Writing

Behold the book jacket for Newsgames: Journalism at Play, to be published this summer.

Peter Gratton’s letter to a a student, and Graham Harman’s response to it, reminded me of an observation I’ve wanted to share about academic discourse in general. There’s a fictional character from The Simpsons known as Comic Book Guy. Offering sarcastic quips about his “favorite” comics and television shows (often including The Simpsons itself), he epitomizes the nerd-pedant who nitpicks… read more

I’ve posted the schedule for the Object-Oriented Ontology symposium (April 23 at Georgia Tech). Titles and abstracts are there, as well as the overall flow of the day. Once again, the event is free and open to the public. If you know you’re going to attend, please do sign up for the OOO Symposium mailing list, not only so you’ll… read more

Did you enjoy reading The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy and World of Warcraft and Philosophy? Do you wish you’d written an article for a collection like that? Do you fancy yourself an elite supersoldier like Master Chief? Then maybe you should pen a chapter for the just-announced Halo and Philosophy anthology. Abstracts are due May 15. Go read the… read more

After an email conversation he and I had, Graham offers some thoughts on the best way to give talks. Here was my original off-the-cuff thought: One of the lessons Iâ??ve learned in the past five years is that there is no right way to give a talk. There are, however, right ways to give particular talks in particular circumstances. Unfortunately,… read more

Here’s another fun excerpt from the forthcoming Newsgames book, from the chapter on “Platforms.” Once the playthings of children, characters like The Legend of Zeldaâ??s Link and Super Mario Bros.â?? Mario are now blank canvases ready to accept adult scenarios like political scandal, insurance fraud, dysfunctional health coverage, spousal abuse, and more. I’d like to see a Mario Bros. game… read more

Via Bryant, I just discovered the blog Struggles with Philosophy. I’m not sure who the author is, but as Levi points out, discussion there has recently taken up Object-Oriented Ontology. Here’s an excerpt from the latest salvo. At one level I want to differentiate between the theory (or philosophy) of OOP and the praxis of OOP, which will be designated… read more

Check out this awesomely insane forthcoming film by Tao Ruspoli, about philosophy and the reception of Heidegger. It’s called Being in the World, and the filmmaker characterizes it as “an attempt to bring profound philisophical ideas to a non-academic audience.” From the film blurb: Being in the World is a celebration of human beings, and our ability, through the mastery… read more

At the IGF, Adam Niese over at PixelSocks interviewed me about A Slow Year. The interview is now online, and you can read it at PixelSocks.com. Issues we discussed include the idea of the “game poem,” how instructions and other meta-textual materials contribute to a work, reactions and expectations for so-called “artgames,” and the current state of the indie games… read more

In a large theater at the 2010 Game Developers Conference, ten thousand game makers gathered for the Independent Games Festival and Game Developers Choice awards ceremonies, where the best indie and mainstream games of the year are celebrated by and for their creators. In between the two, an unusual video was shown. Aneesh Chopra, the United States’s first Chief Technology… read more