Re: [xmca] online games as tools for sociability

From: Wagner Schmit <mcfion who-is-at gmail.com>
Date: Sun Feb 03 2008 - 07:08:46 PST

I tried WoW only once... I still play a private Ultima Online server (with
custom map, custom items and etc) with a lot of roleplay... Don't like to
just kill monsters most of time...

A book i recomend is "Gamis as Culture" edited by J. Patrick Williams, Sean
Q. Hendricks and W. Keith Winkler.

About RPG i recomend the "Fantasy Role-playing game - a new performing art"
from Daniel Mackay... Fine's book is very good to have an idea of how RPG
was in it's origins, but for today it seens a little outdated to me... I
will take a look at this Edward =)

If you like we can talk about games, in portuguese, by skype (
wagner.luiz.schmit) or msn (mcfion@hotmail.com)

thanks

Wagner

On Feb 3, 2008 12:46 PM, Luiz Carlos Baptista <lucabaptista@fcsh.unl.pt>
wrote:

> Very interesting comments, Wagner. I tried Second Life for a while but I
> found it pretty boring. But I am totally hooked on World of Warcraft. It
> seems they stroke a perfect balance between user-friendliness and
> challenge.
> It's a kind of "flow" experience.
>
> This news from Brazil are weird, to say the least. Everquest banned??? As
> for
> Counter Strike, my son plays it and I find it mostly harmless. Unless they
> are going to blame not only all videogames that involve multiplayer
> tactical
> cooperation, but also any play activity that does the same.
>
> And tabletop roleplaying games are one of the sources of this whole gaming
> culture. Gary Alan Fine's "Shared Fantasy" is a wonderful book documenting
> the phenomenon in the early 80's.
>
> Regarding "game society", there is this guy, Edward Castronova, who is
> speculating about what may happen when people start spending more time
> in "synthetic worlds" than in "real life".
>
> Cheers,
> Luiz
>
> On Sun, 3 Feb 2008 10:56:39 -0200, Wagner Schmit wrote
> > I study games too, but right now i am more focused on table-top
> roleplaying
> > games... And i was away from the list quite some time too =/
> >
> > Two interesting facts... in the same week that i saw a new from Blizzad
> > saying that his online game world of warcraft reached 10 million
> subscribers
> >
> > (http://www.blizzard.com/press/080122.shtml), i saw some news about how
> > things are going down and fast on second life (banks closing, number
> > of subscribers going down, etc)...
> >
> > Well.. the game industry is getting bigger and bigger every day, now
> > it is already bigger tham hollywood... I hear some people saying
> > that we are entering some kind of "game society" era...
> >
> > It is interesting how games makes such a fuss in some places, here
> > in Brazil our goverment just banned two games: Counter Strike and
> > Everquest (the law here is very very slow, and the process for this
> > was opened on 2002, but this opens the way for other games to be
> > banned, and faster)... The alegations are that CS helps training
> > drug dealers and Everquest because it "brings the player to total
> > distortion and 'heavy' psychological conflicts because the tasks
> > that it receives in the game can be good or bad".
> >
> > wagner
> >
> > On Feb 2, 2008 8:08 PM, Luiz Carlos Baptista <lucabaptista@fcsh.unl.pt>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Rachel,
> > >
> > > Thank you very much. Play Between Worlds was already on my list, but I
> > > didn't
> > > know about Mia Consalvo's book.
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > >
> > > Luiz
> > >
> > > (btw, thanks to everyone who is helping me, xmca is such a great
> > > community)
> > >
> > > On Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:33:32 -0800, Rachel Cody wrote
> > > > Hi Luiz,
> > > >
> > > > I'd also recommend TL Taylor's work, /Play Between Worlds. /Mia
> > > > Consalvo recently published /Cheating: Gaming Advantages in
> > > > Videogames/ which was based on Final Fantasy XI.
> > > >
> > > > Rachel
> > > >
> > > > Luiz Carlos Baptista wrote:
> > > > > Thanks a lot! I had already downloaded all files from gamestudies
> and
> > > had
> > > > > bookmarked DiGRA, but I didn't know about GLS.
> > > > >
> > > > > Cheers,
> > > > >
> > > > > Luiz
> > > > >
> > > > > On Sat, 2 Feb 2008 08:51:28 -0800, Mark Chen wrote
> > > > >
> > > > >> Hi!
> > > > >>
> > > > >> In case you haven't already, take a look at Gamestudies.org.
> Some
> > > > >> good theoretical/phil writing there. There's also archives of
> talks
> > > > >> at DiGRA (Digital Games Research Association) and GLS (Games
> Learning
> > > > >> Society) you could delve into.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> mark
> > > > >>
> > > > >> On Feb 2, 2008 5:15 AM, Luiz Carlos Baptista
> > > > >> <lucabaptista@fcsh.unl.pt> wrote:
> > > > >>
> > > > >>> Thanks a lot. I already knew Constance's and Kurt's work, I'll
> check
> > > the
> > > > >>> european guys.
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> As regards data, I will draw on current and ongoing ethnographic
> and
> > > > >>> sociological approaches, as well as my own experience as gamer.
> My
> > > > >>>
> > > > > interest
> > > > >
> > > > >>> is philosophical rather than "empirical".
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> Best,
> > > > >>> Luiz
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>>
> > > > >> --
> > > > >> Mark Chen | PhD student | Games researcher/designer | Tech
> instructor
> > > > >> College of Education - Ed Tech | University of Washington -
> Seattle
> > > > >> My games research and life in academia blog: markdangerchen.net
> > > > >> _______________________________________________
> > > > >> xmca mailing list
> > > > >> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > > > >> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> > > > >>
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > **********
> > > > > "The brain is a wonderful thing. Everybody should have one."
> > > > >
> > > > > Luiz Carlos Baptista
> > > > >
> > > > > Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem
> > > > > Universidade Nova de Lisboa
> > > > > Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
> > > > > Avenida de Berna, 26-C
> > > > > 1069-061 Lisboa
> > > > > Portugal
> > > > >
> > > > > lucabaptista@fcsh.unl.pt
> > > > >
> > > > > _______________________________________________
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> > > > >
> > > >
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> > >
> > >
> > > **********
> > > "The brain is a wonderful thing. Everybody should have one."
> > >
> > > Luiz Carlos Baptista
> > >
> > > Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem
> > > Universidade Nova de Lisboa
> > > Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
> > > Avenida de Berna, 26-C
> > > 1069-061 Lisboa
> > > Portugal
> > >
> > > lucabaptista@fcsh.unl.pt
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > xmca mailing list
> > > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
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>
>
> **********
> "The brain is a wonderful thing. Everybody should have one."
>
> Luiz Carlos Baptista
>
> Instituto de Filosofia da Linguagem
> Universidade Nova de Lisboa
> Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
> Avenida de Berna, 26-C
> 1069-061 Lisboa
> Portugal
>
> lucabaptista@fcsh.unl.pt
>
> _______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>
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Received on Sun Feb 3 07:11 PST 2008

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