Curricular Games

18 07 2009

StarCraft

StarCraft

Back in January (2009), Kotaku let the world know about a peculiar initiative involving two (apparently) very distinct elements: learning and StarCraft. It was confirmed that UC Berkeley had a class on the “Art of Competitive StarCraft”.

The class focuses on applying critical thinking, quick decision-making, and game theory skills throughout an in-depth analysis of how the theory of war is conducted within the confines of the game. Prerequisites include a working knowledge of StarCraft strategy and the suggested readings are The Art of War by Sun Tzu and Crazy as Me by Lim Yo. Impressive isn’t it? To see games be taken so seriously among an academic environment. Truth be told, electronic games emerged as an entertainment medium, but in time their uses proved to be far more varied. Read the rest of this entry »





WGA’s Annual Videogame Writing Award

13 01 2009

For the second time, the Writer’s Guild of America is nominating games for its annual Videogame Writing Award. The most famous, or AAA titles, among those are Fallout 3, Tomb Raider: Underworld, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

Sadly though, the selection process requires winners to be members of the Guild. Naturally this reduces drastically the number of contestants and doesn’t account for the majority of games released.

Nevertheless, games are a somewhat recent medium and if the event’s objective is to “encourage storytelling excellence in videogames, improve the status of writers, and foster uniform standards within the gaming industry”; so be it.

As a Bethesda fan and having only played Fallout 3 (at length) from the list, I’ll cross my fingers for it. I’m sure though all of the games contribute to storytelling in their own distinct genre and manner.

Credit goes to the games which did not necessarily come closer to traditional means of storytelling similar to other mediums (like film), but rather found their own voice and method of telling stories.

I would like to see Dead Space and GTA 4 participating as well.

EDIT: Micah Wright commented that actually, the Award rules only require that writers who nominate themselves join the WGA’s sister group, the Videogame Writers Caucus, and don’t need to be members of the Guild per se.

Source: Gamasutra








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