars board where
there are plenty of nice people to hug you.

Do: I would, but i had trouble
doing that because there was a big old thread lock stuck up there. Let
me go ahead and pull that out and put it on this thread for you so I
can try again. Flame wars over there please.

(can you tell I come from a much less troll-flame background )

When you answer a question, dont just answer it with

consider being more personal about it:

By being
the non-standard mod (i.e. one with a personality) it will often catch
people off guard, especially if they are coming from a corporate game
site where the mods ARE robots, and make them do a double take on you,
and perhaps see you as a little more human, the mod squad as a little
cooler and the site as a more accepting place.

Be careful what personality you pick though….some can get you into a
lot more hassle than they are worth. If people stop respecting you, you
are in serious trouble.

OK, that was a bit longer than I wanted, I will try to keep them shorter next time.

I will leave all BaM (Being a Mod) stickied for 2 days, BaM 101 will come down tomorrow.

[footnote 1] Give as good as you get within the boundaries of the
guidelines. Even more so than any rules will do, mods set the
boundaries of what is acceptable when they themselves push them. “If a
mod does it, it means I can”. Sadly this does not work the other way
(”if a mod doesnt do it, I cant”) and so it is very hard to recover
from. This means that I will hold ALL staff members who carry a CC
title to the guidelines as rules
and I will be anal about this - If you are promoting the breaking of
the guidelines, dont expect to stay on the staff. They are VERY basic
guidelines, they are almost a
joke as far as a “don’t do this” but they are VERY far from being
something you can ignore. They dont stop you being who you are (unless
you are a homophobic anti-semite who hates all black people and
kittens) so please, pay attention to them and dont be dragged down to
the level of the people we are trying to drag up.

This is perhaps the one thing that I will be strict about. I will
warn you if you start straying into no-no land and work with you to
change it, but if you continue to push the boundaries I will “ask” you to step down.

Posted on Oct 11, 2007 in Community Management | No Comments »

OK, so over at ConquerClub.com I recently returned as Community Manager after about 11 months off. There have been a few changes since I left, there are a few new faces, and a few interesting challenges. As such, I have started a series over there in the private sections of the forum titled “Being a Mod” (or the BaM series for short). I have to give credit where credit is due, Scott Hartsman’s post on “Beta Community Guidelines” was the first thing I posted for everyone to read. It’s a great summary of the way a mod, dev, or staff member should approach a community.

Over the next few days, weeks, months, who knows, I will be posting one BaM a day on days that I work. They may be site specific, mod specific or community specific but I will post them here word for word so that I dont forget them and anyone who knows more than me might be able to comment on them

So without further ado:

==============

Being a Mod 101 - Member First and Foremost

OK, so like I said, I’m wanting to change up the way we as a mod squad not only moderate, but how we think of ourselves as moderators and our role.

I am posting this here because there are lots of people who work for the site who are not moderators but for whom this may or may not be helpful or applicable.
This will be the first in a series of short posts (because nobody reads long ones) so keep your eyes on these threads.

Those of you who are old time mods will remember my number one rule of being a mod:

You are first and always a community member, second a player, and distant third, a moderator.
I cannot say this enough. But I will say it again:
You are first and always a community member, second a player, and distant third, a moderator.

You were picked, will be picked or might have been considered for a mod job because you are everywhere, you seem to genuinely enjoy the site, and in your general course of action you help other people, represent a certain group of people or displayed a quality which in some way contributes to the site - and you did/do it without any powers, titles or (usually) support.
Adding the moderator title and powers should not change that in any way. none. at all.

Coming to the site should never be work - leave the work stuff to admins, you are here, and should be here, to have fun - because you enjoy it. If being a mod ever gets in the way of your [i]having fun[/i], if you ever hesitate to click the forum button because you [i]should visit the forum[/i], if you ever wonder why you agreed to moderate in the first place - then stop (but tell me you are stopping please).
Your “job” is to keep people the community you love from going to hell. That is it. You get powers and knowledge about the site that helps you do that, but they are only secondary to words, reason and requests which you use in your usual course of being here:
As a mod, you should just keep doing what you were doing before you got mod powers, but now, if people just refuse to play nice, after you have talked to them, then you get to do something about it rather than being forced to accept it.

You are a member who has the power to help the community go in a certain direction, you are not a mod who plays at being a member and forgets why they come here.

OK, I think I have beaten that to death…but maybe not enough

You are first and always a community member, second a player, and distant third, a moderator.

I’ll post one of these a day until all my brain farts have farted. You have been warned

Posted on Oct 10, 2007 in Community Management | No Comments »

How insights give people (not “cause”, perhaps allow?) a certain view on an event - sometimes more indepth, sometimes more biased, but always limited.

Let me delve for a second into a post just on a building block of my thesis - insights.

I think people would call this a meme - a basic building block of cultural knowledge:

A meme, (IPA: [mi:m]) as defined within memetic theory, comprises a unit of cultural information, the building block of cultural evolution or diffusion that propagates from one mind to another analogously to the way in which a gene propagates from one organism to another as a unit of genetic information and of biological evolution. Multiple memes may propagate as cooperative groups called memeplexes (meme complexes).

(ahhhh Wikipedia)

However, Rather than use the less common term of meme and all the explanatory extras that it might carry (the “discourse” which surrounds memes) that I dont understand and might mistakenly add to my argument, I am going to borrow a plain English word from commentry at Manifesto Games on Super Columbine Massacre RPG:

And a game such as Super Columbine Massacre can lend insight into the events of that terrible day that newspaper reports, or somber and thouthful essays, cannot. Not necessarily better insights–but different ones–precisely because it makes you complicit in recreating the events. [emphasis added]

I love that way of explaining it because it’s so simple and think it says most everything that it needs to, but let me try to expand on it just because I should bring it into my own realm of meaning.

Our knowledge and understanding of the world can be seen to be comprised of a collection of insights. These can take many different forms and come from many different sources, they can be contradictory or complimentary: an equation learned in physics class; being told about getting sunburned, then actually getting sunburned; being told Islam is a tollerant religion, or being told Muslims are terrorists, whilst having a Muslim friend, etc. Insights and how they combine, interact, reinforce or contradict each other are, like memes, the Lego blocks which build who we are and what we “know”. They create the chemistry which interacts to form our understanding of the world, they create a filter (let me call this filter common sense) through which all other information is first passed and scrutinized before ultimately being rejected, accepted or assimilated in a modified form.

Ever since human kind could pass on knowledge, we have been doing so through small building blocks (insights) like this. Perhaps the most common and simplest method of passing on these insights has traditionally been in the form of stories: cave paintings which pass on history, phables which pass on morals and ethics, fairy tales which serve to teach (or condition) children not to lie or to stay in bed etc. These stories all taught something, either overtly or covertly, and most people would probably be able to point to the “moral of the story”. These examples represent ways in which stories were used to intentionally pass on what I will call situational insights. In other words, parents, teachers, elders, or storytellers could pick these stories to provide insights on what they thought would be the right thing to do in a certain situation:
“The boy who cried wolf” provides insights into what happens in a situation where a child lies all the time - you get into big big trouble, like getting eaten.
“The Tortoise and the Hare” provides insights into what happens in a situation where someone/something is cocky vs. methodical - The cocky person loses while the methodical one wins.
“Snow White” (or was it Cinderella?) provides insights into what happens when you are in a really unhappy situation - you wait, do your chores, be a pure kind young lady and wait for Prince Charming to save you.

These are obviously all very simple and to the point insights because to a large extent that is the assumed purpose of these kinds of stories. They were overt attempts to suggest how people should think or act and are created very much inside the existing cultural, religious or social order (the examples above, for example come from a male dominated, “western” perspective). Today, the insights we get are much more well hidden and are usually much less intentional - today, we see and use stories primarily as modes of entertainment rather than the for the dissemination of knowledge, but that is perhaps a overly simple misconception.

Today, the stories we listen to are primarily formulaic with the intention of making someone money: movies sell an entertainment formula; news media, a sensationalism formula; novels, one which will keep people turning pages and create media hype. Today, we are bombarded by stories from a million different sources in ways which engage the sense very differently than simple fairy tales and people will struggle to point to the “moral of the story” of, say, The Bourne Ultimatum…but that does not mean there isn’t one - Narratology has for a long time told us that narrative and narrative structures can affect our perceptions for example.

Posted on Sep 27, 2007 in Thesis | No Comments »

OK, so I dropped the ball on following up on that whole Internal
Discrepancy thing, I just couldnt get excited about it and right now I
have the luxury of being able to wait until I do.

In the mean
time, I spent the weekend out in the woods with the new members of my
uni’s outdoors club and found myself answering “so what exactly is your
thesis on…I know you’ve explained it 27 times already but still…”
way too many times. So, I have to attempt to clarify for myself and the
people who ask me, what my thesis is on - in simple and to the point
terms.
 So here’s attempt number 1

This is an exploration
of the differences between how Counter-Insurgency is presented to “the
masses” in Computer-Games-As-Story vs. how experts suggest how
Counter-Insurgency should be conducted. It looks at how insights
provided by First Person Shooter games which attempt to re-create
realistic scenarios in fun ways might not be counterbalanced by insights from real life experience and the details
of actual and successful real life missions. It will then attempt to
look at how this incomplete view may be affecting public policy,
war-to-peace transitions, peacebuilding and prioritizations in
politically motivated military actions surrounding Insurgencies. I hope
to bring in opinions from military leaders, soldiers, political
analysts and commentators, game designers, naratologists and
ludologists and of course gamers themselves. Yes, I do plan on playing
(at least the demo of) the games I am analyzing as part of research.
This paper is not intended to add to the pile of literature on “Gaming does/does not have a causal link to violence”
arguments. I am not a game basher not a defender, rather this is an
attempt at looking at more abstract and “fuzzier” outcomes of gaming.

It’s way too long and still rambling.

For
millenia people have told stories to (indirectly) pass on knowledge,
moralities, and entertainment in the form of situational insights. This paper will look at how the insights
presented in the storyline of First Person Shooters (intentional or
not) may be affecting public perceptions of one of the most common (and
well funded) foreign actions the US government is currently involved in
in developing countries - Counter Insurgency. I want to see how (in)complete the insights
gained may or may not be, how military leaders and game developers feel
about their role vis-a-vis FPS-as-story, how political commentators and
analysts see public policy being affected by this and how people-as-
and soldiers-as- gamers feel about the impact these games have on their
perceptions of on-the-ground military actions taken as part of a larger
Counter-Insurgency program. In an attempt to break from the “games
(dont) cause violence” debates, this paper will intentionally deal with
perhaps “fuzzier” areas of analysis rather than attempting to find a
(dis)provable causal link.

I’ll let that sit for now, I
know, it’s still crap and confusing, but I want to move back to reading
about China’s new Counter-Terrorist training program using CounterStrike and the commentary being provided on it. It’s much more interesting

Posted on Sep 25, 2007 in Thesis, Thought o' the day | No Comments »

So the last post was on how this paper will look at FPS games as a genre rather than individual games. The next few posts will look at the 4 categories (genres) of people involved in this paper and see if I can group them or if they should be looked at as individuals. The four groups are:

• Military Leadership - those reading and writing FM3-24 type documents.
• Boots on the ground - those who are not so concerned with the over-arching “plan” or creating doctrine, but following orders and accomplishing a mission.
• Game Designers - those creating games and setting precedents in pop-culture.
• Game Players - those playing computer games and gaining “insights” from them.

Obviously I’m attempting to draw parallels between Military Leadership and Game Designers on one hand and Boots on the Ground and Players on the other. There will no doubt be a lot of crossover between these two, and no doubt be huge discrepancies within and between them, but it’s somewhere to start. Some primary research would be interesting here - to see what actual soldiers define COIN as compared to their leadership, see what designers think their games are defining it as vs what their players see it as and how the two groups differ on basic definition. That aside…

ok, before I start, this is going to be confusing for me because Boots are often Players too (most boots have probably played a FPS, but FPS players do not all become boots) so there might be 3 sections to this:

• Leadership - Boots
• Boot - Players
• Players - Developers

I dont see the connection right now between Developers and Leadership except in funding and in anomalous cases such as full spectrum warrior or http://www.dodgamecommunity.com/ (the military branch responsible for creating or modifying computer games for training). I’m not sure that dev-leadership connection is there, and perhaps it should be so that games can provide more, different, insights. Not that I want MORE military influence over games, there are far too many military games and too much military funding into a specific kind of gaming technology which propogates FPS and single goal storyline graphically intensive action games…but that is another thing all together, read Ed Halter’s “From SunTzu to Xbox” for a great and very readable look at the connection between military, computer games, academics and industry. OK, that was a tangent.

Let me start then with if there is a fundamental divide in the
desires of the commanders and the perceptions of the “Trigger Pullers”
- if the boots on the ground were brought up with FPS, what does that
mean.

If the “steel on target” doesnt see the target as anything
but an immediate ends rather than a means to a larger thing, does this
come from, or lead to, a larger problem with the discrepancy between reality and desire on the part of leadership?

Posted on Sep 18, 2007 in Thesis | No Comments »

One of the obstacles I’ve been repeatedly hitting up against in my
coming to terms with this topic is that I may be dealing with apples
and oranges here.

I constantly find myself reading that the
“military” desires a certain type of operation in COIN, but in games,
we often deal with single person military “grunts” - i.e. not the
leaders and planners which the field manuals address. So, when I look
at the discrepency between the two, how do I reconcile this difference,
do I need to at all, and will it still be a useful paper.

I had
a great long post on this that Windows Vista managed to kill (I;ve been
fighting it the whole time Ive had it) and will only re-produce a small
portion here probably.

OK, FM3-24 (as is the trend right now):

This
field manual/Marine Corps warfighting publication establishes doctrine
(fundamental principles) for military operations in a counterinsurgency
(COIN) environment….
and
The primary audience for this manual is leaders and planners at the battalion level and above.(FM3-24, preface)

So,
what I’m looking at from the military side is the attempt to establish
best practices for the overarching operation (big picture). On the
other hand, games tend to look at the jobs (missions) prescribed to a
single person or team which is commanded by “the player” (i.e. the
small picture).

It is to be expected that the mission level (if
I have the scale of mission and operation the right way round - mission
here is small, single goal where operation would be a campaign,
multiple missions, with the end goal of stability) of action would
shroud a certain amount of the planning that FM3-24 discusses and in a
game this is even more so, as in the entire length of an FPS there is
maybe room for 50 minutes (roughly 2% of a game play time) of 
dedicated story line or plot (often delivered in a cut scene) according
to James Portnow of Activision
(http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7153&Itemid=2).
50 minutes spread out over 40 hours of play time is not a lot in order
to get across all the complexities of COIN political action.

So,
I am looking at two different levels of action here - the desires of
the military at the planning level, and the actions of a person wanting
to shoot stuff and get an adrenaline fix on the other.

The best
way to look at this, in my mind, is to take it to a slightly more
abstracted level on the side of the games - by looking at the genre
rather than specific games.
This is probably obvious when you think
about it, of course I’m looking at the genre, but then I’m a little
slow at times and this is my thought process

The problem then becomes not that individual games portray COIN ops as shoot to kill, only shoot, always shoot, but rather that the
majority of FPS portray a system where COIN has a primarily military
solution and that military action is a solution in itself.

Let me come back to an earlier post on
“insights” which are provided by games (I will expand on the notion of
“insights” later on) - Most of us (again, “us” refers primarily to
north america and europe in all my posts) get our insights into
military COIN ops from 2 sources, unless we are related to or know
someone in the military, which I would assume is not most people. These
2 sources are a) the (TV) media (FOX, CNN, BBC etc.) with their
“embedded” news media which has been invented in the last few years and
being the sole provider of “from the field” coverage which would be too
difficult for most to access for travel reasons. And b) computer games.

Let me go into that “b) computer games” part because, well, that’s why I’m here.

Computer games, since their inception have strived for greater
immersion, reality, graphical representation - something
theatre/movie/story people call the suspension of disbelief (I have to
give credit to Rick for introducing this theory to me with the
creative, if childish, use of a teddy bear). The end goal of all the
R&D money being poured into gaming technology is to come up with
hardware, software engines and story lines which allow people to
believe they are running actual military style missions. Games are
marketed as “designed with general x” or “modeled on real historical
battles” or “relive the storming of x”. Gamers are told, and have
little reason to believe otherwise, that games are made and modeled on
real events with real military experts to lend credability to these
statements. when they are then confronted with a realistic looking
enemy, responsive and immersive gaming systems and allow them to
suspend their disbelief, then gaming and the action involved in it
becomes a legitimate (in the players’ mind) source of “insights” into
war/COIN.

Again, however, all insights are inherently limited and without other
sources of insights, peoples’ “knowledge” of a topic can become
slanted. Let me draw analogies from TV shows.

CSI, the popular crime drama, has led several police forces to comment
that it is making their lives more difficult - people seem to believe
now that all police forces have extremely advanced machines, always
find a hair, blood stain, rare fibre or other tiny insignificant piece
of material evidence, run it through said expensive equipment, look at
eachother with surprised faces and then get a confession out of someone
previously thought innocent - all in the space of a 1 hour eppisode. In
other words the limited “insights” provided by CSI have slanted public
opinion on crime fighting because they havnt been balanced out by
people’s first hand experience with the boring, tedious and long
process which it actually is - and why would they, it’s boring.

24 - again, a popular TV drama, this time involving someone
interrogating (torturing) a witness at the last minute before all hell
breaks lose and in order to stop it breaking lose, then it is ok, or
even necessary to “cap someone in the knee” to get useful information -
which they always do. Someone high up at West Point (it;s somewhere on
the Small Wars Journal if
you want to read about who, I am reproducing this from a 2nd hand
source, so go find it yourself before you re-quote a re-quote that
might be wrong) had such a problem with new recruits having such a
slanted opinion of interrogation from the limited insights provided by
24 (that is gets useful results in a short period of time and is always the only answer to solving the impending crisis
when in realitiy it usually backfires, you get bad information, it
takes a long time, and only creates more enemies, especially when it is
inevitably leaked to the media) that he actually flew to hollywood to
ask the producers to stop or make a show where it does backfire - i.e.
to provide a different set of insights.

So, what I need to do is to identify the insights provided by the genre
of FPS games, how to they match the reality that the military is trying
to produce and how much stronger are these insights than those created
by news media, soldier accounts, independent reports etc.

Once I do that, then I can relate the two together, look at how the
gaming industry treats the insights it might provide, why non-military
sides of COIN were deemed “un-fun” and maybe, how to get them into
games to provide a more rounded set of insights.

So, Thought o’ the day:

By aggregating FPS games and their “insights” into a genre, I can
see where the discrepancies between the insights provided by FPS meet
or diverge from those desired. Then, by adding in an industry point of
view, I can see where these insights were left out and where they can
perhaps be added back in - but that might be for another paper.

Posted on Sep 18, 2007 in Thesis, Thought o' the day | No Comments »

OK, reading through FM3-24 (that counter insurgency field manual) there are a couple of things that hit me straight away about the discrepancies between pop-gaming and desired reality. Most significant of them is the discussion of the need for coordination between military and non-military entities.

This is perhaps the most glaring difference I can think of right now between the depiction of the undertaking of counterinsurgency (COIN).

In a broad, grotesque generalization of both military and gaming COIN I’m going to say that FPS focus on creating the hero “army of one” image where you single handedly (tactically and very skillfully) blast (point and click with auto-target) your way to victory. On the other hand, FM3-24 states that:

As important as they are in achieving security, military actions by themselves cannot achieve success in COIN…Essential  though  it  is,  the  military  action  is secondary  to  the  political  one… (sections 1-29 and 2-1)

And the document goes so far as to explicitly state that Focus[ing] special forces primarily on raiding (section 1-29) is and “Unsuccessful Practice” - yet that’s what’s most “fun” in an FPS: The adrenaline pumping raid on an enemy stronghold.

I cannot think of a mainstream FPS that deals with COIN which included anything to do with coordinating with NGOs, politicians, community organizations or other non-military entities except to escort, assassinate, interrogate, or provide civilian shields for terrorist in missions where the primary goal is to “kill the bad guys”

Obviously, as a military game the player has to be engaged in action (that is why they bought it) and the action should be military in nature (i.e. killing or defending against (by killing) bad guys) because it is a military based game. Driving down a road in front of an aid convoy and keeping a starving populace shouting at you in a language you don’t understand in order without shooting would be a hard sell in an action game.

So, quick thought o’ the day:

Is there a medium somewhere, where you can get this coordination idea across in a meaningful way without glorifying the go-it-alone rambo/delta force military only, military always underpinning?

Posted on Sep 14, 2007 in Thesis, Thought o' the day | No Comments »

After a discussion with my adviser (Rex Brynen), the topic for my thesis, or at least the details, have changed rather dramatically.

The previous plan -
 Now seems like a rather (very) haphazard plan to look through some literature, and analyze computer games and “the stories they tell” from a socio-political perspective and then apply that to how it might translate into public opinion on how development policy and programmes are implimented on the ground.

The new plan -
 Evaluate the division (in the U.S.) between the popular culture portrayal of counter insurgency (COIN) in first person shooter (FPS) games and the reality which the army and marine corps are trying to teach to new recruits through an analysis of FM3-24 and other military documents for field training and COIN operations.
 Then apply this to modern policy decisions (public, military, legal), the potential impact it has on perspectives of US interventions in mass media (i.e. non-game popular culture) both domestically and internationally, and the impact on potential recruits and soldiers who grew up with a certain view of what COIN is like only to be re-trained in something completely different.

Resources available -
 The Small Wars Journal - “Small Wars Journal facilitates and supports the exchange of information
among practitioners, thought leaders, and students of Small Wars, in
order to advance knowledge and capabilities in the field.” - Blog, analysis, articles and a forum which seems to attract a large number of very intelligent/knowledgeable COIN people who might be interested in helping add a touch more reality to my analysis (me being a tree hugging liberal pacifist and all).

 FM3-24 - “With our Soldiers and Marines fighting insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is
essential that we give them a manual that provides principles and guidelines for counterinsurgency operations. Such guidance must be grounded in historical studies. However, it also must be informed by contemporary experiences.”
  - Completed at the end of 2006, this new field manual attempts to address the new needs of a military fighting a different kind of war. This is what the army/marine corp WANTS counter insurgency training to look like.

 Undecided computer games - FPS are easily the most popular, purchased and played games around today. They have massive budgets and massive-er returns. Many involve both single player and multi-player components. I will attempt to look at both the most popular (by sales, reviews) and the most relevant from a training perspective (i.e. America’s Army, Special Ops I and II, Full Spectrum Warrior (FSW): Military and COTS versions).

 Developers - With any luck, locally based game developers (current wish list: EA Montreal’s Chris Ferriera, lead designer of “Army of Two”). “Games” by their very nature have to be fun, otherwise they wouldn’t be bought, played or developed. FSW:M has a rediculously low life expectancy of something like 30 seconds vs the FSW:COTS version because it was designed as a military trainer. What choices do developers add in, leave out, why and why can’t they make them a new challenge. Why is dialog cut and dry (very little ambiguity in translation/interpretation, on local “flavour” thrown in for “authenticity”) and why dont we see more non-verbal cues (darting eyes, tell tale signs etc)

By looking at the basic ideological underpinnings of these games - what triggers what kind of response, what actions are available to the player (torture, war crimes, negotiations, interactions etc) and the outcomes those cause, end goals, character portrayal, cut scene story line, basic political tenants etc. - we can begin to see (perhaps) a difference between what the military WANTS and what people EXPECT.
To bring this back to the development thesis is is supposed to be, a look at how games create expectations during the formative years of a person’s life (majority of players are in the x-y age group, who may or may not have opinions set yet on politics and war), how players may be getting specific (and limited) “insights” from these games while not getting other specific and limited insights from other more overtly analytical and in-depth sources (i.e. newspapers, TV, radio, field)

ok, on to reading a 260 page field manual and 1000’s of posts and articles on SWJ and other military stuff before I get to playing games.

Posted on Sep 14, 2007 in Thesis | No Comments »

Reading “A Brief Biography of Computer Games” by Lowood and he quotes Sutton-Smith 1986 as saying:

Of all the toys that are machines and that work by themselves and can be enjoyed in solitude for endless periods of time, the apotheosis is undoubtedly today’s video game. The “video game” is an automaton that might have made Descartes shout with delight. (pp. 61-62)

Now, I must admit an ignorance of Descartes’ “automaton” but the idea of video games being the apotheosis of “machines that can be enjoyed in solitude” is a bit odd.

One thing that games, these days especially, are not is something solitary. Every gaming experience, whether online or offline is a shared experience simply by the fact that players have a common experience. Common reference points, cultural outgrowths, “insights” into the topic at hand, etc are all things which “solitary” players share.

yeah, ran out of thought there…I know there was a great example I thought of a couple days ago that summed it all up, but can’t remember it now….

Posted on Sep 13, 2007 in Brain Farts, Thesis | No Comments »

I love being back at a library that actually has books…most of the time.

I went looking for a book by Ian Bogost on Persuasive Games (which wasnt there and I still need to track down) and found a whole shelf of good books to read.

Resisting the urge to grab all of them and greedily check them out to the shagrin of all others, I took only two. Having sunk my teeth into actual academic published literature on my topic of choice, all I can say is “yay!” other people to plagiarize borrow theories and legitimized quotations from.

I’ve been struggling with exactly how this text will look - content analysis of games, a review of the literature, my usual flow of consciousness type writing, or something completely different.

Sitting down with the intro to “Playing Video Games: Motives, Responses, and Consequences” gives me plenty of places to draw from and I thank the editors greatly.

Interesting discussion on Affective Disposition Theory (p. 4) which apparently involves us deciding if the character we are watching/playing is good or bad and then wishing either positive or negative outcomes (respectively) for them

Now, in a traditional game where you play the (good) protagonist of the story within the social context it is intended, this creates a fairly non-surprising outcome: Master-Chief saving the world from the Covenant; US soldiers defending against insurgents in America’s Army; The mayor of your SimCity - we all (mostly, generally) want them to “win” (a positive outcome).
But what happens when we are asked to play the reverse roll of a socially defined good/bad dichotomy. In cinema or literature, this is not so confusing because if we are watching/reading from the “bad guy’s” side, then we can still wish upon them negative outcomes and the main character of the film should just die/get caught/be hurt/embarrassed/poor/worse off in the end. But, when we are the “bad” guy within our social context (Night of Bush Capture, Super Columbine Massacre RPG, Bully, parts of GTA etc.) the player might become conflicted - they, by this theory, would wish negative outcomes on the character they are playing for being bad, but at the same time, positive outcomes for themselves (there’s a little thing called “winning”).

In this situation, where a player is asked to, in some ways, morally compromise themselves in order to “win” what happens - is this something teaching a player to believe that killing Bush is a good thing (if they didnt already believe that) or that killing/beating up other kids in school wins you a prize? not really.

As Greg Costikyan over at Manifesto Games points out in his defense of Super Columbine Massacre:

But the insight Super Columbine Massacre provides about its
subject matter derives precisely from the fact that the player is
forced to take the roles of the pepetrators. The player is exposed to
their world: the music, the games, the heedless cruelty of high school
life, the thoughts and words of Harris and Klebold themselves. Few
people of intelligence and sensitivity emerge unscarred from the
relentless anti-intellectualism and the cruel cliques of the American
high school, and while most of us are not driven to murder (rather more
to suicide), this game does a good job of evoking the thoughts and
emotions of Harris and Klebold–without glamorizing or exculpating them.

What he is saying, in essence and in my opinion, is that by forcing people into a situation where they are uncomfortable, and are forced to make choices based on stepping outside of their accepted social context gives people a wider view on world events, something more in depth and prepares them better to accept or reject those computer-mediated events when they happen in the real world.

I am not claiming this is a good or bad thing, just that perhaps it is a thing. Again pulling from Costikyan:

And a game such as Super Columbine Massacre can lend insight
into the events of that terrible day that newspaper reports, or somber
and thougthful essays, cannot. Not necessarily better insights–but
different ones–precisely because it makes you complicit in recreating
the events.

Now, coming to where this fits into development; SimCity, America’s Army, Night of Bush Capture, Counter Strike, and even (perhaps especially) Disney’s Cinderella: Dollhouse 2 all allow the player to “play a game” (experience a set of events) from a certain moral perspective which, according to their Affective Disposition, is seen as deserving of a positive or negative outcome. Regardless of their disposition however, the game will tend to direct them towards certain acts and away from others and in doing so, expand the players’ insights into that set of events.

Now, because the majority of games being sold (27.1%) and favoured (57.5%) are action and shooter games, respectively (ESA stats for 2004 I believe), are we disproportionately giving players more “insights” into solving problems through war rather than diplomacy? Is the fact that the easiest way to win even Civilization 257:Total Universal Domination (not yet a real game, but we will get to #257 eventually) is to build schools and universities to educate your population so that you have tons of science research to pour into military advances to crush your opponent - rather than convincing everyone to vote you to being the Sec. General of the UN or whatever the “political victory” condition is - giving players more “insights” into the “best/easiest” way to solve international cleavages (i.e. through military research and deployment and that education is only a means to this military end). Is Disney insighting (oh, look at the clever word game!) children the world over to demand a materialistic capitalistic imperialist world order through asking mommy and daddy to open their wallets and buy them a castle dollhouse and accessories?

So, Thoughts o’ the moment:

Library good.
And

But while we might not be ready for games that have something to say,
the games themselves are talking, and sometimes it’s worth listening. (Elanor Lang, Kill Pixels, Not People @ WorldChanging.com)

Posted on Sep 13, 2007 in Thesis | 1 Comment »

Reading through this suggested text by one of my profs, who called it “a very readable text” makes me realize, perhaps I can’t read, or perhaps my prof really is a genius because it’s anything but “easy.”

But that aside, I want to focus on a couple of thoughts/quotes:

The author’s name is not a function of a man’s civil status, nor is it fictional; it is situated in the breach, among the discontinuities, which give rise to new groups of discourse and their singular mode of existence. (p 123, language, counter-memory, practice)

According to Saint Jerome, there are four criteria [for attributing a work to 1 author]…the author is defined as a standard level of quality…the author is defined as a certain field of conceptual or theoretical coherence…the author is seen as a stylistic uniformity…the author is thus a definite historical figure in which a series of events converge. (ibid. 128)

So, if we are talking about a computer game, who is the author? The lead designer, the script writer, the programmers, the studio?

The lead designer is responsible for quality control, the studio usually gets its name associated with the body of work it has created (except, for example “Sid Meier’s…” games where the game is given credit because of the author of it. this being the later stages of the creation of an “author”), there is no one historical entity which exists in a set period of time, the games industry is still too young to see how long game houses will exist, but they will definitely outlive their staff and many designers, studios etc change genres, and styles - at least the big ones do.

Then there is the question if if games even have authors - do they create a discourse or are they more in line with what foucault says about people who originate scientific disciplines.

So, thought o the day, because my brain is too tired to tackle the problem of if games have authors or not when, as interesting as it is, it is really rather minor to the task at hand:

Assuming games have an “author” who is that author, and what discourse are they creating - amongst which discontinuities do they exist and what discourse can we say they create or encourage?
There has been significant discourse around violence (GTA, FPS etc), the role of face to face interaction in society (second life, WoW, Facebook et al.) but is that the continuation of an existing discourse, or can we see the authors of games creating it?

Perhaps this whole trip through the looking glass has been in vein, and perhpas Dorfman’s quote from Reading Donald Duck is more appropriate:

The father must be absent, and without direct jurisdiction, just as the child is without direct obligations.
p 31

The “author” (father) must be absent from their game and has no say on how people play or what they learn, while the player (child) has increasingly less obligation to play the game as intended (”emergent gameplay”) and can take from it what they wish.

Posted on Sep 12, 2007 in Thesis, Thought o' the day | No Comments »

“Apart from his stock exchange rating, Disney has been exalted as the inviolable common cultural heritage of contemporary man…and amidst so much sweetness and light, the registered trade mark becomes invisible.”

How to read Donald Duck, p 28

that’s all

Posted on Sep 12, 2007 in Thesis | No Comments »

In the name of research for my thesis, and at great personal risk to my sense of security and privacy (the NSA, HS, FBI, CIA and a guy named Bob are now no doubt watching my every online activity) I got my hands on a copy of “Night of Bush Capture” released by the Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF) - who I need to find out more about - and played through the first 30 seconds of the game.

From reading other “reviews” of the game, my general understanding is that you have to find and kill George Bush, Tony Blair, and various other decadent western evil types.

For my interests, however, I’m more interested in the language used, representation of the enemy other, game mechanics and in game graphics.

My favorite two notables of my 30 seconds of gameplay are the replacement of “Loading” with “Jihad Beginning” and the fact that US soldiers take only 1 shot to kill.

two possible mesages intended by these: jihad, much like the game, required the player to kill in order to win, that killing is the only way to win and that anyone who gets in your way will try to kill you unless you kill them first. A fairly simple message, standard accross most games in this genre where choices are limited to shoot now or shoot later.
the second message which is more subtle is that us soldiers are not as strong as you, the jihadist. Now, I am in no way claiming that anyone would be naive enough to think that they could take multiple shots without any noticable effects where as us soldiers will die at a single shot in the leg, but it gives the overall impression that jihad is easy, the jihadist is superior not only in cause but also in physical ability and that enemies will simply roll over infront of you.

I do not subscribe to the camp that says “violence is caused by video games” nor do I believe that the “it’s just a game, let it be” camp is facing reality. Games plant ideas, in the same way stories have for millenia. By looking at the stories games people play tell we can perhaps begin to understand a part of the prevailing mentality, atmosphere and attitudes of different sides of similar conflicts.

dont know why this was here, or why or when i forgot to hit publish, but here it is in its possibly unfinished form

Powered by ScribeFire.

Posted on Sep 12, 2007 in Accademic Ramblings, Thesis | No Comments »

One of my professors came through with some help I never expected, and as always from an angle completely unexpected.

Pulling old notes from a “Sexual Ethics” class (one of the more interesting classes I ever took I must add) has led me down the path I spoke about yesterday - that In
order to legitimate itself, the law first produces then conceals the
production of its subjects.
And then this got extended by Foucault’s “What is an Author”  (which I still have to read) but as this prof notes it is:
about the creation, and subsequent hiding, of the modern
author. This might be of interest to you as games have authors. And games,
maybe even more so than novels, need to hide their authors.

One of the things I have been struggling to put into words in my own head is the way in which games are stories written by a biased (perhaps interested is a better word?) author/developer and that story is then passed off as just a game, completely harmless, completely safe for consumption (minus the blood, guts and ass of course) by all ages - much like disney or sesame street.

The interesting thing about games however, much like Brynen and others point out in their analysis of TV and movies, is that they tend to reflect, and push the boundaries of, existing global socio-political events.

Posted on Sep 9, 2007 in Thesis, Thought o' the day | No Comments »

Started reading “How to read Donald Duck” today, and something Kunzle said in the introduction jogged the brain a bit and brought together a few different thoughts:

If we are talking about games and development, then we cant look only at the cultural imperialism which is imposed (in terms of both morals and values they hold and the viewpoint/bias they hold counter strike vs. night of bush capture) bus also the fact that these values are then hidden as “natural” within the current world system.
We cannot deny that we live in a world which by in large is “run” by a capitalist system built upon a generally Christian/Western morality base. When this coincides with the content and storyline of a computer game, then it is seen as acceptable (i.e. counter strike) otherwise, it is shunned as a propaganda tool made by extremists (i.e. night of bush capture).

Judith Butler (I think it was her) wrote about how systems (specifically the “male” in the gender system) create a power hierarchy, legitimize it and then hide the creation of it to make it seem natural…or something like that - I’m trying to track down the exact argument to see if it applies.
But, if it is the argument I think it is, then we can see how that could fit into the system of cultural imperialism in gaming quite closely - the “it’s just a game” and the western-centric view of acceptable content come together to create a system where we play “a game” and dont question where that content came from, the bias it may represent, or the impact it may be having on a population’s collective psyche.

So, thought o’ the day:

Do computer games present themselves as naturally “just a game” when in fact they are an outgrowth of a military-industrial-academic-entertainment complex (Ed Halter and others) imposing a western system of what is right, wrong and indecent upon the rest of the world?

Does this then play into the legitimization of certain actions by western governments - such as the war on terror (counter strike is good, NoBC is bad - attacking islam is good, attacking bush is bad?) or perhaps the distribution of foreign aid based on the rules of games like Civilization or Sim City.

Posted on Sep 8, 2007 in Thought o' the day | No Comments »

It has been a while since I posted, but I have been in the “real world” for the past few months.

Traveling through S.E. Asia and East Asia really brings home how connected the world is and how pervasive some technologies are. From net shacks in Burma to all night internet palaces in Tokyo, firewalls in China to mass gaming in South Korea, the world is going in search of itself.

Now as much as, or more than, ever, I firmly believe that we are going to see online communities emerging to challenge mainstream understandings of what nations, states, communities and societies are. People seek out not only the fun of the internet, but the unknown, the new, the exciting and that has potential to out-do and overcome any obstacles governments or organizations may put in their way.

It’s an exciting time to live in two worlds.

This blog will now become a daily (hopefully) dump of research notes, ideas and random stuff relating to my thesis. Lets see if I can’t get this top notch.

Posted on Aug 31, 2007 in Brain Farts | No Comments »

It has been a little while since my last update, but I have been traveling for a while. (This post comes to you courtesy of the town of Savanaket, Laos)

One thing that has struck me in every country I have been to in the last few months (Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos and Myanmar) is that you can be in any city, even in the middle of one of the most arbitrary and repressive countries or one of the poorest countries in the world and there will be a shack, complete with refrigerated energy drinks, networked computers and perhaps only a single dial-up modem and a bevy of kids playing Warcraft.

In Myanmar (Burma) you can’t check your email and I know most people can’t read or speak English (they have a different alphabet/script and the English education is rather lacking), but there are kids playing hacked (probably) versions of some of the most popular online and network games around.

This is why games are so important, in my humble opinion, to future politics: They are fun and people will actively seek out ways to get to them and play them. People don’t usually go out of their way to watch the news, or read papers and magazines because they aren’t often as fun as some might think. At the same time, movies in many countries aren’t as common as they are in the US, only a small handful will end up in the cinemas in poorer countries and most will never be translated…they are a fleeting engagement with “the west”.

So we have a situation where what is fun and enduring which at the same time has the power to transfer political, cultural and social ideas across boundaries, be they physical, political, economic or otherwise, are games…and they truly are everywhere.

Granted they tend to reach only a small portion of the population, but those who can afford the time and or the money are often the ones with a certain position, degree of influence or sway in their countries which makes the equation even more interesting. At the same time though, I have seen kids who are very definitely not well off “pwning” with the best of them at the same net game cafes.

Just an interesting thing that caught my eye.

Posted on Jun 18, 2007 in Brain Farts | No Comments »

OK, so this may seem way way off topic (and it is a bit) but my other area of interest is Development Studies in South Asia (I officially study socio-political development and underdevelopment in rural India).

One of the many areas which fascinate me about India is the ‘phenomenon’ of Communalism. To simplify - the antagonism and polarization of various communities along perceived identity lines, often resulting in violence and often identified with religious and/or ethnic groups.

It’s just really interesting stuff, particularly the creation of these groups and antagonisms.

I’m posting this here because it is interesting, in my mind, to compare the real world politics of ethnic outbidding and communal violence with emergent game play, guild politics and game system design. How long will it be before the role-play of antagonism between guilds takes on more of a Communal dimension. If Spillover to physical spaces happens in economics and individual cases, will we see the political/communal spill over in group/guild cases at some point?

What lessons are there to be learned from the physical world? Is it the responsibility of game companies to watch for tell tale signs or is it “just a game” with a game company who is just out to make money for its stock holders?

The paper feels more like an extended introduction than a full argument, and it might be used as that in a later paper, but here it is in it’s current form:

Communalism: British Creation, Indian Perpetuation

Posted on Apr 26, 2007 in Accademic Ramblings | No Comments »

So, interesting chat with the Graduate adviser here at NUS. Seems I would have “little trouble” being accepted to the Communications and New Media graduate programme here if I applied. I’d get to write on virtual world politics and community management, get paid (not much) and get credit for it and more importantly, I’d get to focus on it rather than my other love (Indian socio-political development) which I have spent the last 5 years or so on.

The Singapore gov’t is throwing money at research into New Media here too, so lots of funding for weird and wonderful projects, equipment and labs to be had.

But then, if I do this it means a hold on the motorcycle-across-the-world plans and the paying-of-the-student-debt necessity which are getting rather urgent.

Ah choices choices, I do hate making them for myself.

Posted on Apr 1, 2007 in Accademic Ramblings, Brain Farts | No Comments »

This little Brain Fart was a midterm I wrote for a class. Great class, but limiting us to 600 words for a paper is killer.

Most of what I say in it is nothing new, in fact, I don’t think there is anything really new in there at all. But here it is, in all it’s “I need this to transfer credit” glory.

Soviet Invaders: Space Invaders, it’s not just a game

Posted on Mar 25, 2007 in Brain Farts | No Comments »

A paragraph in a recent post on Terra Nova caught my attention

All of this is to get us thinking about to what extent hardcore raiding guilds should be seen in a similar light. The essence of disciplined bodies is that they are malleable; they can be shaped to perform in lock-step (literally) under a command hierarchy.

Terra Nova: Discipline & Pwnage

Now, I’m not so much interested in the “Pwnage” part so much as the Discipline in Guilds part (I was always the one getting Pwnd anyway). What Thomas Malaby is essentially talking about is the power of a guild to grind a certain type of action and reaction to certain situations into its members. In this context it’s about attacking mobs in the synthetic world, but what happens when this becomes about politics in the physical world.

In my mind, it is only a matter of time before Single-Server technologies bring about the advent of mega-guilds who become politically salient real world movements based around what the Guild Leader, High Council or (frighteningly) Group-o’-14-Year-Olds-In-Charge decide is the right way to think for their Guild. As Guild creation, organization and membership moves towards increasingly complex modes of understanding, it is almost inevitable that in an effort to distinguish itself from other Guilds, one will emerge along physical world political lines (as we have already begun to see in Second Life) and others will follow suit, perhaps in an ethnic-politics-esque “outbidding war” (”My Guild is more _____ than yours”)

I wont write more now, as synthetic/physical political spillover is an area that I have way too many thoughts on that aren’t complete and which will eventually be put down on paper, perhaps as part of my masters thesis at some point in the distant future.

Posted on Feb 4, 2007 in Unfinished Thoughts | No Comments »

As a mod and community manager I’ve had to close down my share of threads. I very very rarely delete anything, but I’ve worked for people who are very trigger happy in this department. The trigger happy ones fall, generally, into two categories: “Kill it and pretend it never happened” and “Move it and try to pretend it never happened” but either way, the post, its discussion and any issues surrounding it disappear.

Those who delete threads will make the very valid claim that often the threads contain content which is inappropriate for the forum to which it is posted. But, there are degrees of inappropriateness and there is a wonderful thing called the edit button. Deletion in my eyes, is the easy way out of an unfortunate and undesirable situation that should be resolved through dialogue, not disappearances.

Now, this may seem trivial, but it’s core to my mentality of forum opperation - the Community Manager is not there to dictate what is and is not discussed. The Community Manager is there to set up a structure and environment in which people choose to discuss what the Forum Owner(s) intended. You could think of this as self-censorship if you want, but the main difference between that, and what I propose is that self-censorship is out of fear (of banning, deletion, insults, or other negative feedback responses) where as what I am talking about is positive norm creation.
I had a bit of a discussion on this point with some members of a forum I used to be the Community Manager for. Rather than reproduce the arguments here here, check out the thread there. (For those who don’t know, or can’t guess, I go by Twill)

Thread being discussed (Not for the easily offended)
Thread with my arguments

Posted on Jan 17, 2007 in Unfinished Thoughts | No Comments »

Imagine removing the most monotonous parts of a moderator’s job, freeing them to focus on what’s actually important - your community - while at the same time making information more easily accessible, organized and friendly. That is the aim of this brain fart. By combining, and improving upon, several existing technologies and techniques an AI Forum Mod (Lets call it ‘Bob’) could be created that would drastically improve access to information and forum organization as well as back end reporting to Devs, Community Managers, PR folk and all those other people who live on information.

I think it’s a good idea, but then, I think most of my ideas are good…at least until someone comes along and points out the problems

Paper upload to come.

Posted on Dec 12, 2006 in Brain Farts | No Comments »

This is a paper I wrote for a course on Information Societies. While it wasnt AS related to the course as it could have been it is an interesting thought to design virtual worlds specifically to test certain theories that governments use on a daily basis without actually knowing what the outcomes might be. A few people have attempted to create such worlds, but none on a scale which would provide the kind of results which would be useful. For that to happen, the world would have to be a game, marketed as such and designed in a way which the main reason people participate is because they want to be there, not because they care about the outcomes.

Lets face it, commercial endeavours are much better at getting mass particiaption than research projects - even if one is pay-to-play while the other might be pay-you-to-play .

Just another reason for academics and industry to collaborate.

EverLab

Posted on Nov 27, 2006 in Accademic Ramblings | No Comments »

A paper on outsourcing might seem a little odd here, but seeing as all community management, story writing and game mastering could potentially be outsourced to India (or another country) understanding the social impacts of the industry are vital to understanding the politics and design implimentation of moving to an outsourced back-office.

After all, if we are looking at the politics and impacts of community formation in-game, we should look at the same in the out-game which surrounds it.

Download the paper 

Posted on Oct 22, 2006 in Accademic Ramblings | No Comments »

This was more of a brain fart than an anything meaningful, but here it is anyway.

This serves as a starting point for why games might be important when thinking about Development Policies at a governmental level. I am not implying that games directly impact politicians, but rather public opinion can be shaped and changed through the portrayal of events, theories and skills which players are otherwise unfamiliar with and are then faced with in the physical world.

Download the paper

Posted on Oct 4, 2006 in Accademic Ramblings | No Comments »

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