Re: [-empyre-] hi

[brody condon <brodyc@tmpspace.com>]

Hello, I am one of the creators of Waco Res, and I have a history of 
work made around games and game culture - www.tmpspace.com

Melinda, it's great to hear positive feedback on the actual experiece 
with some of these "reality" pieces. But I have to be honest, as someone 
who grew up spending a substantial amount of time buried in computer and 
role-playing game aesthetics and interactive structures, I rarely get 
excited by spending time "playing" any of these games. There seems to be 
misconception that shoving topical content into a poorly crafted game 
world with a lack interesting game flow is somehow useful. In the end we 
are left with a mix of poor art and poor engineering that reeks of so 
much 90's media art. I am guilty of this myself. At the same time, I was 
just on "political games" panel with Harvey Smith, one the creators of 
Deus Ex, and he is on the other end of the spectrum. He spoke 
passionately about embedding political metaphor into that popular 
mainstream game. In the end, even though those intentions are surrounded 
by virtuoso game design and solid graphics, it falls flat. Curious, does 
the craft of game play and design actually matter? Is it enough that 
these critical games just exist as alternatives?

Ana, I am familiar with you from your involvement with the Under Fire 
panel on representations of violence recently staged at the Witte de 
With in Rotterdam. By the way I was probably born when you were in 
prison, and I am literally the child of the bitter and drug addicted 
aftermath of the somewhat failed countercultural movement in the US 
during that period. It would be nice to bring some of the issues raised 
at the Witte into this discussion. Although I was skeptical at first, 
there seemed to be some actual work being done to understand in a 
comprehensive way the structure and processes that have created our 
current relationship with images of violent conflict in 
tele/film/games/news. Some of the conclusions might be useful here, It 
seems like most of the discussions around this specific topic end up as 
pointing to the surge in reality gaming, mixed with healthy fear of 
those games being produced by conservative agendas: Kuma War, AA, 
Op-F18, whatever. And going back to Melinda's point, I am curious what 
you, and especially Rafeal, see as the important results that come out 
of somewhat predicatable game scenarios made by a group "in opposition 
to the dominant political force". Again, not the most interesting 
questions, but as someone making these hopeless and pathetic gestures,  
I'm still curious if it is enough that these dissident forms of cultural 
production simply exist as an end in themselves? Are they actually 
effective/affective?

-Brody