“History can no longer be a storyline about free agency constructing its own…”

The term “storyline” in this context is inconsistent. A storyline in a game is an embedded narrative that is always parallel to agency. If you mean that history has purported to be about human agency constructing its own conditions, then “story” would suffice as a more general term. If you mean to disassociate history from the idea of a story that is told through agency, that is, you suggest that agency had nothing to do with the process of storytelling that constructed history, then it might be better to make this explicit. “Story” or “storytelling process” are appropriate direct objects, “storyline” is not. But thats just my opinion.

you’re right, and well spotted. got a bit carried away with ‘storyline’.

Quote:

“Only by going further and further into gamespace might one come out the other side of it…”

This recalls Heinrich Von Kleist’s famous meditation on consciousness and performance, “On the Marionette [or Puppet] Theater:

“We see how, in the organic world, as reflection grows darker and weaker, grace emerges ever more radiant and supreme. — But just as two intersecting lines, converging on one side of a point, reappear on the other after their passage through infinity, and just as our image, as we approach a concave mirror, vanishes to infinity only to reappear before our very eyes, so will grace, having likewise traversed the infinite, return to us once more, and so appear most purely in that bodily form that has either no consciousness at all or an infinite one, which is to say, either in the puppet or a god.”

yes, i flat out stole it from Kleist. My defense is that i didn’t know it at the time…

Phew

Structurally I think Sim Earth is a chapter on its own and the conclusion really start on 221 not at 201. COMPLEX Deus Ex is more of a conclusion than Sim Earth…I think Sim Earth warrants MUCH more philosophising but then I would because as a biologist and someone who wants to try to save the world then I would like to see Sim Earth as a conclusion. But if you can’t win don’t play? (Is THAT A CONCLUSION or a NON-CONCLUSION? or a conclusion to Conclusions?

IMHO you develop a number of interesting points, providing a meta-model of computer games without specific reference to mathematical GAME THEORY or the sociology of it all. I would have liked to see more tech stuff – like perhaps how some of the games were CODED…or how the GAMESPACE is described mathematically but I guess that is difficult to get at…and of niche interest…

AND OF COURSE – Come on, you’ve GOT to refer to the MATRIX and mainstream perception of these themes – if this is going to hit a larger market

Could you introduce SOUND into the future of books

Arrrgh my head is spinning!
The mark of a good book can sometimes be what you dream of when its read

So lets see what comes tonight

I promise there will be no mention of the Matrix in this book, ever. It’s become something of a critical cliche.

It is also not my job to write in advance the book that starts to happen in people’s heads when they read mine. A good book is a catalyst for others, it does not try to pre-empt them.

Not to say, however that i’m immune to suggestions. Its just that some are suggestions and some are something else. The book just doing its job.

While I tend to agree that The Matrix is overused and overrated as some shining beacon of techno-philosophy, I also think that rejecting it simply because it is a cliche is just as silly as embracing it with no reason beyond it’s popularity.

It’s a book about games, not cinema.

haha, first time through I missed this part about The Matrix. I suppose Zizek liked it because it resonated somehow with the public and illustrated a point for him, but it is really such a bad film.

The Matrix is not just cinema, but also Enter the Matrix, Matrix Online, Path of Neo….. perhaps it’s not critical cliche to look at these.

unpretentiously and humbly, I haven’t read anything more impressive, analytical, philosophical, unique, and ludical in a (kind of) young field of game theory like this reading. The format of the book – 5 x 5 (X9)… is also excellent. It reminds me on the game space somehow?? I am looking forward for the print version. Thanks for this!!!

why thankyou anonymous. Actually, it will be 5 x 5 x 5 by the time the notes are included.

A great, concise ending. Really adds that simple finishing touch.

wasn’t exactly sure where this ought to go so here it is:

You reference the changing states of the game world, which while I understand why they weren’t discussed extensively in here, are still very interesting. Like the change the film industry is undergoing now, with film viewing in the home much more prevalent than theatrical viewing. This shift necessarily changes the way both films are created and the way they are received and understood. Games similarly underwent shifts, from the single player arcade game, the two player arcade game, the home console, personal computer games, MMORPGs, etc. Not being especially familiar with game design myself, I wonder if (even though they are essentially the same in that they are all 1s and 0s), like in film, there exists a dialogue with the medium on the part of both designers and players. Though not your specific topic here, the delivery systems through which these games are played, and the practices surrounding that playing, though not perhaps a “gamer theory”, seen like they might be interesting too.

Victoria writes: “…the delivery systems through which these games are played, and the practices surrounding that playing, though not perhaps a “gamer theory”, seen like they might be interesting too”

You are right that i should have taken this into account more. In the first chapter i limit the discussion to the now quite ‘classical’ model of single player console game (plus a couple of PC games). I explain why i did not follow games into the multiplayer world, but i missed the other trend, to casual games played on all kinds of devices.