1. Introduction Talk 1 Video Game Law 2017 UBC Law @ Allard Hall
Jon Festinger Q.C.
Centre for Digital Media
Allard Law of Law, UBC
QMUL School of Law (CCLS)
Festinger Law & Strategy

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4. Origins You are the 10th co-hort
Originally a book; but a course outline before a book..
Version 1.0: 2005/2006 UBC/UVic video experiment
Version 2.0: Started from scratch in Spring 2013
On hiatus last year. Version 3.0 starts now.
always evolving
Thanks to UBC CTLT

5. Why 3.0?
The subject taught and the tools used for teaching are in dialogue; how we teach can be an example of of what we are teaching.
The course is a game and should be approached that way.

6. And most importantly…
3. Because you are the Player… (New  group presentations during “Discussion Hour”)
World of
LawyerCraft

7. Meaning what exactly?… “Quest” = Great paper
“Journey” option (new feature)
* “Open World” = Vast terrain to be explored and navigated in your own way & on your unique (non-linear) path
* Can be played from a “1st or 3rd person” perspective
* Provide tools for “user generated content”
* Provide additional “downloadable content”
* Encourage “multiplayer” engagement

8. “Journey” suggestions

10. 3.0 Pedagogic Goals ENGAGEMENT CREATING PERSPECTIVE
APPRECIATING (LEGAL)
COMPLEXITY
Eve Online

11. Notable (but formative) Failure…
The iTune U course that never was…

12. And maybe not a failure but…

13. Now Back to More Regularly Scheduled Programming…

14. Textbook???

15. Computers Strongly Encouraged…

16. Lecture Capture

18. “Living” Syllabus

19. Three Tips:
Don’t feel your posts have to be perfect. Engaging and engaging others is the key.
Please tweet #ubcvgl
You can’t cover all the material – remember “this is an open world game – heed former students advice re News-of-the-Week

20. Real Search…

23. Special Issue of the UBC Law Review on “Digital Media, Video Games, And the Law” available…

24. And a new journal coming…

25. Other courses of note

26. My Gaming Bio

27. …purely as research into video game addiction (of course)…

28. PS4…

29. Newest Family Member

30. My current list

31. …From Form to Substance
Is Video Game Law a Unique area?
“Law of the Horse” – Larry Lessig

32. Video Game Leadership
Firsts & furthers, as well as barriers broken:
Interactivity (multiplayer “Spacewar”)
“Control”: mouse, controller, voice-command, Kinect, Google Glass
Augmented Reality
On-line “community”
Social (Media)
Voice Over IP
Open Worlds

33. As well as… Avatars (zeitgeist, memes, identity & equality) 3D
Portability (handhelds)
Micro-transactions
Game-Jams, now _____ Jams
AND VIRTUAL REALITY…

34. Not to mention…

36. Wow!!!!

37. What is a game? Roots in play (fun) + Creativity Always interactive
The digital journey “From documents to data”
Antecedents: comic books, pinball, D&D
Main metaphor: initiating content rather then receiving content (Television as “transmitter” to gamer as “transmitter’).
Strange thought: Gaming as Evolution (not the evolution of gaming). There must be a functional reason we are driven to play games…..Darwin was a gamer?
???

38. Whatever you may think…

39. And…

40. And…

41. WHY?
“Equally strange is our general addiction to games, both physical and mental. The profusion of games is truly startling: card games, board games, word games, ball games, electronic games….We even assemble in huge crowds to watch others playing games. What does all this mean? Do we simply get easily bored and cannot tolerate inactivity? I can find nothing in the literature of scientific psychology that helps me to understand such bizarre behavior.”
The Human Legacy (1982)
Leon Festinger

44. McLuhan, 1964 (Games as social reaction)
Games are popular art, collective, social reactions to the main drive or action of any culture. Games, like institutions, are extensions of social man and the body politic, as technologies are extensions of the animal organism. Both games and technologies are counter-irritants or ways of adjusting to the stress of the specialized actions that occur in any social group. As extensions of the popular response to the workaday stress, games become faithful models of a culture. They incorporate both the action and the reaction of whole populations in a single dynamic image.

45. Jung on Games & Instinct
“One of the most difficult tasks men can perform, however much others may despise it, is the invention of good games and it cannot be done by men out of touch with their instinctive selves.” Jung and the Story of Our Time, Laurens van der Post (1977)

46. Play as Evolution
Does Gaming have an evolutionary purpose in the Darwinian sense?
Dr. Kimberly Voll (CDM/UBC) – From “Game Design” – DMED 521:
1. “neurons that fire together, wire together” (Donald Hebb, aka “Hebbian Learning”)
2. “..so “fun” seems to be something our brains use to keep us doing something to the point of mastery…makes sense if it is something that will help us live better and get our genes out into the gene pool again…”

47. Stepping Up
* “5,000-year-old gaming tokens found in Turkey” (Aug. 15, 2013)
in.html#.UibUSBbE9TM
* “We are all hardwired for play” (Oct. 18, 2012)
* “Jailed Megaupload Founder Falls From Top Spot In Modern Warfare 3 Rankings” (Jan. 25, 2012)
from-top-spot-in-modern-warfare-3-rankings.aspx
* Playing With Life: Are Living Video Games Ethical? (Mashable July 14, 2013)

48. Play as social learning
The scientist who has perhaps done more research on brains at play than any other is a man named Jaak Panksepp. And he has developed a pretty good hypothesis.
In a nutshell, he, and many others, think play is how we social animals learn the rules of being social. Sort of counterintuitive when you think about it: Play is how you learn rules.

49. Evolution through interaction
* “Largest space battle in history claims 2,900 ships, untold virtual lives: The combat is fake, but the emotions are real”
(The Verge July 28, 2013)
* “Game or be gamed: Douglas Rushkoff on prototyping democracy through play” (The Verge Dec. 12, 2012)
“By viewing our social, political, and economic structures through the lens of interactivity, Rushkoff says, we are beginning to "transition from the world of passively accepted narrative to one that invites our ongoing participation.”

50. Why do we game?
A. Social reaction (McLuhan); B. Social learning interaction (Panksepp); C. To be in touch with our instinctive self (Jung); D. As part of Evolution (Darwin, Voll).

51. Most significant legal implications are from which of the above?

52. Answer: A. Social reaction (McLuhan) Why
Answer: A. Social reaction (McLuhan) Why? That is the rest of the course

53. Best Reason to Game?

54. THANKS FOR BEING PART OF THIS … Please post at

55. Next Week
Games are not IP; Video Games are IP; Explain? Part A. Creating “If Picasso had painted a round object…”

56. Always include a cat picture

57. Our Academic Partners