Developers and Theorists

Raph Koster is clearly an important person, especially because of his work on Ultima Online. He takes issue with Jepser Juul and the comments reported at the gamespot website, where there is some discussion on this. Juul's argument is that games like GTA and The Sims (also demonstrated by its popularity for mobile gamers as, I guess, its something that can be dipped in and out of quite easily) are more rewarding than games that are just goal orientated as they allow for more exploration and less failure, thereby appealing to a wider audience. His main point being that

Successful games without goals tend to be deeply expressive.

This means a higher level of engagement and involvement than with games that are more narrowly aimed at just achieving goals.Koster just clears up his own view of 'fun and flow', how he doesn't see them as the same thing - that you can be in flow without having fun, and have fun without being in that flow state. (Donald Norman?)

Scandinavia is clearly the centre of games theory at the moment. Along with Juul and others mentioned in a previous post, there are others, such as Lisbeth Klastrup who is also at the Center for Computer Game Research in Copenhagen. Klastrup also has a blog.

The memex engine is something I have recently been reading about, and must get to spend some proper time exploring, so I'll come back to it later. I also discovered that there has recently been set up the rather exclusive Hip Hop Gaming League. I bet Snoop Dogg is getting well paid by Microsoft for this. Vivendi have also started a mobile phone gaming division. Content will be the thing. There's lots of development of 'casual games' too, with Gamezebo a good site for reviews.