Eaten by a Grue

Here is our list of the most popular games for the month of May. A Wii U game makes the list, with one very enthusiastic player putting P3P for the PSP on the list as well. Our arcade cabinet has also seen more play over the past few weeks.

Since the announcement of Micrsoft's next generation Xbox One gaming and entertainment console earlier this week, we've received several inquiries about our thoughts on how it's announced features, particularly the cloud computing and DRM aspects, will affect how we deal with it in the archive. Below are my (Dave's) initial thoughts:I've been following somewhat the information about the Xbox One since its announcement earlier this week. While we don't have many details yet, what I've read so far gives me cause for concern as to how we'll be able to work with the new system in the Computer & Video Game Archive.As far as offloading game play to the cloud and requiring an Internet connection to function, this offers a challenge that is in many ways similar to dealing with MMORPGs like World of Warcraft. If the online experience is part of the game, how do you replicate that experience when the online component is no longer available? (And in the case of WoW, even if you have the game and have a server on which to run it, is it really the same experience without several million other players interacting? Ten or twenty years from now it will be essentially impossible to experience WoW.)There is a history of manufacturers not supporting their old gaming platforms; e.g. in 2010 when Microsoft stopped supporting the original Xbox on Xbox Live. If you want to play Halo 2 online multiplayer on your Xbox? Sorry, you can't. And that's for a game that's less than 10 years old.But I can take a game and game system from 30 years ago, plug them in and they still work and play fine. Even for companies that are long defunct. Will the same be true in even 10 years for games for the Xbox One?I'm also concerned about new DRM restrictions, such as requiring a game to be installed and tied to a specific user account. This also presents challenges to us (not to mention to the First-Sale Doctrine...) Though we've been dealing with this sort of thing with PC-based games for several years now and I'm sure we'll deal it, it doesn't fill me with warm fuzzy feelings.Still, with both of these issues, the proof of the pudding is (as they say) in the eating. We'll have to wait until more details are available before evaluating if the Xbox One will be a system that we can support for archival purposes. Or if we're just tilting at windmills.

Here are the top games played in the archive during the month of April. As classes and exams are ending, it appears that Smash has been popular enough to make it back on the list. Banjo Kazooie has also been surprisingly popular over the past month or so.

Word has come to us of another new game-related class being offered in Fall 2013 here at the University of Michigan:Technology and Play This course considers the social science of play and interactive media technology. The three central questions addressed in this course are: “What is play?”, “How does technology mediate play?”, and “What are the consequences of this mediation?” Over the semester, we’ll investigate the social scientific and humanities research on play, the structure of games, and the societal consequences of mediated play for both children and adults. A special focus will be “games for change” (a.k.a. “serious games”) that have an educational purpose. The term will be organized around competing theories of play (e.g., development, fate/chance, power, identity, fantasy, self-fulfillment, nonsense), and will be illustrated with examples from computer games. This is a project-based course. Throughout the semester we will work toward producing two conceptual design projects for playful technologies. These are roughly equivalent to a midterm and a final, or a short and a long paper. As these are conceptual projects, technical skills are not required. Technology and PlayF13 M/W 4 - 5:30 p.m.Undergraduate Section: COMM 408.001Graduate Section: COMM 840.001No prerequisites.Instructor: Christian Sandvig (csandvig@umich.edu)Note that you must e-mail the instructor to enroll in the graduate section.

A little last minute, but here's an interesting event going on in the building today: Join us for an informal show-n-tell and open discussion around Motion Capture in feature films and video games with Marc Morisseau, an alumni of U-M and the UM3DLab. Marc is currently working for Just Cause Entertainment and played a large role in the Motion Capture for Avatar 1, Resident Evil 6, Star Trek 2, and several yet to be announced feature films. It should be an exciting discussion as Marc talks about some of his recent projects and challenges that accompany large productions.

Here is an interesting conference coming up this month:
Different Games is a two-day conference on diversity and inclusiveness in digital games, hosted April 26-27, 2013 at NYU’s Polytechnic Institute in downtown Brooklyn. Different Games is a space for radical discussions of representation in games and the relationship of the medium to designer and player identity.

If you are a student here at the University of Michigan, there are a couple of new video game-related courses being offered:For Summer 2013:COMM 488-201, SAC 455-202 - Video Games, Culture, & Contexts This course takes as its focus the cultural impact of video games from a number of critical perspectives. Just as movies and television have a rich history, video games develop out of a number of social, economic, and technological structures. We will examine video games as cultural texts that are part of a complex, cultural landscape—objects revealing much about cultural anxieties, ideologies, and assumptions. We will analyze a number of video game texts, ranging from early arcade style games, to console games, to PC games, to games for mobile phones. A range of genres within these game texts will be discussed, such as first person shooters, massively multi-player online games, and casual games—unpacking both the formal aspects of the game and the underlying meaning of game narratives. How and by whom are video games produced, how does the industry market particular games to its perceived audience, who plays games and why, and what is so serious about “serious” games? We will draw from a range of methodological and theoretical texts within the field of game studies: critical cultural, ethnographic, media effects, industrial, and historical. (Instructor: Julia Lange) And for Fall 2013:MUSPERF  300 - Video Game MusicThis course surveys game music from the first synthesized "bleeps" and "bloops" to modern orchestral compositions.  Techniques are learned to aurally analyze game music.  Students will create compositions using computer software as a final project.  Course is designed for non-music majors; the ability to read standard music notation is not needed. (Instructor: Matthew Thompson)

Here is our list of top games played during the month of March. The Xbox 360 dominates with FPS and sports games, and the Wii U is still getting plenty of love from a few very dedicated players.

The generous donor of our Arcade Legends machine, Joshua A. Bilmes, has been highlighted in the library's newsletter. A lover of classic games, he is also the president of the JABberwocky Literacy Agency, where he represents authors of science fiction and fantasy, and is the author of the blog Brillig.

Please mark your calendars for March 25th-April 6th and join us as we highlight some of the motion-related consoles and games available at the CVGA by hosting a Motion Gaming Tournament. This tournament will include the following games:Sports Champions: Gladiator Duel for the PlayStation 3 Move Fruit Ninja Kinect for the Xbox 360 Kinect Antigrav for the PlayStation 2 EyetoyExcite Bots for the Wii Dance Dance Revolution X for the PlayStation 2 Dance PadThe event will be a silent tournament that takes place over the course of two weeks (March 25th-April 6th). Participants can come in anytime the archive is open during these two weeks and play the games whenever their schedules allow. Prizes (Amazon gift cards!) will be awarded after points are tallied up at the end.Anyone affiliated with the university (excluding tournament officials) may can sign up by providing avalid UMICH ID, name, uniqname and email, and may sign up in person at the archive desk,via email at video.games@umich.edu, or by phone at 763-6533. See the full tournament rules here.