Nolan Bushnell on Educational Videogames
I stumbled upon an article by Atari founder Nolan Bushnell about the educational potential of videogames. It’s not dated, but based on the biographical one-liner I’d say it’s from around 1982. Here’s the first paragraph: The computer, the single most powerful development of the twentieth century, is still puny in comparison to the mind of man. The difference lies in… read more
My DiGRA 2009 Keynote, on Videogames and Ontology
What follows is the text of my keynote at the 2009 Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) conference, held in Uxbridge, UK September 1-4, 2009. The text corresponds fairly accurately to the address I gave at the conference. In a few cases, I’ve added some clarifications in square brackets, where additional context or commentary was relevant. Videogames are a mess So… read more
On The Human-Centered Objection
Over on Larval Subjects, Levi raised some concerns about Nate’s recent post about zombies and speculative realism. Specifically, Bryant expressed a worry that treating humans as zombies might suggest that object-oriented ontology sees humans as lesser forms than other objects, rather than as one of many objects on equal footing. As I mentioned in the subsequent discussion, I didn’t read… read more
Like a high-speed film of a horse running
Graham Harman has been posting a series of enlightening thoughts on writing as he races toward a book deadline, taking only two months from start to finish. The book in question has a word limit (a character limit, really) because it is destined for immediate translation, and the translation has to be done on a budget. The whole series is… read more
A response to Levi Bryant
In a lengthy comment on my pragmatic speculative realism post, philosopher Levi Bryant asks what issues in technology and media studies prompted my interest in object-oriented ontology. I’d like to try to answer the question for the benefit of readers finding their way here from sources in philosophy rather than game studies. In some ways, I think I was doing… read more
Speculative Realism and Digital Media
Last week I had the opportunity to visit in Cairo with philosopher Graham Harman, someone whose work I’ve known and admired for some time now. It was nice to meet him in person for the first time, not to mention having a local guide for getting around this enormous, insane city. I also got to deliver Graham’s first copy of… read more
Adds new sound settings, high score reset
Apple has just approved, finally, my latest update to the iPhone version of Guru Meditation (to 1.2). Here are the list of updates as they appear on the iTunes App Store: Added a Sound Mode setting. Options are Requires Quiet, which is the standard mode, Microphone Disabled, which allows the game to be played in louder environments like public transit… read more
I'm sure you've been biting your nails in anticipation
A week ago or so, I mentioned a trivia contest I was running on the Touch Arcade forums, with correct answers winning Guru Meditation redemption codes or a signed copy of Racing the Beam. I’ve given away all the codes and the book, so now it’s time to share the correct answers. (1) The Fairchild Channel F, an interchangeable cartridge… read more
On cognitive dissonance and the iPhone. From my "Persuasive Games" column at Gamasutra.
Last month I took an early Sunday morning flight from Atlanta to Orlando. I wandered into a newsstand and picked up the May 2009 issue of Popular Science, which featured a cover story about space planes that intrigued me. The story turned out to be less interesting than the cover suggested, but I rather enjoyed another article about the discomfort… read more
Win copies of Guru Meditation, Racing the Beam
The nice folks over at Touch Arcade invited me to drop in and discuss my game Guru Meditation on their forum. To spur conversation, I decided to run a little trivia contest. I figured I’d point the rest of you to it. Here’s how it works: the first person to correctly answer any single question gets an iTunes redemption code… read more