Blank Pages

As all writers know, the blank page can either be an open invitation that offers you the opportunity to pour forth expression from the fount of creativity that resides in your very soul, or an impenetrable brick wall that appears rather suddenly in your path and blocks any forward progress whatsoever. Be it page, canvas, tape, file, or any other medium, confrontation with these empty spaces is an inextricable part of any creative process.

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Back to teh blogz

So my previous post came out of what had become more or less a vacuum. This is the post where I apologize for the long gap in posting and promise to post more often.

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R&D projects on the back burner

So I have a couple of research projects that I've had on the back burner for a while now. Both are essentially design based research work, and arguably are better thought of as R&D projects since they're really both more concerned with technical outcomes and technology development than theory (although both are valuable theory building tools as well).

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Games and narrative: The ludologist's lament

Some of you may have read Ted Castranova's post a few months ago over on Terra Nova titled Movies Stink. As I tried to convey in my comment there, I'm sympathetic to Ted's plight. Having novel and film shaped artifacts foisted upon you at the expense of game shaped ones really sounds like it sucks. Of course, I'm also more or less unable to have much empathy with him in this matter.

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Reflections of raid leadership

I had the opportunity the other day to give a talk in game in World of Warcraft for the r u game series by the Games and public libraries group which was a real blast. Although the attendance was light, my friend and colleague Mark Chen did jump on, and along with the series host Ellen Forsyth we had a rather excellent conversation about everything from my work on guild leadership, to games as texts, and more. One thing that came up, as it invariably does, was the question of leadership skill transfer between WoW and other settings.

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