Online Class

Imagine yourself in a room full of people.  Everyone is talking all at once, doing their best to hear what others say and respond to it, but nobody is taking any social cues as to when they should talk, or what question they should be answering exactly.  It is nobodies "turn" to talk, it's every one's turn.  This is an online chat room.

Some might argue this provides a much freer atmosphere, that it allows anyone and every to voice their opinions and be heard.  That often times in a real world setting one can more easily dominate a conversation and never let others get a word in edge-wise.  My response?  Chaos is not a free atmosphere.

An Internet chat room does not provide for a linear conversation.  Everyone is responding to something else, and things are happening so fast you may never even see a string of potentially important or conversation changing statements.  There is no logic.  You may ask a question that has already been answered, or offer a piece of evidence that has already been discussed or refuted.  You cannot have a real and meaningful discussion when it is the equivalent of everyone yelling over the top of each other, missing every other word being said.

What it comes down to is that there is no replacement for face to face conversation.  The social cues, manner of speech, timing, and anything else that goes into a conversation are just as important as the words that are spoken.  To me, there is no substitute for this.

Was this a fun an interesting experiment?  Yes, it definitely was.  Is it something I foresee ever wanting to do again?  No.  At the end of the day I don't feel like any real progress was made.  For the people who argue that it is a way to make sure they are heard; is it really being heard if you're not sure anyone even reads it?

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On a somewhat related note, chat rooms and things like Skype can be very entertaining to use in your free time.  Skype is great for connecting in a semi-face-to-face manner, but if you are in the business of taking risks, I would suggest trying out Omegle or (if you are very brave) Chat Roulette.

Both of these connect you to real people, the first being chat based entirely (I believe) and the latter involving video as well as text chat.  Things can get rather racy on these sights, so use with caution, however you can meet some pretty awesome people on these sights on occasion.  

Here is one of my favorite videos for a Chat Roulette experience.

Warning: Slightly explicit

Lambda Moo

Lambda Moo was nothing short of hilarious.  It was also very interesting, different, and thought provoking.  It seems to me that your experience within the game is equal parts dependent on your ability to have an active imagination as well as meet other people who are also willing to be a part of this world with you.

Though getting the Moo going may have been difficult for many, I fancy myself fairly tech savvy, so I actually got it going in about 15 minutes.  Once in, I was ready to explore.  I walked around all over the place, using the map provided by the tutorial.  To be honest, before I played it, I mainly thought of the above photo.

After a while I was able to get Dane and Foss into the game as well, and then the  three of us just made it hilarious.  We were chasing each other all over the map, trying to find out which room the other ones went into.  We did some funny roleplaying, as well.  Once, when Foss met me by the hot tub, I asked him to get in and went into a speech, asking him if “he knew why I called him here?”  I then “reached for a briefcase” and proceeded to tell him he had a very secret, very dangerous mission, if he chose to accept it.  Think about:

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These are the types of interactions you can have in the Moo.  Funny, clever (maybe mine is not as clever as I thought?..) and creative within a space of just simply text.  Amazing how we can still go back and enjoy our time, no matter how little, in a game like the Moo with all the over-stimulation our entertainment today provides.

The Moo has died down from its “hayday”, but it is still an interesting tool.  The requirement of the use of imagination is severely underrated, and honestly much of the upcoming generations will suffer for not having this type of interaction with others.  Whether that is a lack of imagination in real life interactions and/or ones via cyberspace, there is a definite drain on creativity these days.

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As a side note, here is an (what I think to be hilarious) interaction I had on Lambda Moo last night.  Enjoy!

Political Games

They seem to be a great way to lure people in with the prospect of entertainment, and follow that up with some sort of lesson that could potentially lead to further interest and contribution to said cause (though the money contribution is not necessarily a part of it, as is the case with games like balancing the budget). The idea is generally to use the interactivity of games in combination with a cause to get you to feel something for their cause.

These games seem to work on the concept of quantity over quality. What I mean by that is if they wanted to truly make sure every person hears their message, they would come to you in person. Perhaps they do this additionally in some other way, but that is not the purpose of a political game.

No, rather the political game is designed to reach as many people as possible, with the hope that some of them will become interested or invested enough through their time spent with the game and the knowledge given them through this media to contribute in some way, big or small, much like a flyer left on every doorstep in a neighborhood.

Although, I think these are likely far more effective than any flyer or pamphlet (or perhaps you are just as confused as Clark Kent?).  They draw you in, using flashing lights, clever dialog, or a touching story, and they get you to feel a connection to their message. The game “Spent” puts you in the place of someone in a tough spot. Your decisions aren’t easy, and you feel the weight of them as you play.  Yet, these decisions are not real. So why do we give a shit?

We give a shit because we are wired to. We make these choices, we physically interact with the interface and we are given an outcome. Does this outcome really matter to us? No. But we put something in. We spent time on this game and we expect something out, so when you make these tough choices and the outcomes are less than favorable, we want to understand why?! This is what drives many of us to learn what their message has to say, even if many of us forget in the next 5 minutes.

Right now, my political mind is on SOPA. This is a potentially momentous change that is being proposed in Washington, and not nearly enough people know about it. Something needs to be done to raise public awareness, and perhaps a political game is one way to take action. If you haven’t looked into it for yourself, you need to. Now.

Not tomorrow. Not later tonight. Now! This affects everyone, so everyone needs to educate themselves on the decisions being made in Washington. Don’t let corporations decide what is best for our collective cyberspace.   Some of our most visited websites are under fire, including Wikipedia and Google, the latter of which I know has already been forced to delete search results due to supposed "copyright infringement".

Do NOT let this become our new reality.  Tell a family member and tell a friend, because this is not something that is just going away.

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On an only slightly related note, here is one of my favorite internet videos, and it's related to politics as well (HOORAY)!  Regardless of your political beliefs, I think we can all agree with what this video has to say.

Gaming Culture

Gaming culture cannot really be defined in simple terms.  At first glance it seems simple enough; a bunch of dudes sitting around a console or their computers just playing their favorite games.  Probably nerds, likely do not spend a whole lot of time at the gym or playing sports.

These days, this really is not the case.  There are more casual gamers than ever; higher sales for games like Call of Duty than there have ever been for games before.  The term casual gamer is even up for debate with more and more people getting further involved into what you might even call transmedia storytelling.

Gaming today involves much more depth, from forums and pieces of different sites dedicated to everyone’s different favorite game, to break downs of every game you have ever played and heat maps for where you most commonly die, or perhaps spend your time camping like an asshole.  Even the “casual gamer” seems to be involved of these parts of gaming today.

Gaming has even gotten to the point where “E-sports” are getting bigger and bigger all the time (as much as I hate that term).  Thousands of people are watching streams every day, listeing to the banter of their favorite players for hours, just hoping to learn a few tricks or pieces of advice.  I myself am definitely guilty of this.  This would be my favorite player in LoL right now, and my favorite stream to watch.

Dan Dinh

I  have also had my fair share of gaming experience.  I was once one of the best players in the world at a game called NFL Street, which was a bit like NFL Blitz, but not quite as ridiculous.  One of my favorite games I ever played was Halo 2, in which I was in a group that was top 3 in the world for a time.  Now I don’t spend quite so much time at one game, though a majority of my time is spent playing League of Legends, my current favorite.  In terms of Richard Bartle's breakdown, I would place myself somewhere between the achiever and the socializer.

Gaming itself has taken more of a turn toward casual gaming.  From the WII and Kinect to the perks in Call of Duty, they all tend to lean toward accessibility to the lesser-skilled and less-experienced player.  Not to say this is necessarily bad, as there is clearly still room to be more experienced, more skilled, and a better player overall.  What it does mean, however, is that the games being made are geared more toward this group of casual gamers as it grows larger.

Games are less often being made for the honor of being groundbreaking or industry changing, and more often are being made as closely to the most recent success.  One of the current examples of this would be, once again, and sorry for beating a dead horse, but the Call of Duty franchise.  Nobody would argue there are significant changes between Call of Duty 4 and the current game, Modern Warfare 3, however there is argument over how much this matters.

There is no doubt this is the greatest strategy for making money, as this has been shown in the sales of these types of games in the recent years, but is it “good” for gaming?  I myself miss the days of games like Ghost Recon, Rainbow 6, and other shooters that have been pushed out to make way for the types of shooters we have now, the only types of shooters we have anymore (first person Call of Duty-ish shooters).

In the end, how much do we care as a gaming community?  Is it stupid of me to think gaming companies should make these games just because some portion of us might like them, selfish even?  Or is it more a fact that these are the most popular games because they are the only ones being made, similar to how one might argue it isn’t that people want to eat unhealthy, but it is what is most available to them?  I would like to believe the latter.

Tron

Being a bit of a movie buff, it’s always nice to watch a movie, let alone as part of a class period.  Having never seen it before, it was also a chance to expand upon my vast movie trivia knowledge, as well as sense of anything that likely went over my head in Tron: Legacy.

It is always great to see the “this is what the future could be!” types of movies, and right from the beginning you could see that’s exactly what Tron was.  At a time when computers were far too large and complex for the household, it takes a sci-fi look at what the hell a computer even is, or could be.  We are whisked through a crazy adventure in which the movement of data appears to us in the form of intense battles and attempts to conquer the world even outside of cyberspace.  This movie is also likely one of the first in a long (and still continuing) trend of films that ask, “what if computers get too smart?”

For anyone who has not see the original Tron, here is an extremely brief rundown of some key scenes, just to get the gist.  However, if you haven’t seen this movie, I suggest you watch it instead and come back.

Not only was this a great film for its time, but it still has an undeniably great plot if you look past the cgi (computer-generated images) of old, which often look cheesy in the high-definition scrutiny we place movies under today.  However, you really cannot deny how sick this looks.

This movie is also great for the purposes of this class.  As we talked about before, this was really one of the first times we see a real demonstration of transmedia storytelling.  With the game being released at the same time as the film, we get immersed in this very real universe of Tron.  We get to play the same games we see in the film, see for ourselves what the characters have to go through and try our own hand at each of them.  It brings the film to life for us.

On a personal note, this has to be one of the better movies I have seen in a while.  People tend to forget that “amazing graphics” can never compensate for a great story and the ability to immerse the fans in an experience.

Convergence Culture

Convergence culture is extremely interesting to me.  In a way it brings a psychological, as well as marketing, perspectives, into media studies.  It looks at what really makes up shows like Survivor and American Idol, and why they are so popular.

From the standpoint of a psychology major, convergence culture is the ultimate way to draw a larger fan base.  By getting viewers involved in the show through allowing them to actually influence the outcome, through voting in the case of these two shows, it gives the audience a vested interest in the outcome.  It gets people more emotionally involved.  Why watch these shows?  Because you have a say in what happens.

From a marketing perspective this is also a well-thought out idea.  The process of customization is something we all generally like to be a part of.  If I buy a new pair of shoes, I can customize a million things about them if I want to.  This gives me a greater reason to invest my money, because I am getting exactly what I want from it, not what some corporate suit wants me to wear.

This is the same for shows.  American Idol is the best example of a show where the audience gets a say in what happens.  They get to feel as though they ultimately choose the winner.  Though everyone may not be happy with the outcome, and the producers really seem to retain a majority of the say (America votes people into a “bottom 2” but ultimately the decisions are made by the judges), but in the end you either got what you wanted in a winner, or you at least felt a part of the process.

Jenkins also mentions how people like “Survivor spoilers” interact with shows like Survivor.  In their case, they do everything in their power to find out who wins Survivor before it is officially announced.  Using sleuthing skills and apparent distaste for the process of being strung along for months, they systematically narrow down the field of possible winners.  This creates an entirely different game within the game, even if their reasons for participating are because they dislike the game in the first place.

Convergence culture has a weird way of bringing people together and making everyone feel a part of a process, that they may not actually be as much a part of as they think.  Is this a bad thing?  Not necessarily.  Entertainment can be found in many forms, and if it’s entertaining, should we really care why?

Welcome to Cyberland!

Searching for a class can be hard at times.  You need to fulfill GEs and your major requirements, always thinking about your future and what the next class could do for you, but at the same time attempting to balance your interests and attempting to find a class in which the time you spend will be enjoyable.   This interim I was attempting to do just that.  It is never as easy as you think it will be, either.  What you believe to be a 15-minute selection from a limited number of classes turns into a vast 3-hour search. 

When I stumbled across Cybercultures, there was no course description.  The only things I knew about it were that it would fulfill a WRI, something I was in need of, and that it is part of the film studies concentration.  Despite this, however, I chose to sign up for this class based solely on the name alone. 

Cybercultures, or at least what I envisioned the word to encompass, is something I am a part of every day.  I spend hours on the internet, a part of different communities and cultures, all a piece of who I am.  I thought this class would expand what I know about these cultures I am a part of, and perhaps expand the way I think about these pieces of my life.

In this cyberspace I am a part of many different things.  From my Xbox Live “gamertag” and different gaming communities to Reddit and my Facebook, I partake in many different communities, both in their settings and the other people who are a part of them.  These define who I am in cyberspace; some more closely linked to my life outside of cyberculture than others, but all a part of what makes me, me.  I think I am more an active part of the internet and these different sub-cultures than most, so maybe they define me a bit more than the average person. 

The internet and the culture that surrounds it is definitely a large and active part of my daily life.