David Hayward of Pixel-Lab gave this keynote on games culture at Under The Mask. Most images licensed by creative commons, link to credits on last slide.
23. Games originally a family thing - only one TV in the house when the Magnavox launched
24. quot;In 1982, 40% of Americans said they'd played a
game in the previous week. Then came the punch-
kick-fight games like Mortal Kombat which were
massively successful. They were so successful
amongst this pimple-faced eighteen year old
demographic who were spending so much money
on those games, that it obscured the fact that the
violence lost the women and the complexity lost the
casual gamer. The economics of the marketplace
didn't shrink, but the population plummeted from
over 100m people to less than 15. And we're just
recovering from that.quot;
- Nolan Bushnell
51. Media became abnormally consolidated in the 20th century - things that were previously
cultural property suddenly retreated behind wall of copyright.
52.
53. People trying to reclaim right to make cultural property with ideas like copyleft
83. Definition of gamer by BBC: Console, PC, Handheld, web, mobile, interactive TV. 59% - play
once every six months or more. Once a week or more: 48%
Sample was 3500 people, 6 - 65 year olds 45%F/55%M
84.
85. 38.5
Corrected to include 0 - 6 and 66+, assuming none in those age groups play games, which
isn’t true. Actual percentage of UK population that play games is a little higher.
99. Within a group of about 35 people who live at my house or visit regularly, are age ranges
from 16 to late 30s. Comparitively few of us hardcore gamers, but we put a lot of time into
things like GTA IV.
100.
101. A small group who have Pro Evo 2008 tournaments, including our housemate Tanya.
107. And have been bitten pretty badly by the WoW bug recently.
108.
109. Another couple of people I know don’t want to spend lot of money on games, but last gen
hardware is so cheap now that they each have a last gen console and fairly big collections of
games.
110. When I was playing with this, Amigas and a PS1, there was nowhere near that kind of variety
in gamers.
111.
112.
113. Even the most hardcore have disagreements: “in terms of gameplay, I expect something a bit
more substantial than holding a tin foil-wrapped WWF figure in front of my TV and making
quot;pew-pew!quot; noises. ¬¬”
115. Games growing into higher age brackets. Interactivity is becoming an expectation.
116.
117.
118. quot;Here's something four-year-olds know: A screen
that ships without a mouse ships broken. Here's
something four-year-olds know: Media that's
targeted at you but doesn't include you may not be
worth sitting still for. Those are things that make me
believe that this is a one-way change.quot;
- Clay Shirky
119.
120.
121. Videogame crafts are an expression of people’s values. Again, this wasn’t around when I was
playing games as a child.
151. Cultural variation and growing maturity also reflected in indie and amateur game
development
no commercial aspiration
pushing the medium in different directions for the sake of exploration.
153. quot;in an age where game over is seen as
undesirable, masocore games approach player
death as a narrative technique.quot;
- Anna Anthropy
Tanya Krzywinska: Playing games is about learning the right cues. Masocore games take
those cues and use them to confound you.
172. Myths from anti-game lobby are becoming more demonstrably outlandish by the day.
173. A few game designers in 2004 stopped me from giving up on games altogether.
174. Now I can’t go a week without accidentally seeing something interesting related to games that
threatens to fill my time up.
175. Links to most of the things I've talked about today:
http://func-auton.net/blog/?p=328
Most images used under Creative Commons, credits:
http://func-auton.net/blog/?p=331
Contact / Stalk:
david.hayward@pixel-lab.co.uk
http://func-auton.net/blog
http://twitter.com/nachimir
http://www.pixel-lab.co.uk