This should be of interest to all those who are focused on player experiences, and particularly to the role of money on the table: how does it affect players when they know that they are playing for real money, and against other (real) players? Unfortunately in Finnish, but an English abstract is also available: see http://www.stakes.fi/FI/Julkaisut/verkkojulkaisut/raportteja08/VR24_2008.htm
I admit, I am probably in the target group for these ones: I have been looking recently in the convergence of games and media and the emergence of “low interactivity” games (games that allow also other gameplay modalities on top of the classic “immersed gamer” one”). These are not exactly the same as “zero player games” that play automatically themselves, but pretty close: you can enjoy the adventure with only minimal input coming from player in key points. One of the most recent fun ones has been Dungeons&Dragons Tiny Adventures, which is a very stripped-down version of D&D that still brings back those memories of true old-school RPG adventures. Very much recommended.
It looks like this will be one of those 13-hour work days. But lets not complain when everything you work on is so interesting and challenging. The late-night part of today’s agenda was acting the part of award jury and handing the 2008 AVEK media art award to Pia Lindman (pictured). She is really interesting contemporary artist, with work that explores topical yet timeless themes like emotions and universal/inter-cultural communication with wit and intelligence. Congratulations! (And shame on me for not remembering to thank fellow juries Minna Tarkka and Janne Gallen-Kallela-Sirén for their crucial expertise in my short speech — my only apology is that I saw the program and realized that I would be speaking only half-an-hour before I was on the LUME main stage…) More on the event e.g. in Helsingin Sanomat and in the AVEK info bulletin.
I am today participating in a gambling addiction seminar in Helsinki (in SES Auditorium, under the “Kino K-13” sign pictured). The speakers are providing an update on the dark side of gaming in Finland in 2008. I will be presenting our own studies of the player experiences and control issues of online poker in two weeks (an invitation-only seminar in Sept. 24th, organised by SOCCA/Helsinki).
This and the next two weeks are probably the busiest ones in entire Autumn term (at least that is what I keep telling myself — we’ll see). There are many wonderful things in this fall, too, including spectacular crop yield of mushrooms. Also, Laura’s work on flowering plants is starting to yield results, as this visiting Admiral also proves. Other regulars have included peacock butterflies (neitoperhonen) and Camberwell Beauty/the mourning cloak (suruvaippa).
I think I have managed to successfully submit the full paper into the Internet Research 9.0 conference system (no confirmation messages, so I cannot be really sure). Here is the revised short abstract — see you all in Copenhagen!
Play in the Mobile Internet: Towards Contextual Gaming Frans Mäyrä
Abstract
As use of Internet from broadband-enabled mobile devices is becoming more common, studying the particular characteristics of mobile usage gains new importance. This paper discusses the role of services like Flickr and Facebook from the perspective of “contextual gaming” – the appropriation of mobile and networked media for playful purposes in a social context. Applying Roger Caillois’ distinction between paidia and ludus, the paper will introduce both free-form and improvised, as well as more rule-bound and competitive developments into playful, social media. The paper will conclude with both some criticism of the increasingly pervasive and continuous entanglement in socially charged technologies, while also welcoming the empowering and liberating potentials in this process.
There has been some pretty complicated issues with this server, once again. My current hypothesis is that the combination of badly configured backup processes and the buggy CUPS server together filled up the root disk, leading to a situation where MySQL database was not able to start any more. And that led e.g. me being unable to log into Ubuntu regularly via Gnome desktop. Also, it appears that either caused by this mess, or regardless of it, my main data disk (external USB Lacie) had got its “superblock” corrupted — and I did not find a way to fix it so far.
Well, luckily it was possible to log in via console, and (with some help) I have now deleted enough stuff from the root so that this system runs again. I also took the opportunity and finally did some memory upgrades: firstly, the default memory chip (512 MB in this Proliant ML110 G3) was replaced by two 1 MB chips (regular Kingston DDR2 value chips). Secondly, I got a bigger disk (not USB this time) and plugged it into the second SATA slot inside the Proliant. Seems to run ok: it is Samsung Spinpoint F1 750 GB model (more info here; a promo pic below). Now, if I only can find a way to access that corrupted Lacie USB disk somehow — it was formatted in FAT so using Windows software is an option here, too. And understanding what crashed the disk in the first place would peace my mind as well.
Sorry for this, but, hey: it’s already Friday! This is a clear follow-up to the Dr O’Kells Wondrous Beer Translation – but this time, it is the French who are doing it:
Today I had again a visit to Helsinki, through kind invitation by the executives of MLL (Mannerheimin Lastensuojeluliitto, the Mannerheim League for Child Welfare – the biggest organisation of its kind in Finland). I am bringing the perspectives of digital culture and game studies to the media education work that the association is carrying out, hopefully playing some small part in increasing “games literacy” in our country. Links: http://www.mll.fi/ & http://www.mll.fi/in_english/
There are some details still to be sorted out, but this is now official: games research has been selected as one of the spearhead areas that will be supported in the new Finnish University Alliance. The University Alliance is formed by three universities: University of Tampere, University of Jyväskylä and Tampere University of Technology. Games research has been granted the spearhead project status together with the research into the future of learning, so there will be particular interest in the connections of games and learning in the Alliance. The overall aim is to strengthen the Finnish academic work on games research by uniting the forces and having finally a large games research centre in this area. More (in Finnish): http://www.yliopistoallianssi.fi/karkihankkeet.html.
frans goes blog 
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