When we talk about games, we normally use the language of conjunction, whether through accompaniment ("to play with") or conflict ("to play against"). Whether for competition, collaboration, or socialization, multiplayer games aim to connect people in the act of play itself.

Between takes on a very different charge: it aims to remind players of the abyss that forever separates them from another. In the face of this gulch, the best we can do is to attempt to trace the edges of our cohort's gestures and signals, as players of Between do when they interpret the origins of the weird, mottled colored patterns that appear as if from nowhere on their screens.

If most multiplayer games are conjunctive, Between is disjunctive. It is a game that aims to disturb notions of cohesion rather than to create them. And if any common sympathy arises from the experience, it is a feeling of comfort in the commonality of one's inevitable isolation.

Both Between and Ian's piece are worth a look — the issue of Otherness as related to gaming and the potentials for disjunctive play are certainly interesting to contemplate, and Between is worth a play simply because it's a very different multiplayer experience than most of us are used to.

Persuasive Games: Disjunctive Play [Gamasutra]

It's tempting to demonstrate the value of playful activity within the framework of the very system that disapproves of such activity. In other words, I could leverage the values of the puritan work ethic system to prove that play and fun ultimately help make us more productive, which translates into the transcendent goal: more money.

Here's what that would look like: Games are good because they make learning fun. Being an engaged learner motivates me to learn more. Learning more makes me smarter. Being smarter makes me more capable; being more capable makes me more productive; being more productive makes me more valuable; being more valuable makes me more money.

Or another take: Games simulate cognitive processes such as identifying patterns, understanding complex systems, and chunking large amounts of information. Playing games enhances these cognitive abilities; enhanced cognition makes me a more capable learner. Learning more makes me smarter. Being smarter makes me more capable. See above.

I'm not suggesting these arguments are invalid; only that their validity relies on a set of desired outcomes driven by values that games should bear no responsibility to uphold. Maybe games can make us smarter and more productive, but games don't require such outcomes for validation. In fact, many of the best games provoke all sorts of wonderful, but decidedly unproductive, self-indulgent, and inefficient behaviors. Such games are like toys in the best, most delightful sense of that word.

There are some aspects of 'game shame' that I probably won't ever get over, and I can't imagine waxing rhapsodic to most of my fellow graduate students about my favorite titles or 'that time in such-and-such game when ...'. But I'll still look forward to the times when I do get to wax philosophic and the hour or two every night I get to escape into unabashed, unproductive, and totally self-indulgent play.

No more game shame [The Brainy Gamer]

I've had a pet project I've been working on for years, three of them if my memory is right. It started as a simple idea: You can judge a lot from a person's desk. I bet you could judge just as much from their home entertainment system. So I decided it would be fun to try and track down some pictures from the work desks and home gaming set-ups of the people who work in and cover the video game industry. Simple right? Not so much.

Turns out that many of the people are either too busy or too private to want to participate in such a project. To make matters worse, there's always fear that something sitting on someone's desk, that ends up in a photo, could actually be news worthy. Like a secret project or the next big thing. But I didn't give up and about once a year I'd harass a bunch of game developers for photos. Finally, this year, the harassment paid off.

What started as a trickle of photos turned quickly into the collection of galleries you'll find on the jump: More than 40 different photo galleries from 17 studios, seven publications, two industry movers and shakers and a couple of fun surprises.

You'll get to see the desk of such greats as Sid Meier, Peter Molyneux and Tetsuya Mizuguchi along with plenty of others. Remember you can comment both on the next page and on each individual photo if you click on them.

If I find there is interest, I will try to periodically update this gallery of galleries with more developers, journalists and industry movers and shakers. Have fun.

DEVELOPERS
2K Games

ASTRO Gaming

Buzz Monkey Software

Capcom

Eat, Sleep, Play

Electronic Arts

Firaxis Games

Flying Lab Software

Gearbox Software

Harmonix Music

Incognito Entertainment

Insomniac Games

Kojima Productions

Lionhead Studios

NanaOn-Sha

Naughty Dog

NCSoft

NetDevil

Neversoft Entertainment

Ninja Theory

Pandemic Studios

Petroglyph Games

THQ

Q Entertainment

JOURNALISTS

Blue's News

BoingBoing

EGM

The Escapist

GameLife

Joystiq

Kotaku

MTV

Slashdot Games

VE3D

VH1

INDUSTRY FOLK

MISCELLANIES
I AM 8-BIT

Penny Arcade

Whorecraft

Video Games Live

Which writer’s father bought a Playstation 3 specifically to play Grand Theft Auto 4?

If you're a fan of network programming, maybe seeing another repeat of 'Pushing Daisies' or 'Cold Case' will inspire you to finish that level of 'Ratchet and Clank Future' instead.

And then Olin doesn't miss the chance to take a shot at the film industry.

There's a much better relationship between game developers and publishers than there appears to be in terms of all the polemics between the writers, producers and studios.

And while that's probably true, is it really saying all that much?

Video game industry capitalizing on writers' strike [via gamingtoday]

Examining complex processes is never an easy task; thus, approaches that try to divide such complexity into smaller parts that can be more easily understood are necessary. This is called analysis. Analyzing the game design cognition process is a critical part of developing a deeper understanding about how such process works.

Therefore, we propose [a] layered view as a breakdown of the game design cognitive process, where each layer corresponds to a generalization or abstraction of the layers below it, and a specialization or concretization of the layers above it.

It's shortish and well worth a read through if you have the time and inclination.

Game Design Cognition: The Bottom-Up And Top-Down Approaches [Gamasutra]

In general virtual worlds seem often to replicate structures of labour and production - they even support a class hierarchies based on geography, contextual knowledge, time in the given community etc.

At the same time virtual worlds offer the promise of liberating us. Not quite in the old utopian ideal of freeing us fully from pre-existing notions of self but at least opening up new opportunities for self-exploration. What's more should you have access to a virtual world the barrier between roles of consumption and production seems to have been lowered such that both within the context of a virtual space e.g. as a crafter or builder in second life; or outside it, say as a fan fic creator, many can participate in a mixed traditional, amateur and / or gift economy.

The long (loooong) comments section is good to settle down with and read through, and not one mention of Foucault so far in 100+ comments! Bonus points for that.

Do virtual worlds liberate us? [Terra Nova]

The reproducible application of psychological manipulation of individuals and groups using software is big heady stuff. In the short term, I would hope that a deep understanding of models like skill chains help us crack open the rigid craftsmanship of existing genres so that we can build better, more potent games. Long term, it will be interesting to see what world changing uses we can find for our ever improving psychological technology.

While it's true that in many fields, the 'academic/research' side and the 'real world' side are frequently at odds and never the twain shall meet, I'm interested to see if perhaps the game development world can bridge that gap a little better and take philosophical research to real world applications in fewer than eighty steps in between.

The Chemistry of Game Design [Gamasutra]

Fight, fight! I love when academics dust it up over publications, its so mentally invigorating... and subtlety catty.

Big brain gamer Henry Jenkins of MIT fame takes to task, quite politely, Ian Bogost of Watercooler Games fame about Bogost's review of his new book: Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Collide.

The critique critique looks at Bogost's take on Reality and Fiction, Affective Economics and, God help us, Bogost's use of the word "buttery" to describe the book. The longish, intellectually stimulating counter-point is just part one of what appears to be the makings of another book. Brian Crecente

A Response to Ian Bogost (Part One) [Henry Jenkins]