I Shot the Cyborg

Yes, usually I am writing about how no one in the videogame industry is sharing much. This time, however, I am happy to be writing about a new collaborative effort amongst one game company. Fitingly, its the same company that back in 2003 wrote about how much they benefited from a similar sharing opportunity. The following is a quote from the original Gamedeveloper Magazine Postmortem for Ratchet and Clank:

Sharing technology with Naughty Dog. … Naughty Dog didn’t want anything from us other than a gentlemen’s agreement to share with them any improvements we made to whatever we borrowed plus any of our own technology we felt like sharing. In an industry as competitive as ours, things like this just don’t happen. (Price 2003, pp. 55-56)

So perhaps a little “gentleman’s” head nod toward Naughty Dog in all of this as well. Personally, I’m ecstatic to see this kind of thing beginning to happen. Its about time really. In their own words:

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"The Industry", (co)production, intellectual property, videogames Collaboration, Development, Open Source, Sharing, videogames

Well, I’m supposed to be revising my dissertation, but now that the New York Times has blindly picked this up, I can’t really help myself. I first stumbled upon this article a while back on Joystiq.

Joystiq - Science Says: Men’s Brains get More ‘Reward’ from Gaming

The study, which looked at 11 men and 11 women, asked participants to play a simple territorial point-and-click game while hooked up to an fMRI machine. The men in the study showed much great activity in the brain’s “mesocorticolimbic center,” which is associated with reward and addiction. … Yeah, yeah … tell it to the Frag Dolls.

Yeah, and tell it to the ladies I coach hockey for. “You just can’t enjoy it on the same level as us boys.” Not a good idea. I love the fact that the NY Times doesn’t even manage to pick up on a fatal flaw in this study, which even Joystiq commenters notice: sample size. I INTERVIEWED more people in my dissertation research and my research is qualitative. They managed to examine only 22 people, 11 boys, and 11 girls, all, “young adults.” Not to mention that fMRI research is one of the most unproven areas of brain research.

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Oops...unintended consequences, demographics, gender, videogames demographics, Games, gender, Science, Stupid, videogames

One of scratch your head moments in my videogame theory class is when I go over demographics with my students. Yes, videogame demographics are sketchy, at best, as most of the studies are sponsored by very interested parties, but they still have use.

The big, no way, moment, aside from age, comes when we discuss gender. Students have a hard time accepting the 40% women gamer number, initially. Once they stop thinking of Halo or Madden and expand their definition of videogames to include online card games, casual games clarity sets in and the world is fine with female gamers.

So imagine my shock at the headline, “Men also avid players of casual video games: study shows.” While I knew women were well represented in casual games (think of Zuma as an exemplar), I had no idea that folks thought men were adverse to them. According to the article, “The reason men have not been reflected in the data so far is because most males are fans of realistic ‘hardcore’ games and many do not admit they like to play simpler games involving shiny gems or lines of colored balls.”

Wow, I had no idea my masculinity was in question because I enjoy a rousing game of Diner Dash (ok, bad example), but I am relieved to have it restored by this study which shows that women may purchase 3/4 of all casual games, but the play of them is evenly split 50/50 between the sexes.

So guys, no longer need you be ashamed of those casual games on your Xbox Live gamertag, you may wear ‘em proud, thanks to social science! And ladies, you apparently never needed to be embarrassed for playing Tetris Splash, so carry on!

[More: Reuters, Casual Game Association]

casual games, demographics, gender, social science, videogames casual games, demographics, gender, videogames

Apologies for my tardiness, but being that I coined the name for the blog, I figure I’m allowed
So, who am I? Well, I presently teach videogame (yes, one word) design and development classes for the Division of Film at the University of Utah, am pursuing a Ph.D. in Communication (again at the U), am an editor/writer for About.com on all things PlayStation, and split the rest of my time between commuting from my mountain hideout and groveling before Dr. Postigo.

I shot the cyborg, and missed. As penance I’ll be blogging on gaming and new media, as well as asking bizarre questions and harassing my comrades with snarky comments, I encourage you to do the same.

Oh yeah, name. Roger Altizer, Jr. or just Rahjur. You pick.

You can also antagonize me at:

• my PlayStation site
• my facebook page
• my myspace page

Uncategorized, videogames, who we are [partial render] graduate school, introduction;, new media, PlayStation, roger altizer, University of Utah, videogames