I’m going to lump the next two days together since my memory of these two days is coming in bits and pieces. I attended the session, IL Challenged? which comprised three presentations. The first was a Second Life IL game, SLIL Information Literacy Quest: The Search for Prof. Tba from Nassau Community College, which I thought was a creative use of SL. Getting the cooperation of other SL spaces was a great idea (something to think about when teaching within a discipline – using knowledge from that field). I haven’t played this game – mostly since I’ve only spent a brief time in SL. I had an opportunity to speak with Richard and Marsha later that afternoon (after the panel session I participated in) – mostly on the creation aspect, such as programming and the time required – comparing the challenges that Jerremie and I face with Benevolent Blue. Willingness to learn the programming side (as well as the time to do so) is a big challenge to these types of projects.
Karen Markey spoke about Hidgeon, a web-based board game to teach undergraduates about research. (I have yet to finish the report…ugh). I think the most telling part of this was the nature of competition and motivation. This was a voluntary activity with prizes being awarded for the most successful teams (I think these were bookstore gift certificates). One aspect of this game was capturing and holding monastaries – teams could challenge those teams and try and take them. What happened though – is one team raced out and captured the majority of the monastaries before anyone else pretty much entered the game – and no other teams really challenged the first team. I think the effort for reward was too high – too much time for not enough reward for the remainder of the team. Especially in a game that many may not have found engaging. I was disappointed that the conclusions did not address game play and game design and their potential influence in determining whether the game was successful or not. Karen mentioned her next project – a collaborative web-based citation game. (Personally, I wonder about motivation and engagement with this sort of game. From her description, it seemed to weight far more to the education side than the game side).
Attended a couple of other sessions, not as noteworthy for a variety of reasons (one was really poor – Lindsay and Lori will know what I’m talking about). I sat in on the Wizard of the Coast session since I was curious to see what money-making scheme they were going to roll-out. (Just kidding – being an old TSR supporter – old prejudices die hard). I have to give WOTC credit though for finding creative ways to engage both new and old players of their products. They have made a serious effort to provide a balance of profit and interest – finding ways to attract new players without bankrupting them, providing library level support for their products, and appear open in finding different models. (all to create a continuous revenue stream – I know, I know, but I couldn’t resist). Although a little too much on the products, not on the value to libraries.
The final part of the symposium was the Closing Keynote from Jon-Paul Dyson. Apart from the cool pictures of the neat stuff at the museum, Jon-Paul talked about play. I wish I could find the file with my notes – because he had a really excellent quote about play. He said something along the lines of “the purpose of play is to keep playing.” I think that this describes the passion and motivation of much game playing. This is most likely one of the reasons why online gaming is so successful – MMO games are designed to keep the player playing – there is no end to the game. The challenge is to keep the world engaging enough to keep players playing (and generate revenues). One of the biggest disappointments from playing games or just playing in general is when it ends! The goal of playing is to keep playing. Simple. Definitely fits my gaming style and might explain why I still have a couple of games that I haven’t finished. Back to play though – I constantly argue that Second Life is not a game – it’s a virtual world where one can play games. Heck, one can do nothing at all if they wished. I like to compare SL to a sandbox – a place where one can play. This can be tied back to Salen and Zimmerman and the relationship to games and play, which Jerremie and I discussed in our paper.
I should mention that I went to a Dine-around at Tuscany of Oakbrook (food was pretty good but service was a little disappointing). This was ‘hosted’ by Liz Danforth. Interesting conversation – and reminded me of the influence that pen & paper games have had on video games and pen & paper games are still relevant.
All in all it was a good symposium. (thanks for the invite Paul)!
hardplay
liblaureate
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