[Aphra K]

Darwen – I would be in favour of any initiatives to increase the proportion of women in the games industry – wonder why they choose marketing tho – I would suspect that this job area might actually have an ok representation of women…

Kyotokid – I guess if more guys complained about the lack of women in the industry the women wouldn’t have to…!! (will shortly be preparing my well balanced and well researched rant!)

Aphra..

[Aphra K]

I don’t think I even knew there was a camera there! :D

Aphra

[Aphra K]

there was quite a discussion at DIGRA about how to develop closer links with industry and it was clear from the IGDA panel in Vancouver that many developers did not realise the range and type of work that DIGRA was doing or that there is a journal of game development for more technical work and a new journal being launched next Jan on games and culture.

this is a problem in many fields and DIGRA members have always said that they didn’t want game studies to become like film studies – almost entirely divorced from the practical side of film production. That may be somewhat unfair to film studies but it worth keeping in mind nevertheless.

In academia research teams can explore complexity in a range of non-pressured contexts and while all may not be possible to implement in commercial games such work may still extend the range of possibilities one thinks about..

Aphra.

[Aphra K]

hi all..

well Ian my interest is in trying to look at alternative ways to make games more accessible and to go beyond stereotyping which one often finds in games for girls for example..

one of the things we reviewed in the paper were different approaches today like auto-dynamic difficulty used in Max Payne…but most are fairly simple…

player modelling may help but of course deciding on what one can include and how this can be linked to adjustment techniques is the core of the problem…

there is a draft paper if people are interested…

Aphra.

[Aphra K]

hi all..

greetings from Vancouver – sometimes this academic lark isn’t too bad – over here for DIGRA – see the calendar..will post more as the conference progresses. There is an IGDA Vancouver meeting arranged to coincide with the event tomorrow night which should be good.

I am hoping the book will be called Gamework/Gameplay although my editor didn’t know what gameplay was and will probably want me to add a sub-title ..that title was suggested in part by an earlier thread on gd.ie so there will be an appropriate acknowledgement in the opening of the book!!

I think in paper back the book will cost around the twenty pounds mark – again I don’t have too much control over that.. it is a kind of standard academic type price and the target audience is undergraduate media and game studies students..

I will however be looking for pics to illustrate sections of the book and may be in contact with some people about this when I get back. They will have to be in black and white in the text so that rules out really dark moody images…I am going to use both know well known screen shots with less well known images

thanks for all your support tho…it might not be a really exciting read, not exactly Joyce, but it should be informative even for game devs who are not the main market..

Aphra.

[Aphra K]

thanks

they ain’t fast about turning it around ..it will be just before or just after christmas…the perfect stocking filler!

Aphra.

[Aphra K]

not sure but this month’s wired magazine has an supplement highlighting some of the displays..and John has promised to let us know how things go..

Aphra.

[Aphra K]

yes was wondering where he had got to…met him at the first Edinburgh games festival.

Aphra.

[Aphra K]

I think the sports science facilities in DCU include a fully kitted out motion capture studio for research purposes…might be worth checking out what they use it for and what staff they have..

Aphra.

[Aphra K]

Ballyfermot have a design oriented course…and perhaps something in that line would be a good start. Also new courses in Ireland are increasingly linked to Irish and UK companies.

It might take quite a while to pay back the debts you would make going to college in the US, esp. on an entry level game job – I for one decided not to go to the US to do my PhD for that reason

Aphra.

[Aphra K]

mm, but I hear there are some good speakers :)

this is only the second one and I know they have very few staff working on it so I guess they are outsourcing a lot..

Aphra.

[Aphra K]

yep..would be up for that..

Aphra

[Aphra K]

gosh I wonder do they know about us? Anyone know anyone in UL involved in this?

also if they drag out that claim about being bigger than the film industry one more time…yawn….it is bigger than US box office not the entire film industry…and only if you include hardware and accessories

Aphra

[Aphra K]

well abertay and IC-Cave are organising the women in games conf so I would hope so!!

Aphra.

[Aphra K]

I will be at the women in games conference and hope to make it to the Dare to be digital awards too if I can swindle a ticket..

Aphra.

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