The ability to distinguish real life from a virtual life can be rather problematic for some in Second Life (SL), which leads to the documentary called “Life 2.0”. Jason Spingarn-Koff follows the real lives and alternate lives of three individuals using their avatar names: Amie Goode, Asri Falcone, and Ayya Aabye. The people who Spingarn…

All of this week’s readings used elements of literary criticism to examine digital games. All three authors were quick to note that there wasn’t complete overlap, but the tools of literary analysis are certainly in play here. In his piece, Aarseth notes that, at least according to the state of the humanities at the time…

This reading was very interesting as it pulled together a lot of terms and ideas from other readings we have gone over this semester. Such as the metagame, the magic circle and the spoil sport. The idea that videogames can be something that transends just gaming to some was something I had never thought of.…

I assume we have all experienced it. That feeling you get when you fail a level in a video game, when you lose a game in sports, only to continue to torture yourself and keep trying until you win. In Juul’s book The Art of Failure he scrutinizes this paradox in video games. He states,…

Jesper Juul, in his Art of Failure essay, talks about, well, failure in games and how it straddles the line between a motivating and demoralizing factor. Failure is required to exist in a game to present a challenge, without failure, there is no point in playing a game. On the other hand, as Juul points…

Based off of our discussion last Thursday I thought that I was going to have to drudge through this weeks reading, I ended up enjoying it though. I found the Aarseth reading to be the most difficult, but there were a few parts of it that I did enjoy. I thought that his discussion of…

In “The Art of Failure”, Juul links failure in games is a whole lot different than failure in real life. It is almost like we as humans are fine with failing in games because it adds to the feel of that game. Failure in real life is highly upsetting because it is not in a…