Month: August 2007

After my post about highly regarded fan fiction, it was interesting to note Tony Walsh’s post about Microsoft’s ‘Game Content Usage Rules’. People wanting to create machinima using XBox 360 are warned:

You can’t add to the game universe or expand on the story told in the game with “lost chapters” or back story or anything like that.

And then they end the list of rules by saying:

If you do any of these things, you can expect to hear from Microsoft’s lawyers who will tell you that you have to stop distributing your Items right away.

There’s still a way to do some of these things we’ve excluded, but you have to contact us for a commercial license. Thanks, and have fun!

* Shaking my head in disbelief *

Check out: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/developer/rules.htm

As of 10th November 2007, this post moved to:
https://www.christydena.com/online-essays/why-args-arent-hoaxes/

Jason Nelson, an internationally regarded (yet not deservingly so in Australia unfortunately) digital artist, has created a great literary game about games, religion, society, net art and interaction design in general called “game, game, game and again game”. It is a great fun and very clever work that has attracted over 7 million hits from newspapers and magazines. The game is described by Nelson as:

a digital poem/game/net artwork hybrid of sorts. There are 13 curious levels filled with poetics, hand drawn creatures, scribbles backgrounds and other poorly made bits. The theme (cringe) hovers around our many failed/error filled/compelling belief systems, from consumerism to monotheism. But more it repels the tyranny (cringe) of clean design and cold smoothness of much of the web/net-art.

It would make a great subject for study in classes on games, net art and interaction design, as well as a rich topic for an academic essay. 

Check it out: http://www.secrettechnology.com/gamegame/gamegame.html