The Ludologist – Page 53 – My name is Jesper Juul, and I am a Ludologist [researcher of the design, meaning, culture, and politics of games]. This is my blog on game research and other important things.

Speaking at MIT Monday the 27th

Monday I am speaking at Nick Montfort’s very nice Purple Blurb lecture series at MIT.

Jesper Juul on developing video games to develop video game theory

October 27, 6pm, 14N-233
Juul is a video game theorist and author of Half Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds (MIT Press, 2006). He is also a video game developer, and will discuss using lessons from developing online and casual games to inform work with video game theory (and vice versa). Juul is currently a lecturer in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies; he works at the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab.

Casual Players prefer Obama

My blog seems to be turning into a “games and US politics” affair. Here goes:

According to a study by NeoEdge, 59% of casual players surveyed prefer Obama, 32% McCain.

Now, I want to propose various explanations. Basically, I think there is something in the underlying structure of Hidden Object and Time Management games that are inherently tied to the values of Democrats.

Aren’t time management games the ludic expression of the welfare state, the Democrat idea of (the state as) the nurturing mother? An all-seeing eye that helps everybody?

OK, so I don’t quite believe that. It is more likely that casual players are mostly women, and Obama does well with women.

Sen. Barack Obama has widened his lead among casual game[r]s — an overwhelming majority of which are women — over Sen. John McCain following the third presidential debate on Wednesday, October 15. On October 16, the day following the debate, 59% of the respondents said they preferred Obama, while 32% preferred McCain. A week ago, the day after the second presidential debate (October 8), only 54% percent said they preferred Obama, and 36% said they preferred McCain. According to the poll, Obama now leads McCain by 17 points among this key demographic.

So here is a question: Is the reverse is true? Do “hardcore” game players lean towards McCain?

And what do we mean by “hardcore”? Mega Man? Level 60+ in World of Warcraft? Defender? Guitar Hero on Expert?

Sarah Palin Games

We can discuss why, but Sarah Palin is a popular choice for games this election season.

The Palin as President game (or game-like-thing) takes a grim view of things.

More lighthearted, here is the Palin Bingo game that I played with the locals at the vice presidential debate.

We shall know them by their games.

In-game Political Ads

Apparently the Obama campaign is placing ads in Burnout Paradise.

(From GigaOM.)

Obama in the game

Fascinating, but I also find the whole idea of in-game ads a little disturbing. Imagine playing Lumines with commercials – I could be made to buy anything.

Do you have good photos of Wii/Guitar Hero/Rock Band players?

I have been posting a bit slowly lately because I am finalizing my book on “casual games”, meaning downloadable casual games / Wii / Guitar Hero / Rock Band.

And I am looking for good photos of people playing these games!

If you have some that you would be happy to see in my book, please send me a line at:

j at jesperjuul dot net

Thanks!

Video Games make you better at Math

Brain Age

At least if you play Brain Age, according to a Scottish study.

The report describes how children who were instructed to play Brain Age for 30 minutes every day improved their math skills faster than children having normal class during that time.

Here’s the graph:

It’s the kind of result we want to hear, isn’t it?

The Sun used to always shine in Casual Games

For a while I have been saying that “The Sun Always Shines in Casual Games”: Casual games, especially the downloadable ones, have tended to be colorful and bright, with a weather that was always good, with themes that were always cheerful.

Righteous Kill breaks with that: It is a hidden object game, but this time your job is to find a serial killer.

About time – after all, we can find lots of dark themes, tragedy, and murders in mainstream entertainment as well as in the entertainment for the presumed female audience of casual games.

The game seems to be doing reasonably well, so perhaps we will be seeing more thematic variation in the future.

(There have been detective and mystery casual games before, but Righteous Kill is a lot darker than other games I have seen.)

Games to try to Hate. (What is the Pink Floyd of video games?)

The previous post discussed indie games as being the punk rock of video games. I chained this to the “I Hate Pink Floyd” t-shirt that Jonny Rotten apparently wore once. And I said that we should wear “I Hate World of Warcraft” t-shirts.

But really, what is the Pink Floyd of video games? What should the t-shirt say; what games should we hate?

I take it the late 1970’s objection to Pink Floyd was that they were rather pretentious, stodgy, had too big and expensive sets. I am a big fan but I see the point. So what is the Pink Floyd of video games?

The obvious line of attack is to go for the good big-budget titles on grounds of their big budgets and hardcore sensibilities:

I hate World of Warcraft: one game, incredibly expensive, you actually subscribe to it as not to have other games.
I hate Grand Theft Auto IV: Rehash of the formula, decent voice acting and story, huge budget, but same-old, same-old.

On the other hand, Pink Floyd was always in somewhat “good taste”, which would lead us to an attack on exactly the games considered to be good taste:

I hate Wii sports: Excellent game design, fun for the whole family, content that no one could possibly object to … but that is exactly the problem! Where is the edginess, where is the depth?
I hate Okami or Rez: Smooth and “wonderful” graphics, conventionally “edgy” but really … who cares about mythical sun goddesses or mainframe computers?

What is the Pink Floyd of video games? (You don’t have to really hate it, just bring out your inner punk!) What should the t-shirt say?