Video Archives - Page 3 of 51 - Reality is a Game

DiGRA runs a conference ever year investigation the world of gaming. The DiGRA 2015 conference was themed around the diversity of play and they recently put the keynotes online.

Two presentations were particularly interesting and I figured I’d share them here.

This first talk is actually the final one of the conference. He says that games are framed uncertainties and explores that concept in a rather intriguing way. He actually asks the question “what makes this madness so enjoyable?”

DiGRA2015 – KEYNOTE – Markus Rautzenberg – Ludic Epistemology in an Age of new Essentialisms from Centre for Digital Cultures on Vimeo.

Markus Rautzenberg “Ludic Epistemology in an Age of new Essentialisms”
Markus Rautzenberg is a German philosopher currently working at Freie Universität Berlin. In 2007 he received his doctorate degree in philosophy with a thesis on a ‘Theory of Perturbation’. He received a DFG-doctoral scholarship at the graduate school ‘The Staging of the Body’ and a DFG-postdoctoral fellowship at the international graduate school ‘Interart’. His main fields of research are media theory, picture theory, aesthetics, the relation of iconicity and knowledge, epistemology and game studies.

In this next talk I really like the connection between delivering narrative while having cohesive and complementary game mechanics. I don’t agree with everything she goes into, particularly around The Stanley Parable, regardless it’s a neat presentation.

DiGRA2015 – KEYNOTE – Astrid Ensslin – Videogames as Unnatural Narratives from Centre for Digital Cultures on Vimeo.

Astrid Ensslin “Videogames as Unnatural Narratives”
Astrid Ensslin is a Professor of Digital Culture and Communication at Bangor University (UK). Her research sits at the interface between videogames and electronic literature, and she is currently running an AHRC-funded project on ‘Reading Digital Fiction’ (with Sheffield Hallam University and various non-academic organizations). Her main publications are ‘Literary Gaming’ (MIT Press, 2014), ‘The Language of Gaming’ (Palgrave, 2011) and ‘Canonizing Hypertext’ (Continuum, 2007).

You can view the rest here.

Video game controllers have evolved quite a bit over the years from simple buttons to really technically complex controllers like the new one from Steam (which has sold out). They all operate using the same basic concept that the player presses a button and that button tells the game to do something.

Over time the number and arrangements of buttons has changed but the core concept has remained. Game controllers translate your physical input into something that makes sense within the game.

Many companies played with how a game controller ought to function and the ergonomics around them. From the simple Commodore 64 joystick to the button filled Atari Jaguar controller.

You can go to this website for a visual history of game controllers.

Dave Nunez has put up the innards of old game artifacts and they are surprisingly fascinating videos. He goes into the materials used (and why) then moves into how the actual game controller operates. These videos provide some context into why controllers are the way they are. One nifty part of his video is that he breaks down how the wiring works.

The first video he focuses on the Atari 2600 Joystick.