ICS 131: Social Analysis of Computerization Lecture 17: Computer Games

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Key Idea Games are becoming an important entertainment medium and cultural artifact.

Games as Entertainment Medium Competing with movies, books, television, theater, musical concerts, etc.

History Various predecessors, 1880s-1950s Spacewar, 1961 First Arcade Video Game, 1971 Pong, 1972 Atari, 1977 Pac-Man, 1980 Doom, 1993

Platforms PC Games Console Games Handheld Games Single Player Networked Heterogeneous

Genres FPS Third person adventure RPG Puzzle Sim Others?

Game Productions Programmers Modelers Animators Game Designers Marketers Managers Sound Designers Others?

Game Production Process Hybrid of animated film and software engineering processes Describe each

Casual Games Benefits Limitations

Mobile Games Benefits Limitations

Ducheneaut Reading World of Warcraft What are its characteristics?

Operant Conditioning How does this factor in?

What Do Games Tell Us About US Culture? What games do you play? What does this say about people in the US? How does it compare to movies?

What Do Games Tell Us About Other Cultures? Non-US games? Differences from US games?

What Do Games Tell Us About the Interactions Between Cultures? Games that cross cultures? How do people from different cultures interact in the games?

Topic for Debate Do violent computer games lead to real world violence? Let’s make a list of arguments for and against

Games for Change Conference Examples? Panel

Topic for Debate I think navigation and social skills will be the two most important parts of game AI’s in 20 years. Please list five other capabilities that game AI’s will have in 20 years, and describe the impact that each of these capabilities will have on the kinds of games.

Today’s gamers are... …come on down front! LARSON, CHRISTOPHER THOMAS MU, NAN TRAN, CHARLIE WILKINSON, DAVID HIROSHI WU, KEVIN KAI ANGUIANO, ALFRED ALFONSO AUSTGEN, CAMERON D. FUJITA, JUSTIN TSUTOMU LA PIERRE, BLAKE M. LUZWICK, JAMES ROBERT OLIVARES, JAMES PATRICK ROBLES

Next class: Social Relationships

Collaborative AI Predictive modeling Responsive environment Reasonable unpredictability Physical interfaces to Ais Help you find other people Remember past experience Artificial Marketers Emotions Learning strategies Deal with unpredictable people Natural language recognition Moving across networks Diversity in Ais Imitation Content creation Ability to evaluate players Emotion recognition Communal planning