The Gamification of Death: How the Hardest Game Design Challenge Ever Demonstrates the Limits of Gaming

Video games can evoke powerful emotions, and deeply affect the people who play them. Plenty of games have already proven that the medium is capable of dealing with complex issues, but are there subjects that video games just aren't equipped to handle?

Margaret Robertson of the experimental game studio Hide&Seek explored this very question at GDC 2012, as she and her team ran into some real trouble when working on their interactive media experiment, Dreams of Your Life.

[Note: To access chapter selection, click the fullscreen button or check out the video on the GDC Vault website]

Source: Gama Sutra.

'Mum, Dad, I want to be a Game Designer'

This is a presentation made at the SAND, (Swansea International Animation Festival), in November 2008 (little bit old but is very good), by the Global Head of Employment Brand, Matthew Jeffery. In this video here about game design, what game designers do and what skills you need to be one. As this video is of a complete presentation made it is 50 mins long.



What do you think about that?

Good graph

About Cognitive Apprenticeship and Games

"When you play the Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception game on the PlayStation 3, you don't tell Nathan Drake what to shoot, you don't direct him where to go, and you don't give him commands to follow. No, you don't control Nathan Drake because you ARE Nathan Drake. By operating the character in the game, you learn the implicit rules of the world you inhabit".

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REFERENCE:

KAPP, Karl. The Gamification of learning and instruction: game-based methods and strategies for training and education. San Francisco: Pfeifer, 2012. (pages 69 and 70)

Quote of the day

“Games lubricate the body and mind.” - Benjamin Franklin

The Valve handbook for new employees

Amazing document about the working methodology of Valve. Click on the image below to download the full content.



About the company: Valve is an entertainment software and technology company founded in 1996. In addition to creating several of the world’s most award-winning games like Portal and Half-Life, Valve is also a developer of leading-edge technologies including the Source® game engine and Steam®, the premier online gaming platform. Valve also is the creator of Steam, the pioneering game platform that distributes and manages over 1,800 games directly to a community of more than 40 million players around the world.

Official site http://www.valvesoftware.com/.

Off Book: Video Games

by PBS Arts

Video games are more important than they seem. They are a storytelling medium, a place for self-expression. The age-old tradition of gaming teaches us strategy, maneuvering, and the importance of making choices. From the cinematic experiences of mainstream gaming, to the hyper-personal environments of indie games, gaming activity defines the way we live and interact with information, and each other.



Featuring:
Eric Zimmerman, Game Designer
Jesper Juul, Game Studies Scholar
Leigh Alexander, Game Journalist
Syed Salahuddin, Game Designer and Curator

Follow Off Book:
Twitter: @pbsoffbook
Tumblr: pbsarts.tumblr.com/
Produced by Kornhaber Brown: kornhaberbrown.com