Thursday, November 7, 2013

Blog Post 9 (DTC 356)

My mind is still wrapped around the story of Anda's Game. It reminds me of a story I read when I was younger called Heir Apparent, which was about a girl who won a free pass to play a virtual reality game at a local arcade. While in the game the machine malfunctions and she has to beat the game to get out - a very Tron-esque story. Except the message at the end of that story was to stop playing video games, even though I thought the entire story promoted game play.

Anda's Game also reminds me of what Jane McGonigal's tedtalks and book talk about, which is that gamers have the ability to change the world when put to the task through extensive collaboration and commitment to "unnecessary obstacles".





The link I see between what Jane has to say and Anda's experience is that there are ways to change the world if we allow ourselves to collaborate and work together on important issues such as the gold farmers who are worried about their next meal.

I think it's amazing at what games can do for people, and find it disappointing when people don't look at the possibilities of the player's potential when it's applied to the same level of enjoyment. As a DTC major, I want work in the future to not feel like "work" but like passion, and perhaps like a game. To see how far I can go with creating something and having people experience my vision.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Extra Credit Blog (DTC 356)

I found the readings for this weekend to be very interesting in how our social media works and in what ways it may change in the future or has changed from past to present. Individuals now see themselves as trying to connect to their friends as well as a bringer of revelation to their peers. It is easy to harness the power of "plugging-in" when people are so willing to be open with everyone.

In a way it feels easy because we find connections everywhere. You have your family and friends from high-school, college, work, parties, etc. that you collect and use as a spring-board to their connections that they've gathered from their own experiences. The hope is to express yourself creatively, find a job, become a celebrity, and more all just sitting at your computer/phone/television.

The reading for this weekend that caught my attention was the story written by Ford on the future of copyright and being sued. It seemed odd to me that that was his direction since it talked about people having to learn how to become a "lawyer" and that it is apart of every day life. At first I thought about how sad that would be, at least in the perspective view point of someone who didn't grow up in that time.

Now I just think about how there are many implications to what being "sued" means for the future. It is almost as easy (in the story) to pay off lawsuits since everything seems to be under $10 for one child. Perhaps it is just a way in which companies can get the gratification of getting paid for "damages" without it being a huge controversy in the paper, such as what we've read about in Lessig's work.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Blog Post 8 (DTC 356)

Free-be :)

l thought I could make some unique response to the prompt and talk about both the writings, but I'm in some serious writers block right now.

Have a good day!

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Blog Post 7 (DTC 356)

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mightyno9/mighty-no-9

My source is a game (that was currently funded) called Mighty No. 9. The game is a classic Japanese style, side-scrolling game. The main character of the game resembles a familiar character, Mega-Man. And by all rights the game should remind people of Mega-Man, considering that the director of the game is Keiji Inafune with a team of artists who have all worked on a Mega-Man game together.


Not only that, but the character resemblance is fairly close.

So, what immediately comes to mind is the connection of the videos on remixing and copyright, David Parry's talk about intellectual property, as well as Chapter 1 & 7 of Gleick. That seems like a lot of things to connect, but hear me out.

Gleick's Chapter 1 talks about the whole concept of expressing ideas so that other people can understand and experience them. So on the most basic level of understanding, ideas can be used in a way that everyone can understand.

Most people recognize Mega-Man, so seeing Mighty No. 9 may bring a sense of nostalgia and instant recognition in what type of game the audience will get.

Chapter 7 discusses the information theory and how to get from A to B, bits and pieces are taken to express an idea and thus ideas cannot be (to some extent) copyright-ed.

Which leads to the remix video and David Parry discussing intellectual property as a whole. Inafune created Mega-Man and is using a team (that worked on Mega-Man) to put together Mighty No. 9. Now, Nintendo owns the copyright of the franchise of Mega-Man, but Mighty No. 9 is supposed to be it's own thing. What the gaming community recognizes though is that Inafune loves his creation of Mega-Man so much that he needs to create a new game that will have that same impact that the franchise first had.

The game has been funded, far past it's initial goals thanks to the people who recognized a man trying to bring life back to his creation. Nintendo, owning the copyright to Mega-Man has every right to call "bullshit" or "foul" since money is moving away from their company and to Inafune. However, there as been no legal action, and as much as it scares Inafune that he could be taken to court, his love for his original creation has more meaning for him than being bullied by a "triple A" company.