Turing as a Philosopher of Imitation
It’s hard to overestimate Alan Turing’s contributions to contemporary civilization. To mathematics, he contributed one of two nearly simultaneous proofs about the limits of first-order logic. In cryptography he devised an electromechanical device that decoded German Enigma machine’s signals during World War II, an accomplishment that should also be counted as a contribution to twentieth century warfare and politics. In… read more
Notes on the Rise and Fall of Blackberry
In January 1995, a year and a half before Hotmail launched the world’s first web-based email service, a landmark California law banning smoking in most public places went into effect. Back then smoking was already on the decline, especially in California, but it was probably still more common than having an email account. The change was most immediately noticeable in… read more
An essay on flying
I will fly more than 200,000 miles this year. It routinizes, like an extended commute. The suburbanite knows every moment of the drive: on-ramp, lane-change, morning-show, cup-holder. I’m like that, but on a global vector: freeway, parking lot, door S-3, South security checkpoint, wallet, shoes, laptop, zip-lock, escalator, train, SkyClub, jetway, seat, jacket, bourbon, nap, tarmac, sky, sky, sky. We… read more
...and secure your fame and fortune forever*
Nick Montfort and I were thinking about the Platform Studies series today, as we are wont to do. There are two books in the series that are nearing completion now, which we are delighted about, but there are many more to be written. We were talking about some platforms that we thought were large and low-hanging fruit for any interested… read more
My talk at the 2011 Game Developers Conference "rant" panel
Last year I made a game about Facebook games, called Cow Clicker. You get a cow. You can click on it. In six hours, you can click it again. Among the many retorts to Cow Clicker‘s characterization of social games, a common one is about creativity. Players of these games, the argument goes, exercise imagination and creativity far beyond what… read more
Lessons from iCapitalism
Whether via the lamentable trend of gamification or through the very public release of Jane McGonigal’s new book, the topic of videogames’ impact on the real world has been front-and-center of late. Enter iCapitalism, an iOS game that critiques both capitalism and iOS games through a simple design. As in Godville, there’s no gameplay. But unlike that game (which actually… read more
Anything you can click you can cow click!
Last year, the social gaming phenomenon Cow Clicker captured the world’s imoogination, offering players the opportunity to click on a cow every six hours—or even more often. Since July 2010, more than 50,000 people have clicked over 50 breeds of cows over 5 million times, engorging their accownts with over 5 million mooney, Cow Clicker’s in-game currency. Cow Clicker distilled… read more
A review of Jane McGonigal's book Reality is Broken
Jane McGonigal’s new book Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World is destined to be one of the most influential works about videogames ever published. The book is filled with bold new ideas and refinements of old ones. It’s targeted at a general readership, but game designers, critics, and scholars will learn… read more
A shortened, slang application.
I’ve been thinking about this question a lot over the past year. It may sound silly given the ubiquity of the word, but despite all the “apps” on our phones and webpages and other devices, I’m not sure we have a good sense of what it means, or what that meaning implies. I was happy to fall upon this nice explanation… read more
A Zero-Player Game
Can’t believe I missed this. Godville is a browser and iPhone game that bills itself as “zero-player,” because, well, play doesn’t require a player. Godville is a massively-multiplayer zero-player game (ZPG), playable in the browser. The gist of the Godville is a parody on everything from “typical” MMO games with their tedious level ups, to internet memes and ordinary day… read more