...all the rules change, The NYT has an article on the future of gaming. Programmers, developers, and producers are being persuaded to take the next step. Some say they are playing God. They might be right.
"Until now, artificial intelligence has usually meant that the human creates or perceives a model of how the computer makes decisions," Mr. Wright said. "But what if the computer is instead analyzing the player, and the program is customizing the experience based on the internal model it has created of the human?"
Its seems that some gamers have gone so far as to create a Manifesto. I find this all very encouraging. Not exactly Marx, but still encouraging, as far as games go.
Computers creating internal models of the player. A model, to some degree, based on competition and manipulation. I don't know how I feel about that. The gamer in me likes it. The paranoid neurotic in me who has read too many sci-fi books, uh, not so much. Games with personalties...Starts to sound like having pets to me. Whole thing has Blade Runner written all over it. We're not ready for computers with motive and emotion.
So I've been looking all over the place for big ideas. Gaming being a fetish of mine, I've been hunting the conventions for the Big names. Henry Jenkins keeps coming up a lot. There are interviews with him doing his high speak on media convergence and fan studies. Penny Arcade has him talking about media and violence, where he clarifies the video game causes violence issue.
This is a description of his job:
You spend hours consuming media, that is, videogames, films, comic books, etc. - media that people send you, seemingly for free. You study various forms of media and research the various effects and relationships they have on children, gender, and society in general. Your desk is littered with comic books, your bookshelves are bursting at the seams with videotapes, and you have a sweet couch and coffee table, upon which sits a Sega Nomad complete with the Sega 6-pack cart. You are the pioneer of “comparative media” and the last line of defense for the gaming community against the hordes of irrational, knee-jerk parents’ groups and anti-game zealots.
Okay, I want his job. Game Critic has an interview with him. Salon has the sad story of the Donahue ambush story.
So, yeah, I should have known better. I did know better, sorta. I did it anyway. And after the fact, the only person I could kick was myself. I was ambushed, and forgot how to fight back.
And here are samples of his essays published by MIT.
But he's not the only video game advocate, there is Eric Zimmerman who runs gamelab, here in NY, and Steve Johnson, author of Everything Bad for You is Good For You. (As I write this, John Stewart is interviewing him, ah serendipity).
