Open Culture Robin Burke GAM 224

Outline Admin Open Culture fan-dom open architectures / tools machinima Cultural Resistance

Admin Play papers still not finished Culture papers due next week

Open Culture Culture is not produced by one group and consumed by another (sometimes seems this way) Culture is a web in which all parties participate in different ways

Open Game Culture Games are like this one group produces games another group buys But players have their own voice that voice influences what games are produced, and (most important) that voice influences how the games are understood

Non-game example Star Wars Fanatical fans in-depth knowledge of every piece of official Star Wars narrative Producers not totally free to rewrite the story to their convenience the hard-core fans are a crucial audience big consumers strong influencers of others Appropriation Fans produce their own materials using the settings and characters of the original fan fiction art, etc. Star Wars images are popular symbols

Questions to ask What is the extent of fan involvement in the game? fan sites fan art / fiction What do the publishers do to generate greater involvement? marketing materials hosted discussions public beta releases

Game Platforms Platform Specific computer hardware, as in the phrase "platform-independent". It may also refer to a specific combination of hardware and operating system and/or compiler, as in "this program has been ported to several platforms". It is also used to refer to support software for a particular activity, as in "This program provides a platform for research into routing protocols". FOLDOC

Game Platforms Open architecture game specifically designed to support modification Designers think of the game software as support software supports many possible games including the one they've written Users acquire the game also the tools for modifying the game

Design issues Declarative architecture how to design the game so that its components are declared rather than programmed End-user tools how to create the tools so that an end-user can produce game content with them

Declarative Architecture User Game Program Hardware User Game Engine Hardware Game Content Procedural Declarative

Engine Characteristics Defines what properties can be associated with game objects Defines what kinds of game assets (graphics, sound, etc.) can be used Defines the limitations of the physics of the game world

Example Unreal Tournament

Capabilities First-person 3-D environment indoor multi-level Characters health armor Artifacts weapons ammo health power-ups emphasis on respawning of items Supports multi-player indoor battles

Example 2 Warcraft III

Capabilities 3 rd person 3-D environment outdoor tiled map Characters health manna many others Artifacts buildings characters are produced economic attributes Supports single- and multi-player strategy games

Machinima Machine + cinema Using computer game environments to generate movies Repurposing the game tools to support non-game ends the game is "played" to generate particular video sequences which are treated as shots and edited into movies

Examples

Next Wednesday Culture papers due in class Grand Theft Auto III case study