Jonas Heide Smiths notesblog

Book contract

Simon, Susana and I just (finally) received the actual/physical signed publishing contract for our text-book adventure. We will publish with Routledge (US) and have agreed to deliver the final manuscript by August 1st.
If any one of you, faithful readers, is interested in reading one or more section(s) to comment we would of course be most grateful.

Luditics

The promising new blog Game Politics has a great post on “HOW BAD INFORMATION GETS SPREAD ABOUT GAMES“. Read it and think.

DIGRA paper wrapped and delivered

My paper (“The problem of other players – in-game collaboration as collective action”) for the upcoming DIGRA conference now resides on some benign Canadian webserver. The brief abstract runs as follows:

“This paper explores the development in game design of collaborative relationships between players, proposes a typology of such relationships and argues that one type of game design makes games a continuous experiment in collective action (Olson, 1971). By framing in-game conflict within the framework of economic game theory the paper seeks to highlight the importance of already well-developed models from other fields for the study of electronic games.”

Even the voices get it wrong

According to Berlingske Tidende the Danish police recieve a steady number of tips from psychics wanting to share their crystal ball-mediated insights into high-profile crimes.
I like vice criminal inspector Ove Larsen’s assurance that “We treat the reports from clairvoyants on par with all other reports but they are not placed in the top of the pile, if I can put it that way.”
Chairman of Danish sceptical association “Skeptika” is understably miffed.

The piece is published under “National” – doesn’t it rather belong under “Health” or “Education”…?

There’s a new journal in town

The Games and Culture journal has announced its arrival and calls for papers. A most interesting and promising initiative.

Unrelatedly: What is this growing trend of people (again!) using MS Word as a web editor? Wasn’t that particular practice outlawed in late 1997?