:: netwoman's blog ::

Link Round-Up

*Feminist SF Carnival:

The Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans periodically collects posts from the hazy side-reality where feminist social consciousness meets the outer limits of the imagination. This is to draw attention to lesser known bloggers, to bring individuals of like-minded (or at least, understanding) interests together, and to foster the growth of feminist fan communities.

*Games people play - from Terra Nova:
Jennifer Jamieson Bortle, Games People Play: Identity and Relationships in an Online Role-Playing Games. The research focuses on three players of Everquest. The abstract is below. PDF Here

The following is a study of online relationships and identity formation in Everquest, a multiplayer online role-playing game. Using a phenomenological and reflexive approach, the study seeks to explicate the attractions of this type of online forum, which draws hundreds of thousands of players who spend many hours each week playing the game. Three Everquest players' experiences are considered in light of literature from mainstream psychological, social constructionist, psychodynamic, and cyborg theory, with special focus on the players' reports of the dialogue between player and character, and of the nature of their relationships in Everquest. Subjects participated in a non-directive, qualitative interview and submitted and discussed gameplay logs. Findings challenge the notion that these players' online identities are escapist paradoxes of their offline personae, but highlight the ways in which their ego-ideal colors and limits their online identifications. The participants' ambivalence about the limits of Everquest relationships is also explored, especially such as the Everquest community might be understood as an example of hyperreality structuring the experience of the real. Finally, suggestions for further research in the area are suggested.

*Gay video game player survey- an article on Newsweek...

The first study ever of GLBT gamers or "gaymers" was approved by the institutional review board of the University of Illinois and was activated this week for participation at www.gaymersurvey.org. It will be open to participation for 8 weeks.

The study is the brainchild of Jason Rockwood, a recent graduate and a self-confessed non-gamer, who says the last game he really played was "Duck Hunt" on the Nintendo Entertainment System during the 1980s.

The survey is located HERE. See the discussion over at Womengamers.com to read comments about how there's no need to consider sexuality & gaming...

*Student Thesis: Network Gaming Utilizing Ubiquitous Computing

"Context awareness related to computing is very rigid. The context itself can be just about anything: time, location, preferences. How it is perceived as data is variable. The context can be defined according to a user or the system that utilizes it; it could be dynamic or constant. Typically, data based on users or entities is constant, while system-based context is to some degree dynamic [6]. Regardless of its form, it is this concept of context awareness in computers that will allow for them to interact with the real world by using the given context as data to fulfill specified acts, i.e. displaying data, triggering events, etc.

Fritz Hohl, at a seminar in Dagstuhl on ubiquitous computing, makes reference to a context service system by which the digital world is integrated into the real world. Its overall role is to model the real world in the digital one, so that changes in the real world would be reflected, and the system could act accordingly. An example in this system might be an 'intelligent' copy machine that changes its preferences and settings according to user. The context being the user, the machine is able to handle both switches in setting and in whom to bill any charges to [6].

His discussion brings to point two methods by which a context-based system would be implemented. The importance of these matters is that, to have ubiquitous devices ever present and working, a system would be required by which they can interact with the real world.

*GLS: Videogames as Designed Experiences - Lisa Galarneau:

What are games good at?
* Examining choice and consequences
* Exploring eticing identities
* Thinking with virtual tools (spreadsheets, charts, graphs)
* Crossing transmedia/transnational boundaries (e.g. reading books associated with games)
* Cultures/diversity
* Rhythmic immersion - things done in cycles
* Creative expression
* Collaborative competition
* Retribalization

Connect the study of games as designed objects, naturalistic studies of gaming as a social practice, etc.

Educational games as designed experience

* Game designers construct ideological worlds
* Game players learn through performance
* Learning through participation in social structures

*The Truth about Little Girls - over at The Escapist

I have been a boy. I have been a man. I have been a voluptuous vixen with pistols poised on either swaying hip. I have been a zombie, a pokemon, a pants-less ninja. I have been a plump, pink, vacuum-mouthed ball.

But I have never been a little girl.

*Offensive is Not a Feminist Value over at Shrug.com Blog

For the record, I don’t think that not giving a shit if you’re offensive to other feminists is something to be proud of, or something to admire. I don’t think that being trollish is something to be proud of, especially when one is trolling one’s own community. There’s a difference between examining an issue and advocating your morality as the only correct path, and frankly the latter does not encourage the former.

posted by Netwoman @ 10:25 AM