DiGRA 2007 underway
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.
In her opening speech Tanya Krzywinska, DiGRA President (speaking in Tokyo University Yasuda Auditorium, pictured) described this year’s games research conference as “Godzilla” — which it in a sense is; even the proceedings book is almost 900 pages! The week is well underway, and today, in one of Thursday’s last sessions I have also my own paper presentation. Continue reading “DiGRA 2007 underway”
They start it small
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.
This year’s Tokyo Game Show (TGS) was bigger than ever; with its expected 180 000 visitors, 1 550 booths and 54 000 square meters of show-floor space, this is certainly as loud as games cultures get today. No moment of rest for a gamer, even if personally I’d prefer to sit down in somewhere more quiet and focus in only a game or two, rather than drifting inside a torrent of visitors past hundreds screens, demos, show sessions, all shouting over each other. But, hey — quickly taken, it was fun!
More pictures among my Flickr travel photos, see: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fransmayra/1426977592/
Edit: I did read later (from The Asahi Shimbun, 29-30 Sept. weekend edition) that the total number of exhibitors was 217 and number of visitors 193 040 — wow!
Tokyo morning 1: into TGS
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.
After having slept for c. 11 hours, it feels good to wake up in Tokyo. My hotel is Sheraton Miyako, a slightly older establishment that is located quite far away from the DiGRA conference location in the Shirogane district. There are a few embassies in the area and with its temples and parks, the area looks rather nice; the photo is taken from my hotel window. Today I was planning on visiting the Tokyo Game Show, if I can handle the complexities of Japanese transportation system. There are several private and state metro and railway lines in Tokyo, so getting from place to place can be some sort of challenge. But I have no other obligations today, so: off we go!
To Tokyo and Stars
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.
On the road again — via Arlanda (Sweden) and Copenhagen in two jumps to the long haul, arriving (jet-lagged) in Tokyo, and new, bright day. Even if it was hard to leave Laura and our sweet little baby, I cannot really skip a DiGRA conference. Making best of it, I will take a quick course in Japanese travellers’ lore (from Lonely Planet) and spend the night/day on plane reading science fiction (The Algebraist by Ian M. banks). Here we go — jump!
Raph Koster demoes here his new Metaplace platform — a do-it-yourself virtual world in casual, Web 2.0 oriented way.
Alpha testers, feel free to register: http://www.metaplace.com/
This looks interesting: Taito has developed a hybrid digital-analogue cardgame which is based on similar technology which Microsoft has demoed under ‘Surface’ concept:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/17/taito-introduces-surface-like-arcade-game/
TLS (Times Literary Supplement) has hold a central place in the literary lives of educated Englishmen from the year 1902 when Times first started featuring it. An interesting sign of times, even this ivory tower of analogue culture is taking into account some current discussions around the digital domains. See e.g. a review of Andrew Keen’s book The Cult of the Amateur) on the differing concepts of ‘culture’ that surround the ongoing debates on blogs, for example. To us who are also drawn into the realms Tolkien created, irrespective of the medium, TLS also offers something in its recent installment, including a piece discussing Diana Pavlac Glyer’s work The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community and the glimpses to the lives of the Inklings it offers.
The MIT Technology Review (the self-appointed “authority on the future of technology”) pays attention to the challenges game companies are facing, as some — most notably EVE Online — attempt to maintain a seamless, persistent virtual world to all of players simultaneously. See: Technology Review: The One-World Video-Game Challenge.
Predicting future is hard, but fun job. Here is a pick of videos from YouTube:
There is something slightly comical in this line of techno-futurism and excitement about the future, if you keep on watching these long enough. On the other hand, optimism is sweet. One-sided, but still sweet.
GameSpace workshop
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.
Our research project on games design and evaluation methodologies organised another internal workshop this week. The project is focused on the design challenges of casual, multiplayer mobile games, and this time we worked on techniques of low-fi game mechanics prototyping. More on GameSpace here: http://gamelab.uta.fi/GameSpace
frans goes blog 
You must be logged in to post a comment.