Lab might do for video games, what USC did for film:

GAMBIT’s researchers, a collaboration of artists, historians, writing instructors, and educators, are mostly interested in breaking away from gaming conventions: the princess who needs rescuing, the shady merchant with the weapon you must get to survive the next chapter, the mushroom power-up.

They are also focused on teaching courses with heady titles like “Making Deep Games’’ and publishing papers such as “Bioshock: A Critical Historical Perspective.’’

“Everything done in the lab is based on some sort of research interest,’’ said Eitan Glinert, who was GAMBIT’s first graduate student, in 2007.

via MIT lab helps designers reimagine video games – The Boston Globe.

Live Video streaming by UstreamMore about the event:

“We are marathoning for earthquake relief in Haiti. We have teams of players ready to grind it out for charity, but we need your help! Tune in to the webcam feed on the weekend of February 26th-28th to check it out, and please donate to the cause. Every little bit helps.”

via Complete Game-Completion Marathon 2010.

From my column, today:

Star Trek Online is far easier to learn than Eve, however. And I like that it encourages avatar-to-avatar interactions off the battlefield, much like World of Warcraft (www.worldofwarcraft.com), which STO more closely resembles, with its use of inventories and its style of play.

(I can see STO becoming a fun place to hold scholarly meetings, as is WoW.)

via Star Trek offering is mission ready – The Boston Globe.

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