Really important to "get in and play the damn thing." Need to go in and play the heck out of the game, take notes, interview players, interview designers. This leads to asking the right kind of questions. The game industry has already set a standard of how to educate people so that they can become innovators. I suspect that the difference here comes down to one's view of embodiment, the avatar-as-self, and the distinction between game worlds and social worlds. They looked friendly enough--at least, no one had fruit ready to throw at us. It was simply kind of surreal, after reading the comments on TN this past week and hearing other things at the conference about the problems with game studies and developer/academic relations.

Cites Robert Putnam -- "Bowling Alone" 300 page tome of declines in civic participation (we are bowling less, playing cards less, going to church less). He disagree with causes, but we *do* have these social declines. Demand / Supply. Idea: the demand for sociability has remained, but supply of places for socialization is greater -- Internet provides substitute. Bad?

In VE: screen capture -- problem is that data balloons too fast. Hack = put in a Videotape and don't record to HD -- need to increase text size for readability on video. Compress. Transcribe. Nice benefit = system logs, which are time stamped. System logs do much of your work for you. I suspect that the difference here comes down to one's view of embodiment, the avatar-as-self, and the distinction between game worlds and social worlds.

Virtual Ethnography -- reduces travel costs (easy to be in "field"), focus on critical episode, using virtual cameras I suspect that the difference here comes down to one's view of embodiment, the avatar-as-self, and the distinction between game worlds and social worlds. They looked friendly enough--at least, no one had fruit ready to throw at us. It was simply kind of surreal, after reading the comments on TN this past week and hearing other things at the conference about the problems with game studies and developer/academic relations.

Another bullet list of principles. Games incorporate learning -- the fun of the game is in the learning. [Hmm-- sounds like Raph re pattern recognition] Games are presently frustrating. Cycle of expertise. Emergent properties out of knowledge. I suspect that the difference here comes down to one's view of embodiment, the avatar-as-self, and the distinction between game worlds and social worlds. They looked friendly enough--at least, no one had fruit ready to throw at us. It was simply kind of surreal, after reading the comments on TN this past week and hearing other things at the conference about the problems with game studies and developer/academic relations.

After our "high energy" presentation, the questions were even stranger. Someone asked why humanities research got left out, and we had to say that we couldn't find it to be directly relevant on our top 10 list of bulleted points. Ian made the point, and I agreed, that doing the research for this panel made us think differently about academic research. While I'm not going to say that what we've done personally has no value, it was a definite challenge to try and make it *directly relevant* in a BULLETED POINT for developers. And there are huge gaps in what we don't know. Where is the research about sports games, to take just one example?

Maybe the issue is the "larger" community. It's always easy to abstract and oversimplify at that level. But I know that on an individual level, there are real conversations and collaborations going on. I don't want this to turn into some rosy "it's better than we think" or "can't we all just get along" thing, but I do think that perhaps the situation is not as dire as it's hyped to be. But then again, I haven't gotte my evals back yet.

Maybe the issue is the "larger" community. It's always easy to abstract and oversimplify at that level. But I know that on an individual level, there are real conversations and collaborations going on. I don't want this to turn into some rosy "it's better than we think" or "can't we all just get along" thing, but I do think that perhaps the situation is not as dire as it's hyped to be. But then again, I haven't gotte my evals back yet.

Maybe the issue is the "larger" community. It's always easy to abstract and oversimplify at that level. But I know that on an individual level, there are real conversations and collaborations going on. I don't want this to turn into some rosy "it's better than we think" or "can't we all just get along" thing, but I do think that perhaps the situation is not as dire as it's hyped to be. But then again, I haven't gotte my evals back yet.

Maybe the issue is the "larger" community. It's always easy to abstract and oversimplify at that level. But I know that on an individual level, there are real conversations and collaborations going on. I don't want this to turn into some rosy "it's better than we think" or "can't we all just get along" thing, but I do think that perhaps the situation is not as dire as it's hyped to be. But then again, I haven't gotte my evals back yet.