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ISIS 092. How They Got Game. History and cultural impact of interactive simulations and video games. Evolution of computer and video game design from its beginnings to the present: storytelling, strategy, simulation, sports, 3D first-person games. Cultural, business, and technical perspectives. Insights into design, production, marketing, and socio-cultural impacts of interactive entertainment and communication. Instructors: Lenoir, Herron
Wk 1 8/28 | Wk 2 9/4 | Wk 3 9/11 | Wk 4 9/18 | Wk 5 9/25
Wk 6 10/2 | Wk 8 10/16 | Wk 9 10/23 | Wk 10 10/30
Wk 11 11/6 | Wk 12 11/13 | Wk 14 11/27 | Wk 15 12/4
Week 1: Course intro
Aug 28
- Course Introduction
- Course Overview and Requirements
- Game Play Poll
Aug 30
- Chris Crawford, "What is a Game?", The Art of Computer Game Design, Ch. 1.
- Jesper Juul, "The Game, the Player, the World: Looking for a Heart of Gameness", In Level Up: Digital Games Research Conference Proceedings, Marinka Copier and Joost Raessens, eds., Utrecht: Utrecht University, 2003, pp. 30-45.
- Henry Jenkins, “Art Form for the Digital Age,” MIT Technology Review 1/11/2002.
Selections for podcasts/presentations due
Podcast production tutorials:
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Week 2: Beginnings: From the Arcade to First-Gen PC RPG Games
This week's podcasters: Benny and Guillaume
Sept 4
Sept 6
- Brad King & John Borland, Dungeons and Dreamers: The Rise of Computer Game Culture from Geek to Chic, pp. 1-84 (pp. 1-22, 23-84).
- JC Herz, Joystick Nation: How Videogames Ate Our Quarters, Won Our Hearts, and Rewired Our Minds, pp. 43-82, pp. 139-159.
- Warren Robinett, "Foreward," The Video Game Theory Reader, Mark Wolf and Bernard Perron, eds., pp. vii-xix.
Supplemental Reading
- Tim Anderson and Stu Galley, “The History of Zork,” New Zork Times, 1985.
- Rick Adams, “Will Crowther and Don Woods: The Origins of Adventure.”
- D.G. Jerz, “Colossal Cave Adventure.”
- Stewart Brand, "SPACEWAR: Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death among the Computer Bums," Rolling Stone (7 Dec. 1972).
- J. M. Graetz, "The Origin of Spacewar!" Creative Computing (1981).
Podcast production tutorials:
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Week 3: Early Japanese Influence: Nintendo Sidescrolling
This week's podcaster: Mark Elstein
Sept 11
Download and install the NES emulator Nestopia (PC or Mac - enhance Nestopia for Mac) to use the following games: Donkey Kong, Mario, Super Mario Brothers, Legend of Zelda
Sept 13
- Chris Kohler, Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life, pp. 1-24.
- Chris Kohler, Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life, pp. 25-82.
- Henry Jenkins and Mary Fuller, "Nintendo and New World Travel Writing: A Dialogue," in Steven G. Jones (ed.) Cybersociety: Computer-Mediated Communication and Community (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1995): 57-72.
- Stephen Kline, Nick Dyer-Witheford, and Grieg de Peuter, "Electronic Frontiers: Branding the 'Nintendo Generation', 1985-1990," pp. 109-127.
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Week 4: Birth of the first person shooter: Wolfenstein, Doom
This week's podcasters: Ben Arnstein, Chris Venters, Bernice Ponce de Leon
Sept 18
Wolfenstein 3D (PC), Doom (PC or Mac)
(To play Wolfenstein 3D on your Mac, first download and install DOSBox, then Dapplegrey to interact with DOSBox graphically, and then finally install Wolfenstein through your DOSBox DOS emulator by first adding it as a game through Dapplegrey)
Sept 20
- Brad King & John Borland, Dungeons and Dreamers: The Rise of Computer Game Culture from Geek to Chic, pp. 87-116.
- JC Herz, Joystick Nation: How Videogames Ate Our Quarters, Won Our Hearts, and Rewired Our Minds, pp. 83-90.
- Stephen Kline, Nick Dyer-Witheford, and Grieg de Peuter, “Mortal Kombats,” Chap. 6, Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture, and Marketing, pp. 128-150. (pp. 109-150)
- Alexander Galloway, Origins of the First-Person Shooter, Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture, Minneapolis; University of Minnesota Press, 2006, pp. 39-69.
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Week 5: Narrative, Story and Gameplay
This week's podcasters: Clayton and James
Sept 25
Max Payne, Final Fantasy VII
Recommended outside gameplay: Baldur's Gate
Sept 27
- Janet Murray, “From Game-Story to Cyberdrama,” in Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan, eds., First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game (MIT Press, 2002), pp. 2-11.
- Ken Perlin, “Can There Be a Form between a Game and a Story?” in Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan, eds., First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game (MIT Press, 2002), pp. 12-18.
- Gonzalo Frasca, “Ludology Meets Narratology: Similitude and differences between (video)games and narrative.”
- Dominic Arsenault, “When Game Design and Narratives Unite”
- J. Bryce & J. Rutter, "Spectacle of the Deathmatch: Character and Narrative in First Person Shooters" in G. King & T. Krzywinska, eds., ScreenPlay: Cinema/videogames/interfaces, Wallflower Press, 2002. pp. 66-80.
Supplemental Reading for the Brave
- Chris Crawford, Chris Crawford On Game Design (2003), Chapter 11, “Storytelling,” pp. 157-167.
- Chris Crawford, "Flawed Methods for Interactive Storytelling," Interactive Entertainment Design 7 (1993-1994).
- Chris Crawford, Chris Crawford On Interactive Story Telling (New Rider’s Games, 2004), Chapters 1-3, pp. 1-63.
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Week 6: Media theory, Narrative, Story, Game
This week's podcasters: NONE
Oct 2
Metal Gear Solid
Oct 4
- Jay Bolter and Richard Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media, pp. 89-103.
- Janet Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck, pp. 65-94.
- Torben Grodal, Stories for the Eye, Ear, and Muscles: Video Games, Media, and Embodied Experiences, The Video Game Theory Reader, Mark Wolf and Bernard Perron, eds., New York; Routledge, 2003: pp. 129-156.
- Celia Pearce, “Emergent Authorship: The Next Interactive Revolutio,” Computers and Graphics (Winter, 2002). (html)
- Henry Jenkins, "Game Design as Narrative Architecture," in Pat Harrington and Noah Frup-Waldrop (Eds.) First Person (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002.
Fall Break Oct 5-Oct 10, no class Oct 11
Oct 9
no class
Oct 11
no class
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Week 8: MUDS, Ultima Online, Massively Multiplayer Games
This week's podcasters: Jason and Bernice
Oct 16
World of Warcraft
Oct 18
- Timothy Burke, “Can A Table Stand On One Leg? Critical and Ludological Thoughts on Star Wars: Galaxies,” Game Studies, Vol. 5, no. 1, October 2005.
- Suellen Adams, “Information Behavior and the Formation and Maintenance of Peer Cultures in Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games: A Case Study of City of Heroes.”
- Amy Jo Kim, “Killers Have More Fun,” Wired, Vol. 6.05, May 1998.
- Amy Jo Kim, “Ultima Online: An Interactive Virtual World with Multiple Personalities,” SIGGRAPH Vol.32 No.2 May 1998.
- BBC World News, 17 February 2005: “Head to Head: Is Online Gaming Bad for You?"
- EverQuest Widows
Recommended Background Reading:
- Brad King & John Borland, Dungeons and Dreamers: The Rise of Computer Game Culture from Geek to Chic, pp. 117-170; 199-228.
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Week 9: Massively Multiplayer Games: World of Warcraft
This week's podcasters: Kostadin, Harrison and Christopher
Oct 23
World of Warcraft
Oct 25
- Edward Castronova, Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games, Chapter 2 & Chapter 3.
- Alexander Galloway, Warcraft and Utopia, 1000 Days of Theory
- Constance Steinkuehler, "The New Third Place: Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming in American Youth Culture," Tidskrift for lararutbildning och forskning, nr. 3, 2005: pp. 135-150.
- Nick Yee, The Deadalus Gateway: The Psychology of MMORPGs.
- Virtual Worlds, Virtual Economies with economist Edward Castronova, BusinessWeek Online, May 1, 2006.
- Adam Pasick, Virtual economy tax 'would be a mistake' - US Rep, from Reuters, Oct 16, 2006.
Recommended Background Reading:
- Crosbie Fitch, Mapping the Future of Multiplayer Games, Foundations, Foundations II, Cyberspace in the 21st Century.
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Week 10: From War Games to SIMNET
This week's podcasters: Jason, Clayton and James
Oct 30
America's Army, Counter-Strike
Nov 1
- Fred Hapgood, “Simnet,” Wired, Vol. 5.04, April 1997.
- Rob Riddel, “Doom Goes to War,” Wired, Vol. 5.04.
- Tim Lenoir, "All But War Is Simulation: The Military Entertainment Complex," Configurations, Vol. 8 (2000), pp. 238335.
- Tim Lenoir, "Programming Theaters of War: Gamemakers as Soldiers," in Robert Latham, ed., Bombs and Bandwidth: The Emerging Relationship between IT and Security, New York: New Press, 2003, pp. 175-198.
- Hezbollah Produces a Video Game
- Hezbollah's Special Force
- Ed Halter, “Islamogaming: Looking for Videogames in the Muslim World,” Computer Gaming World, September 2006, No. 266, pp. 38-41. (html)
- Matt Peckham, “Guns and Roses: Antiwar activists take their message online,” Computer Gaming World, September 2006, No. 266, pp. 44-46.
- VIDEO: Playing the News
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Week 11: Will Wright: From Sims to Spore
This week's podcaster: Mark Elstein
Nov 6
SimCity, The Sims, Spore
Nov 8
- JC Herz, Joystick Nation: How Videogames Ate Our Quarters, Won Our Hearts, and Rewired Our Minds, pp. 215-223.
- Stephen Kline, Nick Dyer-Witheford, and Grieg de Peuter, "Sim Capital," Chap. 12, Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture, and Marketing, pp. 269-293.
- Celia Pearce, “Sims, BattleBots, Cellular Automata, God and Go: A Conversation with Will Wright,” Game Studies, Vol. 2, No.1, July 2002.
- Will Wright, “Gaming is a form of time travel,” Lecture at Stanford, December 16, 2005. (view in IE)
- John Seabrook, Game Master, The New Yorker, Nov. 6, 2006, pp. 89-99. (NOTE: Article has video link to Wrights demo of Spore at E3 in 2006.)
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Week 12: Cultural Differences in Gaming
This week's podcasters: Benny Schwartz, Benjamin Arnstein, and Guillaume Vanderschueren
Nov 13
Grand Theft Auto
- David Leonard, Virtual Gangstas, Coming to a Suburban House Near You: Demonization, Commodification, and Policing Blackness, Nate Garrelts, ed., The Meaning and Culture of Grand Theft Auto: Critical Essays, Jefferson, NC; MacFarland Publishers, 2006, pp. 49-69.
- Laurie N. Taylor, From Stompin Mushrooms to Bustin Heads: Grand Theft Auto III as Paradigm Shift, The Meaning and Culture of Grand Theft Auto: pp. 115-125.
- Ian Bogost and Dan Klainbaum, Experiencing Place in Los Santos and Vice City, The Meaning and Culture of Grand Theft Auto: pp. 162-176.
- Cindy Poremba, Against Embedded Agency: Subversion and Emergence in GTA3, The Meaning and Culture of Grand Theft Auto: pp. 199-209.
- Wm. Ruffin Bailey, Inviting Subversion: Metalepses and Tmesis in Rockstar Games Grand Theft Auto Series, The Meaning and Culture of Grand Theft Auto: pp. 210-225.
- Anne Allison, "Portable monsters and commodity cuteness: Pokémon as Japan 's new global power," Postcolonial Studies, Vol. 6, No. 3 (2003): 381-395.
- Michelle Levander, “Where Does Fantasy End,” Time Magazine, June 4, 2001, Vol.157 No.22.
- Brian Bennett, “101 Pixels of Fun,” Time Magazine, June 4, 2001, Vol.157 No.22.
- JC Herz, “The Bandwidth Capital of the World,” Wired, 10.8, August, 2002.
- Caroline Gluck, “South Korea’s Gaming Addicts,” BBC World News, Asia-Pacific, 22 November 2002.
- BBC World News, “South Korean Dies After Games Session,” 10 August 2005.
Nov 15 Games and Politics
- Play September 12; Play Darfur is Dying; Airport Security; Food Import Folly.
- Gonzalo Frasca, “Sim Sin City: some thoughts about Grand Theft Auto 3,” Game Studies, Vol 3, no2, December 2003.
- Gonzalo Frasca, "Videogames of the Oppressed: Critical Thinking, Education, Tolerance and Other Trivial Issues," in Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan, eds., First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game (MIT Press, 2002), pp. 85-94.
- Clive Thompson, “Saving the World, One Video Game at a Time,” New York Times, July 23, 2006.
Thanksgiving Recess Nov 20-Nov 26, no class Nov 20 and Nov 22
Nov 20
no class
Nov 22
no class
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Week 14: Gender
This week's podcasters: Kostadin and Harrison
Nov 27
Tomb Raider
Nov 29
- Stephen Kline, Nick Dyer-Witheford, and Grieg de Peuter, "Designing Militarized Masculinity," Chap. 11, Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture, and Marketing,, pp. 246-268.
- Helen W. Kennedy, "Lara Croft: Feminist Icon or Cyberbimbo? On the Limits of Textual Analysis," Game Studies, vol. 2, issue 2 December 2002
- Claudia Herbst, "Then and Now: Gender, Code and Literacy," Social Semiotics, Volume 14 Number, 3 (December 2004), pp. 335-348.
- Mary Flanagan, "Hyperbodies, Hyperknowledge: Women in Games, Women in Cyberpunk, and Strategies of Resistance," in Mary Flanagan and Austin Booth, eds., Reload: Rethinking Women + Cyberculture. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002. pp. 425-454.
- Mary Flanagan, "Navigating the Narrative in Space: Gender and Spatiality in Virtual Worlds," Art Journal, Vol 59 no. 3, Fall 2000, pp. 74-85.
- Claudia Herbst,"Shock and Awe: Virtual Females and the Sexing of War," Feminist Media Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3, 2005, pp. 311-324.
- G. Beato, “Girl Games,” Wired, Vol. 5.04, April 1997.
- Janelle Brown, “All-Girl Quake Clans Shake Up Boys’ World,” Wired News, May 2, 1997.
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Week 15: Violence
Dec 4
- Brad King & John Borland, Dungeons and Dreamers: The Rise of Computer Game Culture from Geek to Chic, pp. 173-198.
- John L. Sherry, “The effects of Violent Video Games on Aggression: A Meta-Analysis,” Human Communication Research, July 2001, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 409-431(23). Oxford University Press.
- Craig A. Anderson & Brad J. Bushman, (2001). "Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggressive Behaviour, Aggressive Cognition, Aggressive Affect, Physiological Arousal, and Pro-Social Behaviour: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Scientific Literature," Psychological Science, Vol. 12, No. 5, September 2001.
- Celia Pearce, "Beyond Shoot Your Friends . . . A Call to Arms in the Battle Against Violence," in Digital Illusion: Entertaining the Future with High Technology.
- Gerard Jones, "Violent Media is Good for Kids," in Mother Jones, June 28, 2000.
- Greg Costikyan, "Violence: The Role Playing Game of Egregious and Repulsive Violence," (1999).
- Gret Costikyan, “Games don’t Kill People—Do They?” Salon, June 21, 1999.
- Gonzalo Frasca, "Rethinking Agency and Immersion: videogames as a means of consciousness-raising," SIGGRAPH 2001.
Dec 6 New Theoretical Perspectives
- Jesper Juul, Video Games and the Classic Game Model, Half-Real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds, Cambridge, Mass.; MIT Press, 2005, pp. 23-54.
- Ian Bogost, Procedural Rhetoric, Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Video Games, Cambridge, Mass.; MIT Press, 2007, pp1-64.
- Alex Galloway, Gamic Action, Four Moments, Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture, Minneapolis; University of Minnesota Press, 2006, pp. 1-38.
Dec 8
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