Game Studies

Contact

Course Overview

Required Materials

Expectations

• Weekly Written Responses. Each student will be expected to complete a number of short ~500-1000 word written assignments related to class materials, and designed to get you to think critically and creatively about what you're reading, watching, and playing. 30% of grade
• Final Project Proposal. Each student will be expected to submit a ~1,800-3,500 word (4-6 pg) project proposal (described further in week 10+ section). Example project areas may include (but in no way are limited to) an alternative input/output device, interactional paradigm, or interface design, a game or game prototype informed by theoretical work in game studies, a video about an aspect of game culture, a game design document, a photo or scultptural intervention. Due by the end of the day of the scheduled final exam (there will be a penalty for late work). 30% of grade
• Class Presentations. Two of our class meetings week 6 (Midterm) and week 10 (Final) will be set aside for student presentations and discussion of their project proposals. Each presentation will be ~5-8 minutes long and include prepared materials (conference-style, with slides and/or other media support). 30% of grade
• Class Participation. Students will be expected to actively participate in class discussions. 10% of grade



• NOTE: All written assignments will be posted to the Class Discussion Forum.

WEEK 1.5

• Course Overview

• "The Machine that Changed the World: The Paperback Computer," from The Machine that Changed the World, ACM & PBS, 1992.
• "Wiring the World," from Nerds 2.0.1: A Brief History of the Internet, Robert Cringely. PBS, 1998.

WEEK 2

• "Video Games: Behind the Fun," from Modern Marvels. The History Channel, 2000.
• "Gamers: Episode 1." K. Anna Kang. Fountainhead Entertainment, 2001.
• "Tennis for Two (1958)," from YouTube, 2007.
• "Baer and Harrison Play Ping-Pong," from YouTube, 2007.
• "Spacewar! (MIT 1962)," from YouTube, 2007.
• "Adventure (1972)," from YouTube, 2007.
• "Adventure Spoof," from YouTube, 2008.

• Pong Online Version, DFG Online Games.
• Spacewar! Online Version, Barry Silverman, Brian Silverman, Vadim Gerasimov.
• Spacewar! (Win Version), Martin Graetz, Stephen Russell, and Wayne Wiitanen (1962). Best to play with a partner. This version was programmed primarily by Peter Hirschberg (http://www.digisys.net/users/cogs/spacewar.htm) in C++ - here's the source code.
• Adventure (Win Version), William Crowther and Donald Woods (1976) (see http://www.rickadams.org/adventure/ for various ports, cheats, and distributions).

• If you're new to interactive fiction, check out Emily Short's introduction.

• "The Dot Eaters: Videogame History 101," William Hunter, 2000.
• "Pong-Story," David Winter, 1996-2008.
• "Spacewar: Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums," Stewart Brand, 1972.
• "The Origin of Spacewar," J. M. Graetz, 1981.
• "Pong," from Wikipedia.
• "Spacewar!," from Wikipedia.
• "Colossal Cave Adventure," from Wikipedia.

• "Colossal Cave Adventure Walkthrough."

• "Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop," from The Onion, 2009.
• "Sixsense TrueMotion: Videos," from Sixsense TrueMotion, 2009.
• "The Veldt," by Ray Bradbury, from The Illustrated Man, 1951.
• "Ender's Game," by Orson Scott Card, 1985, from Wikipedia.

WEEK 3

• MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) - Win Version | Mac Version. ROM files (will work x-platform, unzip and copy ROM files in 'roms' folder inside of MAME folder once expanded. NOTE: you do not need to expand the individual ROM files - ROMs can remain zip files once placed in the 'roms' folder) Original arcade console ROMs ported to run on Personal Computers.

• "Golden Age of Video Arcade Games," from Wikipedia.
• "Atari History Museum," Various Authors, yr.
• "History of Video Games," from Wikipedia.

• Artist Talk, Eddo Stern, EDA, UCLA, 2007.

WEEK 4

• Brody Condon: Parts 1-7, The Influencers, 2004.
• Jane McGonigal - Saving the World through Game Design, The New Yorker, 2008.

• "eddostern.com," by Eddo Stern, 1999-Current.
• "opensorcery.net," by Anne-Marie Schleiner, 1999-Current.
• "tmpspace.com," by Brody Condon, 1999-Current.
• "Avantgame: Game Design for the Real World," Jane McGonigal, 2001-2008.

• "The Anti-Bush Video Game," by J. Oda, 2004.
• "Raid Gaza," by raidgaza, 2009.

• "Raid Gaza and the problem with videogame satire," by Keith Stuart, from The Guardian, 2009.

WEEK 5

• Values at Play, Mary Flanagan and Helen Nissenbaum, 2008.
• New Interaction Rituals, Julian Bleeker, 2007.

• "Values at Playing: Games," VAP Research Group, 2007.
• "Layoff," VAP Research Group, 2009.

• "Images + Video," by Mary Flanagan, 2001 - Present.
• "Writing," by Mary Flanagan, 2001 - Present.
• "Giant Joystick," by Mary Flanagan, 2006.
• "Near Future Lab," Julian Bleeker, Nicolas Nova, et al, Ongoing.

• "Virtual Bounds," Kevin Ponto, 2005.
• "Tangled Reality," Kevin Ponto, 2006.
• "OutRun," Garnet Hertz, In Progress, 2009.

WEEK 6

WEEK 7

• Behind the Scenes DVD, Blizzard Entertainment, 2007.

• "Building an MMO With Mass Appeal," by Nicolas Ducheneaut (et al), from Games and Culture, special issue on World of Warcraft. Vol 1 No 4 (2006).

• "WoW Forums," from Blizzard Entertainment, 2005-Present.
• "Thottbot," 2005-Present.
• "Allakhazam," 2005-Present.
• "Wowhead," by Skosiris, Mystadio, Malgayne, and Miyari, 2006-Present.
• "World of Warcraft Armory," from Blizzard Entertainment, 2007-Present.
• "WowJutsu," from DirectMMO.com, 2007-Present.
• "Char Search," from WarcraftRealms.com, 2007-Present.

• "Map WoW," 2006-Present.
• "Map WoW Blog," 2006-Present.
• "Game Atlas," by wow.gamepressure.com, 2005-Present.
• "WoW Insider," 2005-Present.

• "World of Warcraft Accounts," from DirectMMO.com, 2009.
• "BlizzCon," from Blizzard Entertainment, 2005-Present.

• World of Warcraft, Robert Pardo, Allen Adham, et al, Blizzard (2004). We will use the 10-day free trial accounts. Play through at least level 5-10.

WEEK 8

• "Does WoW Change Everything?," by T. L. Taylor, from Games and Culture, special issue on World of Warcraft. Vol 1 No 4 (2006).

• "WTF?!," from aoedipus.net, by Robert Nideffer and Alex Szeto, 2008.
• "AddOns," from aoedipus.net, by Robert Nideffer and Alex Szeto, 2008.

• "'Warcraft' Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing 'Warcraft'," from The Onion, 2008.
• "World of Warcraft Machinima," from MACHINIMA.COM, Various Dates.
• "The Craft of War: BLIND," from percula, 2008.
• "The Guild," from The Guild, 2008-Present.

WEEK 9

• Alt-Ctrl: Rethinking Computer Games, Antoinette LaFarge, 2005.

• "Cracking the Maze: Game Plug-ins and Patches as Hacker Art," curated by Ann-Marie Schleiner, Online, 1998.
• "curators note," by Anne-Marie Schleiner, from Cracking the Maze: Game Plug-ins and Patches as Hacker Art, 1999.
• "Game Patch - the Son of Scratch?," by Erkki Huhtamo, from Cracking the Maze: Game Plug-ins and Patches as Hacker Art, 1999.
• "Deep Patch," by Laura Trippi, from Cracking the Maze: Game Plug-ins and Patches as Hacker Art, 1999.
• "Shift-Ctrl: Computers, Games, and Art," curated by Robert Nideffer and Antoinette LaFarge, Beall Center for Art & Technology, UC Irvine, October-November 2000.
• "Winside Out: An Introduction to the Convergence of Computers, Games, and Art," by Antoinette LaFarge, catalog essay from Shift-Ctrl: Computers, Games, and Art, 2000.
• "Shift-Ctrl: Mediating the Process of Academic Exhibitionism," by Robert Nideffer, catalog essay from Shift-Ctrl: Computers, Games, and Art, 2000.
• "Game On," (Wikipedia entry) curated by Conrad Bodman, Barbican, London, 2002 (Traveling).
• "Alt-Ctrl: Computers, Games, and Art," curated by Robert Nideffer and Antoinette LaFarge, Beall Center for Art & Technology, UC Irvine, October-November 2004.

• From Atari VCS to Nintendo Wii: Platform Studies as an Approach to Videogame Criticism and Design, Ian Bogost, DMA, UCLA, 2007.
• Projects > Wii, Johnny Chung Lee, CMU, 2008.

• Game Studies, 2001-2008.
• Games and Culture, 2006-2008.
• Gameology: Commentary and Resources for the Game Studies Community, Various Authors, Weblog.
• Terra Nova, Edward Castronova, Juloian Dibbel, Dan Hunter, Greg Lastowka, Weblog.
• Grand Text Auto, Mary Flanagan, Michael Mateas, Scott Retberg, Andrew Stern, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Weblog.
• Joystick101, Kurt Squire, et al, Weblog.

• "Game Studies Now, History of Science Then," by Henry Lowood, from Games and Culture, Sage Publications, Vol 1, No 1, January 2006.
• "A Moment in the Life of a Generation," by Frans Mayra, from Games and Culture, Sage Publications, Vol 1, No 1, January 2006.
• "A Ludicrous Discipline?," by Tom Boellstorff, from Games and Culture, Sage Publications, Vol 1, No 1, January 2006.
• "Why Game Studies Now?," by Dmitri Williams, from Games and Culture, Sage Publications, Vol 1, No 1, January 2006.

• Entertainment Technology Center, CMU, 1998.
• Institute for Creative Technologies, USC, 1999.
• Game Culture and Technology Lab, UCI, 1999 (SotA) & 2002 (Calit2).
• Experimental Game Lab, Georgia Tech, 2004.
• Experimental Game Lab, UCSD, 2004.
• Electronic Arts Game Innovation Lab, USC, 2007.

• MSc in IT: Media Technology and Games, IT University Copenhagen.
• Electronic Arts Interactive Entertainment Program, USC.
• Concentration in Game Culture and Technology Program, UCI.
• Major in Computer Game Design, UCSC.

WEEK 10+

12.11.09

MUST include:
• Title that reflects/captures the essence of the project, or is a clever play on it in some way.
• Hook the "elevator pitch" - a 1-2 sentence/short paragraph concept summary; ex: "WoW meets National Enquirer meets Das Kapital..."
• Conceptual Overview/Description where you explain in more detail what you want to do and why it's interesting.
• Technical Overview/Description where you explain in more detail about the materials and technologies needed to put it together.
• Images/Charts/Diagrams that illustrate and/or help explain your project and how it will be publicly presented and engaged.