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Videoludica.com: push the button

Videoludica.com goes live. So, what is it? well, as you might have guessed, videoludica. game culture is a new series of books about critically acclaimed and much-loved videogames of the past 40 years.

By turns passionate, creative, and always informed, the thought-provoking books in this series demonstrate many different styles of writing about videogames. What binds this series together, and what brings it to life, is that all of the authors - academics, scholars, critics, gamers, and writers- are the many cultures that these games spawned after their releases. Each meditation revels in the distinct nature of the chosen game – or game series, or even game genre – providing insightful commentary to an overlooked practice.

Available in two formats (Monographs and Readers), these volumes discuss video games from a broad academic and critical perspective, setting characteristics, themes and techniques in context and exploring the game's significance. videoludica. game culture brings together the most interesting writing about videogames, treating its subjects with the kind of intelligence and carefully considered respect they deserve.

Being the natural evolution of Ludologica. Videogames d’Autore, videoludica. game culture preserves the original idiosyncrasy of the original, with a new, provocative, at times even obsessive, format. These books will appeal to everyone from hard core gamers to hard core academics.

The first two titles in the series - "Doom. The first person reader" and "Civilization. Virtual history, real fantasies" - will be released in September 2005 initially in Italian only, along with a brand new collection of essays on the aesthetics, logic and ideology of videogames aptly titled "Gli strumenti del videogiocare", but many more are planned. The website is pretty skinny at the moment, but it will grow quickly. Essays, interviews, special reports will complement the information about the books. We are also planning a series of videoludica-related events!

FAQ
What is the relationship between videoludica and Ludologica?
Basically, videoludica.game culture is Ludologica 2.0. Bigger, fatter, bolder. It features the same team that brought you the previous series, minus Gianni Canova who is concentrating on film studies. After publishing ten books in the Ludologica series (three of them are in print as I write this) we felt it was necessary to upgrade to the next level. This is why videoludica was born.

Who is publishing videoludica.game culture?
Milan-based Costlan Editori, which today owns three different brands: Costa & Nolan, RITMI and Under 25. Funded 1992, Genovese publisher Costa & Nolan has published books by the likes of Derrick De Kerckhove, Michel Maffesoli, Andy Warhol, Dick Hedbige, Alberto Abruzzese, Ian Chambers and many more. RITMI started in Rome in 1994 and published a very successful series of books on literary criticism. Under 25 was launched in the mid-Eighties by Ancona-based Transeuropa and Pier Vittorio Tondelli with the goal of publishing innovative and original fiction by new young Italian writers.

So what about the cover design?
The cover design of all the videoludica. game culture books exclusively feature Mauro Ceolin’s SolidLandscapes series of paintings (you might remember that Ludologica featured Ceolin's GamePeople's series). There will be much more information about SolidLandscapes in the upcoming weeks.

When and where can I buy the books?
The first books will be available from September 2005 in every Italian bookstores, selected videogame stores, and online bookstores like iBS.

I am a game scholar/researcher and I have written a groundbreaking essay/book. Can I submit my contribution? Absolutely! videoludica.game culture is an open source project that emphasizes quality research and compelling writing over commercial mumbo-jumbo. It is an international initiative that involves well known game scholars as well as new kids on the block. We are actively seeking original contributions in the form of essays and manuscripts on digital games, in Italian, English or French. Feel free to email your proposals to the series editor, Matteo Bittanti.

Granted: reading about games is not quite the same as playing them, but hopefully, videoludica. game culture will be both fun and enlightening. After all, game criticism is not that different from game playing.

Please stay tuned for more information.

Time has come to push the button.

Gibson on cutting & pasting

"We live at a peculiar juncture, one in which the record (an object) and the recombinant (a process) still, however briefly, coexist. But there seems little doubt as to the direction things are going. The recombinant is manifest in forms as diverse as Alan Moore's graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, machinima generated with game engines (Quake, Doom, Halo), the whole metastasized library of Dean Scream remixes, genre-warping fan fiction from the universes of Star Trek or Buffy or (more satisfying by far) both at once, the JarJar-less Phantom Edit (sound of an audience voting with its fingers), brand-hybrid athletic shoes, gleefully transgressive logo jumping, and products like Kubrick figures, those Japanese collectibles that slyly masquerade as soulless corporate units yet are rescued from anonymity by the application of a thoughtfully aggressive "custom" paint job." (William Gibson, Wired)

Read more.

Alexis Rockman, painter of the apocalypse

"Rockman is delivering a disturbing message about Homo sapiens’ abuse of the environment. The Manifest Destiny of this immodest species will not be the glorious one envisioned by nineteenth-century Americans, he suggests, but an abandoned, despoiled place. Even so, his mural is not quite as grim as its message. He enjoys himself too much for despair to take hold. Steeped in a boyish love of things apocalyptic and the astonishment of other worlds, Manifest Destiny should delight children, who will revel in its mad-scientist oddities."

Alexis Rockman is a painter who works s with enviromental themes. Here are some samples of his art. Here's more. Oh, there too (Thanks, John!)

Ballard likes CSI

"Television today is an ageing theme park, which we visit out of habit rather than in hope of finding anything fresh and original. At times I think that the era of television is over, but then it suddenly comes up with something rich and strange. A few years ago, hunting the outer darkness of Channel 5, I began to linger over a series called C.S.I: Crime Scene Investigation. After only a few episodes I was completely hooked, for reasons I don't understand even today."

Superb analysis of C.S.I. by one of the greatest writers alive, J. G. Ballard.

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And now, a game from our sponsor

"Ian Bogost of Persuasive Games, based in Atlanta, dreams of building games that go “outside the sphere of entertainment” into “rhetorical tools”. One of his efforts is “Activism, the Public Policy Game”, which was paid for by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Alas, the slow-paced action of tax reform is neither motivating, fun, nor terribly educational" (The Economist)

Not exactly new, agreed, but still worth reading. On June 9th 2005, The Economist published a very interesting report on the conflation between advertisements and video games.

Read more.

Crazy Racing

Edge discusses "one of the world's biggest online games, Crazy Racing: Kart Rider, a game that made its parent company $110m (£61m) last year. As the English edition of Korea Times reports, the game now has 12 million registered users, with around 220,000 concurrent users at peak times. It is one of South Korea's most successful online games (...) Thanks to widespread availability (and perhaps also the massive TV exposure) Kart Rider has now been played by 25% of the Korean population and only a fraction of these people need to be serious enough spend money on better in-game items for Kart Rider to be a massive success".

I wonder how Nintendo feels about this :-)

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Advergames & Product Placement

The new issue of Italian weekly newsmagazine L'Espresso has a story on the increasing role of advertisement in videogames, written by Pierluigi Casolari.

Read more (Sub. required, in Italian).

Micheal Jackson Rules The Game World

Funky Flash Thingy. (via Waxy)

Maltron, Voltron's Keyboard

"With a conventional keyboard, only 8 of the 10 fingers get used. With the Maltron Keyboard your thumbs get more use then a conventional keyboard. Additionally, with a the keys being placed in a position more suitable to fit your fingers, you will be able to type faster. Many users report that the Maltron keyboard increased their speed by 20%, though each individual person will experience different results."

For less than 500 dollars, the Maltron Keyboard can be yours!

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Google Video is the best game available

Do you remember that Seinfeld episode where George was obsessed by Frogger?