Bibliography

These are the items i used for my presentation:

Books

• Bryce, J. and Rutter, J. – Killing Like a Girl: Gendered Gaming and Girl Gamers’ Visibility - CGDC Conference Proceedings - Tamapere
• Haines, L. – 2004 – Why are there so few women in games – pages 5 and 6

Websites

• Parker, M. and Grrl Gamer Staff– What Guys Want in Games - www.grrlgamer.com
• Alexs Krotoski - 2004 - Chicks and Joysticks and Exploration of Women and Gaming -
  http://www.elspa.com/assets/files/c/chicksandjoysticksanexplorationofwomenandgaming_176.pdf

Narrative

Narrative is neccesary in almost any game and also exists in almost any game. It is the story-telling part of a game, and helps to get the player involved in the game.

Games narrative is a games world or story line that makes the player feel a certain emotion or feeling. For example in World of Warcraft the entire large map is attached together yet the land type changes drastically so that the player feels different things toward the place. it could be that the player feels they are in a nice safe place or it could be that they become worried as the music changes and the place gets dark.
Certain games are based on other things, such as the simpsons games that are based on the simpsons TV show, the games include many parts of the TV show and therefore when the player recognises this they become more interested in the game and watch closer to see how it will unfold, much like watching TV but much more involved.

Educational games

The game is good at teaching about evolution although some of the game is not related, for example in part of the game you learn about aliens and what they would eat. These are fantasy animals and therefore are not educational because they are not real. It does however still make you think about what sort of animal eats what sort of prey, for example certain animals are not large enough to eat others and some very large animals still only eat small prey. The aliens however do make the game more interesting to small children and therefore keep them entertained and concentrating on the game.
There are parts of the education that can be skipped, for example the introduction can be skipped, this means that you miss out some important parts to the game. However if you have played the game before then it is good that you can skip this part. The main educational part however cannot be skipped, you must watch her explain about what to do and different animals. You must also move them in to certain categories that cannot be easily guessed without getting lots of them wrong.
This game is an intrinsic game because the player must learn about the narrative of the game, in this case the game is about evolution and the food chain. An extrinsic game is when it is not about the game narrative, an examaple of this is hangman, if the hangman word is geographical then the player still doesn't learn about geography but instead learns about english literature as they must learn about letters.

Old and New Games Journalism

New Games Journalism - 'Bow, Nigger'




I found that the 'Bow, Nigger' article was very effective, it made me very interested in the game and after reading the article I am very interested in finding out more and even buying it. I did however feel that it didnt give enough information about the game, im not sure if it is only possible to duel or if there are other parts to the game.


The reason i think that i felt so interested in the game is because the writer gets you so involved in the events that hes taking part in. He gives the reader a lot of personal information to shw just how good the game is, for example he tells us how he never sweats playing games but he gets so involved with this one that he does "I felt a trickle of wet run down from under my right armpit". He also makes you feel like you should be on his side, jhe lets you know about how 'evil' his opponenet is and how his opponenet does not play by the rules "[The writer] played by the 'rules'"


The writer also get so immersed in the game that he lets you know how he insulted his opponent "socially retarded friend", "this wanker", both of these are very harsh things to say about someone that is just playing a game and i can see how some people would take offence by what is written in the article. However, i feel that withouth this it would be another boring article. The NGJ way of writing makes the article a lot more interesting and exciting to readin, emersing the reader in the game so they want to join in and buy the game themself.

Globalisation

The McDonalds game does raise awareness about what must be done to keep a business such as McDonalds runing and staying in profit. It makes us realise how corrupt organisations such as McDonalds are, and how things such as injecting cows and doing other things that may harm the consumer are almost neccesary just to stay in profit, as well as needing to bribe important people to stop them from finding out and shuting you down. The game raises a small amount of awareness about globalisation and how business's such as McDonalds have influenced places such as Italy, as this was the game was made. The person responsible for making this game is clearly not impressed with how McDonalds is run and is definately trying to prove to others that McDonalds is a corrupt business, although he did choose to do this in a very crude way.

The Peter Packet game is not very good at raising awareness in my opinion because there is not information about poverty until the end of the game, the only education that anyone would get from playing the game is how information travels through the internet. This shows that games cannot be used well to raise awareness about issues such as poverty.

Girls and gaming

I have been looking at reviews on the website www.grrlgamer.com and have found the reviews made by girls are very similar to one that would be made by a boy. If i didn't know better then it would not be possible to tell who had written the review. www.grrlgamer.com is a website used by girl gamers that are interested in games that boys would 'usually' be interested in. For example I read a review written about halo 2 and the female perspective is very similar too mine, I found that the writer, Didi Cardoso, was very detailed in explaining the game but also went in to some interesting aspects that I if i was reviewing the game would not have talked about. She wrote of the PC version of Halo 2 and wrote about different things that she had tried, for example attempting to plug an xbox controller in to the PC and finding it did not work. She also writes about the online Halo 2 and how this is one of the most crucial parts to the PC Halo 2. She is correct in saying this because it is a massively popular part to the Halo games.
One thing i did notice about the www.grrlgamer.com site is that it is quite clearly a girls site, there are pictures of animated female 'heroes' around the site and a definite use of the colour pink.

I then moved on to reading some 'editorials' and found some very interesting views. For example after reading the article of "what guys want in games" I believe the female writers to be very strong in their views of "what guys want in games". Their views of what men want are entirely wrong in my opinion, the woman writing this particular post Megan Parker wrote that "Storylines are honestly not what guys seek in games" which is entirely wrong. Speaking to my fellow student i have found that nearly every one of us disagrees with that statement. From reading this and other articles i have only found the female writers to be sterotypical of men. Megan Parker suggests that all men look for in games is guns and violence ""Blowing crap up" is usually the best way to go, but sometimes you can go with "blow crap up and save the princess". It's just enough information for them to realize that they should not blow the princess up." She suggests that men want to just blow stuff up and that we are also not intellegent enough to properly read or understand storylines, she believes that men think storylines gets in the way of "blowing crap up". The female writers believe they are aloud to suggest what men want and become sterotypical but we cannnot suggest that all women want in a game is for example "shopping and make-up", obviously I would not write this in a review but it is effectively what thwey have written about "us", men.

Clearly females do not know their real place, perhaps they should stop writing reviews on men and get back in the kitchen!

Paida and ludus

Paida and ludus as I understand it are two different game play types.

Paida is where you play the game just for fun, there is no outcome or goal to achieve but you get a lot of fun out of the game by doing something.
Ludus is where you play a game to achieve a goal, this could be to beat a boss, get to the end level or to achieve goals and complete missions.

There are a few games where both are included, a good example is Grand Theft Auto games, you can choose to finish missions to achieve reputation, become stronger and unlock new areas or you can choose to just run around shooting at everything in site, drive/fly around or just free-roam around the map in any way you like.

There are also games that consist of ludus mainly, a good example of this would be poker. When people play poker seriously they play for a lot of money and therefore will want to win, for this reason it becomes mainly a ludus game even though fun can be had from the game. Although, poker can also be played as mainly a paida game, it can be played between friends with no money involved, when this happens they are just playing for fun. They do want to win but do not become worried about loosing as it is just friendly.

There are very few games that consist of one type or the other, If a game was made without paida in mind then it would be hard to have any fun on the game and would get very frustrating constantly aiming for a goal. However, it is much easier to make a fun game when the player must complete a goal, without a goal the player gets bored and can run out of things to do after a while. In my opinion there should be no game that exists without one or the other as it would make the game less interesting and people play games for fun.

Personal gaming experience

I first got in to gaming when I was very young, about 8 years old. My Dad owned an Atari console and introduced me to it. I thoroughly enjoyed playing it but don't remember much about it. After this he bought me my first own console, this was a Sega Megadrive. I had many games for my mega drive but it soon got out of date. Next i got a Nintendo 64 followed by a Nintendo Gamecube, a PS2 and finally my xbox 360 which i own currently.

My favourite way to play my Xbox 360 at the moment is to have about four mates over, each owning an Xbox 360 and a copy of a certain game, this most often was Halo 2 or Ghost Recon, and also a TV. We would then System link our Xbox 360's using a hub order a pizza and get a crate of beer and play co-op games. I also enjoy playing World of Warcraft online, i have a few friends that also play this so i play online with them, but i also have made many new friends through the game.

My ideal game would be a mix between Halo 2 or 3, World of Warcraft and Grand Theft Auto. I enjoy the gameplay of Halo, such as the movement, the aiming and the levels. I'd like this to be mixed with the free-roaming abilities of GTA and the sociable MMO side of World of Warcraft.

I approximately spend 20 hours a week playing games although i used to spean a lot more. When i was off college for summer holidays i spent a lot of time playing Wow and i have a total of about 1184 played hours on WoW. When i was playing seriously i would do about 40 hours a week. Since i have come to university however it has dramtically dropped too 0 hours per week on all games. Although i expect it to be increasing again since i bought Halo 3 today and have done about 2 hours on it so far.

I spend about 60% of my gaming time online on WoW, CSS and Black Hawk Down. Aproximately 20% of my game time is spent with my friends playing Xbox 360, usually system link or multiplayer games and a further 20% is spent playing alone.

Before i came to university i would nearly alkways choose to go out instead of play games but i did occasionally stay in if my guild needed me to help them on WoW or if it was too much effort to get to the place or not something i would enjoy. Since i have been at university though i have always chosen to go out and never stayed in to play games instead.

I currently own an Xbox 360 with mainly FPS and driving games. I find that rpg games don't play as well on consoles as they do on PC so i always get good rpg's on thge PC if possible. I also own a nintendo DS but the only game i have for that is pokemon, and a PC which i only have FPS and RPG games for.