Making our games better, making ourselves better
By Jake Farrago, senior, Becker College
With the next generation of video game consoles now officially this generation, and with PC gaming continually pushing the bleeding edge of technological abilities, we are nearing the end of many disparities that have plagued video games’ pursuit of real world mimicry. The uncanny valley will soon be crossed, artificial intelligences will cease behaving as bumbling toddlers, and digital worlds will begin teeming with immersive life. However, as we tick these boxes and diligently scale the various stages of the hierarchy, our concerns should now be turning to a new aspect of video games. An aspect, whose inevitable arrival will ask us as game designers to think in a way that many of us have only given fleeting moments of consideration to. In the act of creating digital realities, are we not simultaneously becoming gods of these realities in the process?
The assertion that those who create life become imbued with a sense of godliness should not be that which is scoffed at or ignored. Just because the historical legacy of human beings’ own struggle with the concept of a creator is one riddled with conflict, tension, and doubt, it would do a great disservice to allow such bias to prevent us from taking up the omnipotent reigns as we forge ahead on the path of breathing life into digital existences. In fact, it’s a moral imperative that we not deny our critical roles in the creation of life in video games. For, doing so, we’d leave unattended the responsibilities and tasks that are traditionally charged to those in positions of divinity. The most important of these responsibilities perhaps being that of providing purpose and meaning for each and every part of our creations.
Currently, video games only serve to satisfy the player, an individual from our reality who chooses to transport his consciousness into the digital realm in order to entertain themselves. Everything else in the video game, from the blade of grass to the reactive organism, is in the service of this singular endeavor. Which, shares some self indulgent parallels with the gods of old, such as those present in Greek mythology. As it goes, those deities pursued as much gratification through meddling in the worlds of their creations, as we currently do through interacting with the various video games at our disposal. However, this approach will need to be transformed in tandem with the evolution of technological complexities present in video games. One day it will no longer be acceptable to dabble in these digital worlds with little concern for the repercussions of one’s actions. If you destroy an artificial intelligence, a truly intelligent one, what happens to it? While the game code may simply say it ceases to exist in its current state, what happens to its intelligence, its spirit? As game designers, are we prepared to create beautiful digital landscapes and profound virtual beings whose only express purpose is to serve at the beck and call of any whim our players may have? Personally, I find the prospects of such a state of affairs just as displeasing as the archaic religions that preach a god who demands we serve his commandments blindly and without question. Though, then again, when faced with that analogy with the roles now reversed, perhaps we’ll finally be able to empathize with the pressures that face those in a position of omniscient power.
Essentially, this line of reasoning leads to many questions being raised. Far too many to be covered in any one sitting. But, what may be more important than considering the countless forms this issue will take, is how best to go about addressing them. And, since I have no doubt that there will be countless ideologies that will spring forth in effort to achieve this very goal, I suppose now’s as good a time as any to throw my humble hat into the ring for consideration: If we make an effort to study the very existence that we’re witness to in our own lives, through unblinkingly looking within and without, we may discover how to not only better our creations, but also how to better ourselves.
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Where do we start?
By Tim Loew, executive director, MassDiGI
Video games have never been more popular than they are today. More people are playing more games than ever before. As as result, it’s no surprise that making games is also more popular than ever particularly with young people.
To that extent, although our expertise is focused at the university-level, we often receive requests from parents and teachers asking “Where do we start?” – how to best direct their interested elementary, middle and high school students to a starting place.
In general, we try and point them to peers or at the myriad of existing resources on the Web. There are great options for beginner’s of all ages – from Scratch and Gamestar Mechanic to Game Salad and Game Maker to more advanced programs such as Code Academy. Sites of all sorts (like Reddit) offer informative tutorials and videos that provide valuable insight. There are even summer camps. In addition, organizations such as MIT’s Education Arcade, LGN, Joan Ganz Cooney Center, STEM Challenge, MinecraftEDU, AMD, IGDA and many others provide helpful information about games and K-12 education.
Of course, making games is tons of fun and can really help encourage and engage student interest in subject areas like algebra, calculus, physics, computer science, programming, art, music, design, writing, psychology, business and so much more.
Over the course of 2014, thanks to the ESA Foundation, we plan to take MassDiGI 101, a new program we are designing to help parents, teachers and high school students learn more about game making, on the road and visit communities across all the New England states. Keep an eye on this site or on our Twitter or Facebook feeds for information on when we’ll be in your neighborhood!
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The ESA Foundation (ESAF) has awarded the Massachusetts Digital Games Institute (MassDiGI) at Becker College a $25,000 grant to expand high school student participation in the annual MassDiGI Game Challenge and launch MassDiGI 101, a series of mini workshops focused on game design and development.
Read the full press release here or read the stories at Game Politics, Go Local Worcester, Boston Herald, Worcester Telegram and Worcester Business Journal.
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For all the details on the 2014 Game Challenge please click here!
When: March 7 & 8, 2014
Where: Microsoft NERD Center, Cambridge, MA
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Please join MassDiGI and friends at The Venture Forum’s Innovation Fair. Further information can be found here.
When: January 14, 2014, 5:30 – 8:30 p.m.
Where: Rubin Campus Center, WPI
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Drop by and hear Jamie Gotch from Subatomic Studios (makers of Fieldrunners) talk games and more. Students and the public are welcome. This event is organized by the Becker College IGDA Chapter.
When: December 6, 2013, 6 p.m.
Where: Becker College, Weller Academic Building, 61 Sever St., Room 210, Worcester, MA
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You’ve got to be able to network with professionals in the industry, communicate effectively, and know what the studio wants. Come meet Marc Girolimetti, founder of Red Raider Studios, who will be on campus presenting to game students on:
Perfecting Your Pitch and Face-to-Face Networking in Gaming
All area students are welcome.
When: Thursday, November 21, Noon – 1:00p
Where: Becker College, 80 William Street, Worcester, MA 01609
For more information, click here.
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A meaningful experience
By Jake Farrago, senior, Becker College
Look at a painting. Read a book. Listen to a song. Do any of these activities and by the conclusion of them, it’s highly unlikely that the incessant stream of thoughts we call the human mind will be concerned with the pricing model, longevity, or format of said subject. No, what matters to each and everyone of us in the immediate aftermath of any of the aforementioned events is whether we can deem it as having been a meaningful experience. But, what is that exactly? How can one even begin to understand that vague abstraction, especially because when in the throes of it, in the tightest embrace of that feeling, most find themselves speechless and literally unable to describe it.
This rumination is hardly a new one, nor an unexplored one. Industries that churn and steam without pause spend every moment of their existence attempting to understand the aspects of this phenomenon. After all, there is big money involved in cracking the code behind its inner workings. Big egos too. Everyone wants to be known as the charmer who can induce people into a state of temporary engrossment amid the thrashings of a busy life, the luminary who can lower the barriers of a rigid mindset and deliver unto it new meaning. But the reality of the situation is that no matter how much we may covet or transact with those who have been accepted as having this skill, their roles are inherently that of an incomplete one. Much like a magician who reaches his hand into the hat and returns with it sans rabbit, the act is nothing short of crippled without the proper pieces present. But, if it’s established that those who conceive of and create these meaningful experiences that we ingest are, indeed, one part of the equation, who or what is the mysterious other half? Me. You. Us. And, no medium in human history to date has the potential to make this truth clearer than that of video games.
There is not a single medium of art that is truly a “passive” experience. That is to say, regardless of how little response we may give the stroke of a brush or the lick of a melody, we are fundamentally still engaging with it by perceiving it. However, video games have, and continue to make, this notion more and more explicit. For, in a video game, the subject-object relationship is never more apparent. In order to take an experience from a video game, we must in turn give our experience to it. And, this is where things start to get interesting. Since video games are not birthed in a vacuum, but are instead created by beings just like ourselves, they inherit traits from both parties responsible in this interchange. Meaning, the essences of both creator and the consumer are what makes a video game. Yet, this still fails to solve the initial question posed in this roundabout frustration of an article. If video games are, thus far, the pinnacle of an artistic and entertaining experience, how then does this translate into understanding the consistency of a meaningful one? Why, the answer to the enigma is only but a skip across the proverbial pond.
While a basic experience is simply the act of both a creator and a consumer giving presence to an object, a meaningful experience is that in which both parties each give a piece of their very soul to it. Not to sound eerie, or, even worse, grandiose about it, but that’s the formula. It’s not really that complicated. It does not require hundreds of thousands of hours of quality assurance, or a deluge of slick marketing (although it may indeed include all that). It simply needs a pure, untarnished, part of ourselves. Sometimes it only takes one half of the birthing duo to realize this end, but, overall, it’s so much more potent when it comes from both parents. For, it’s only then when you immerse yourself in a video game that you feel yourself being enriched for it. It’s only then when you go to sleep at night that you are contented by that which you had a hand in making during your spent day. Video games and meaningful experiences, sometimes synonyms other times antonyms, are signposts to the realities and joys of life. Perhaps the most obvious of
which being this: by knowing you, I better understand me.
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Please join the Becker College Center for Career Education for a special conversation with Scott Hyman, a video game executive with a background in mobile and console business development, production and product development. Scott’s areas of expertise include a deep understanding of market drivers, business models, digital entertainment, character animation and art content pipelines. Student are encouraged to drop by, all are welcome. For more information, please click here.
When: November 13, 2013, noon – 1:00 p.m.
Where: Becker College, 80 William St., Worcester, MA 01609
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Innovating for Growth
By Tim Loew, executive director, MassDiGI
Last week, entrepreneur and philanthropist Desh Deshpande and Governor Deval Patrick had a great conversation about the culture of entrepreneurship and its potential for the state’s Gateway Cities. No city represents that potential better than Worcester, which is why the conversation, part of “Innovating for Growth: A Gateway Cities Symposium,” took place, appropriately, at WPI’s Gateway Park.
The symposium, which was moderated by Housing and Economic Development Secretary Greg Bialecki, brought leaders from the private and public sectors together for a dialogue on the growth of the innovation economy in Gateway Cities.
Of special interest was a panel discussion among Becker College President Robert E. Johnson, UMass Lowell Chancellor Marty Meehan, Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse and New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell that featured thoughtful comments on the progress of innovation and entrepreneurship in their respective communities.
Over the course of the symposium one message came across loud and clear; leadership at all levels is critical.
Gateway Cities like Worcester, Lowell, Holyoke and New Bedford are fortunate to have a diversity of smart, creative and driven private and public sector leaders, institutions, foundations, entrepreneurs and companies that are committed to strengthening their communities – economically, socially and educationally – through collaboration, cooperation and partnerships.
From my own perspective, leaders in Worcester are doing a great job of aligning people, resources and ideas in ways that leverage the intellectual, creative, innovative and capital assets within the city. This is hard work – and intentional work. Fostering the conditions that allow for success is not a random adventure. It is all about planning and execution.
Over the last decade key initiatives have positioned Worcester to compete. The city’s transition from smokestacks to stem cells has been remarkable – an amazing success story in its own right. And, given the work done in recent years, it is reasonable to expect that transition to continue into areas such as software (ehealth, big data, games, apps) and robotics. In fact, we are already seeing green shoots coming up across many of those areas.
At MassDiGI, we feel not only are we serving the needs of students and entrepreneurs at Becker, in Worcester and across the state, but we’re fostering the start-up spirit so critical to competing in today’s world be it locally or globally.
And, MassDiGI is just one small example of a campus-based initiative that is having an impact. WPI’s Gateway Park is a national model for what can happen. All the work at MCPHS University has been fantastic. At UMass Medical School, many incredible things are happening. Clark, Holy Cross, WSU, QCC and Assumption are engaged and involved. On the campus edges across the city we’re seeing new businesses opening – be they spin-offs, restaurants or shops. Not to mention all the activity surrounding City Square, Union Station, DCU Center, Shrewsbury Street and the Canal District.
Yes. There is plenty of work to do. Worcester has challenges but the prevailing conditions are in its favor. The building blocks are in place. With a sustained, collaborative effort, I imagine an exciting decade to come.
*This post originally appeared on Worcester Connects.
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