This coming weekend my friend and colleague Dr. Kimberly Voll is unleashing the (first annual) “i am a gamer” Game-Jam on our world. The event is committed to creating games with strong female characters and was prompted by a number of industry comments doubting the viability of woman as lead characters in games.
If any of the many worlds theories promulgated by contemporary physicists are correct we might hope such sexist non-sense has long since disappeared in those alternate universes. But in our here and now confronting nonsense with truth must be the order of the day – or at least the order of this weekend.
The Jam is July 12-14 at the Centre for Digital Media. Sign up @ the website: http://iamagamer.ca/
Not too long ago I was engaging with my academic colleague and professional clown (some of the more witless from my former business lives might ask “is there a difference?”) Patrick Pennefather (http://thecdm.ca/people/faculty/patrick-pennefather).
Our topic of choice, as it frequently is, was the inadequacies of intellectual property as a concept, and how those inadequacies are magnified by the uncertainties inherent in legal definitional processes. Patrick, using his company name ‘Design for Humans’, then created the following rather telling diagram for a “patent process claim” to make his point:
A particularly surreal quality of our ensuing email dialogue (which of course also went directly to proving Patrick’s point) emerged when I proposed removing certain logos included in his original work so that the diagram could be publicly posted. Here is how that went:
Jon: “…Just to be safe, can you send me a version with the logos removed?…”
Patrick: “…I can send you without logos but then it’s no longer art:)”
Jon (trying in vain to be witty): “Who is Art?”
Patrick: “art is a friend i once knew currently lost on an island of doubt”
Boom.
Pretty well says it all on the subject of legal confusion undermining the creative process…
Received a mass mailing note from Ashley O’Toole-Brown and Rachel Kowert announcing the launch of the new DiGRA students website (http://digrastudents.org)and asking this be brought to the attention of all students who might be interested in the area.
DIGRA is the Digital Games Research Association and is a point of convergence for all of the academic work being done in and around video games worldwide. Apparently the star of the new website is the new and improved web forums. While this site was built with students in mind (and a user base primarily consisting of students), anyone can participate. There is also an active Facebook community which can be found at http://www.facebook.com/digrastudentsas well as a twitter account (@digrastudents).
So join & follow to keep updated on the latest information of interest to students, academics, and professionals under the DiGRA umbrella.
On October 4, 2012 I was privileged to join a panel on “The Battle of the Living Room: Video Game Consoles as Media Centers” at the Law Seminars International 3rd Annual Seattle Conference on Gamer Technology Law. Given that the panel was nine months before the reveals of Sony & Microsoft’s next generation platforms you may find the discussion interesting from todays perspective. Moderating the panel was Kraig Marini-Baker of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, and my fellow panellists were Alan Bruggeman of Microsoft and Anoop Desai of Electronic Arts. Sincere thanks to LSI for their permission to post.
A powerful Final Statement on June 27, 2013 from Pranesh Prakash of the Center for Internet and Society on the WIPO Treaty for the Blind focussing on the increasing tensions between intellectual property and human rights.
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