Tue 18 Oct 2005
In a town more focused on Spartan football, it was nice to discuss the future of digital games (and, ironically, football video games often came up as a point of discussion).
More of a boutique academic(+some industry) event, FuturePlay did a nice job of pulling together some notable speakers. Admittedly, I was expecting a bigger turn out than the sub-200 who showed, but I guess Lansign is not a major attraction for most developers (well, despite Mark LeBlanc’s obsession with the Apple Butter Festival also in town that week).
I came in mainly to speak on the big censorship panel, which was really exciting and insightful. It was one of the few times when, at a game conference, you actually have speakers from “the other side” there to bash games. I could see attendees boiling in their seats. It was a 2-hour session that others have already commented on: see the notes from litagemini and Gregg Seelhoff.
The conference folks have kindly put up some videos from the censorship, and other key panels.
I also participated on panels covering quality of life issues and academic/industry research collaboration.
Anyway, was a fun event that I am sure will get even better over time.
Here are a few pics I took:
EA’s John Buchanan talks about stories and games, essentially drudging up the whole ludogoly vs. narratology debate…
Ernest Adams apparently quite pleased to be in between two women (Brenda Brathwaite and Kelly Rued) talking about sex. Ya, ya, cheap shot. It was the panel on sex and gender.
Jay Semard (Red Leader Audio) and Brian Winn (Michigan State University) on the streets of Lansing.
Kathy Schoback (Ageai) in animated discussion with Trevor Fencott (Groove Games).
Jim Gee at play. As he says, a benefit of being tenured is that he can play a LOT of games!
Ernest Adams and Bary Pollack (Sierra Nevada College) enjoy one of the student game projects from the mini-festival.
Contagion was cool student project from York.
Henry Jenkins (MIT) “attacks” Craig Anderson (Iowa State University) during the post censorship panel dinner.
Guillaume Provost (Pseudo), Trevor Fencott (Groove Games) and Greg Costikyan (Manifesto Games) chat during the GarageGames indie developer reception.
October 18th, 2005 at 2:33 pm
Jenkins “attacking” Anderson is priceless.
I was wondering if anyone pushed Anderson for his definition of violence and/or aggression. I still think that scope is a major problem here, with some people trying to do real studies suggestion aggressive media may lead to more aggressive behaviors - IE acting out behaviors, rebellious behaviors, etc., versus certain lawyers who claim it leads directly to murder and violent crime. Things I’ve read from Walsh/Anderson seem to lean to the former, and doesn’t seem refuted that well by counter-arguments. Whereas the latter just feels insane.
November 8th, 2005 at 7:54 pm
Why is that a cheap shot? I’d say it was a fair assessment. :-)
But seriously, it’s a good thing when WOMEN can speak, and work, on sex-themed material in this industry and be taken seriously. So yeah, I was pleased.