Playing at Leadership: Games, Gaming, & Leadership Studies
"Reality, unlike games, is broken." – Jane McGonigal
After having played (and re-played) both the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series, it occurs to me that a discussion of the portrayal of gender in the games themselves ought rightfully to include the gender of the player-character. Most of … Read More »
Tom Bissell’s Extra Lives examines a variety of games and game types, but something he said while explaining open-world games (games which do not have restrictive paths for the player to follow, but instead allow the player to plot his … Read More »
So in all the furor over horrible depictions of women in videogames, Assassin’s Creed: Liberation has quietly made a very important point, as Kotaku‘s Evan Narcisse notes in his article. That point is that the protagonist of the new AC … Read More »
So this week’s Gamasutra “This Week in Video Game Criticism” did a write-up of some of the more recent incidents in misogyny and bigotry in the gaming world, which I’m going to reproduce here at length: I would be remiss … Read More »
Gamasutra recently posted an article about how the next God of War game is going to curtail violence against women. As they point out, it is unclear precisely how that is going to manifest itself in the game. The quotation … Read More »
Rob Fahey’s article at gamesindustry international, “A Question of Maturity,” makes an argument that games are not yet capable of being “mature,” saying that “You can’t make someone experience love through a video game, or sorrow.” On the one hand, … Read More »
So I downloaded and played the Extended Cut for Mass Effect 3. Given my disappointment in the “original” ending, I wasn’t prepared to be thrilled by its extension. Nor was I. What I was not, however, was saddened, horrified, or … Read More »
A few weeks ago, I posted about my reaction to the “bad storytelling” of the Mass Effect 3 ending. This week, I’m posting about how some games – notably Diablo III – fail in storytelling altogether. The problem with ME3 … Read More »
This particular post was brought to my attention by a colleague, although I was aware of the issue in more general terms. So the Feminist Frequency Kickstarter project has apparently garnered an… interesting response. And by “interesting,” I mean “horrific … Read More »
So in the past few weeks, my attention has been called to a couple of different things attempting to deal with and articulate concerns about the ways in which women are being objectified, abused, and ignored in the gaming industry … Read More »
This is that post about Mass Effect 3. The one that talks about the ending. If you haven’t played and don’t want the ending spoiled, stop reading now. I have two basic reactions to the ending of ME3. The first … Read More »
One of the most central concepts behind my alignment of leadership and game studies is the idea that we can use games to achieve both an understanding of leadership, but also a certain kind of hands-on practical “experience” with leadership … Read More »
The design of the work flow is key here: the game constantly challenging you to try something just a little bit more difficult than what you’ve just accomplished. These microincreases in challenge are just big enough to keep sparking your … Read More »
Having recently finished Jane McGonigal’s (2011) Reality is Broken, I’ve begun noticing a new trend in the study of “virtual worlds” popping up all over the place. This past fall, I was privileged to hear Edward Castronova’s plenary talk at … Read More »
Recently, I’ve been looking a lot more at game theory, leadership, and how the two relate in the context of videogame criticism, as well as “real life.” In terms of a discussion of ethics, the idea of “moral currency” seems … Read More »