Gamasutra has published my latest "Persuasive Games" column, this one on how videogames are tactile.

You can read the article over at Gamasutra.

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Recently I made some strong remarks about NASA's decision to pull (or "reconfigure") the funding plan for their long-planned educational MMO. Virtualpolitik tracker Liz Losh has since authored a far more sophisticated analysis of the situation. Go read the whole thing, but in brief Losh attributes three main factors to NASA's decision: profound hierarchy, assumptions about volunteerism, and a sense of strong branding.

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Following my occasional series of gripes about Apple openness (1, 2, 3, 4), I thought I'd share a part of the agreement iPhone application developers must accept in order to be able to publish to the forthcoming iTunes App Store:

There's reason for some kind of discretionary policy, but it's worth noting that para 6.2(b) allows so-called "soft censorship" as well. It's hard to say how or if it will be exercised.

Incidentally, the same is apparently true for the XBox Community Arcade (or whatever it will be called). I haven't seen the agreement for it, but at the Academic Days on Game Development conference Dean O'Donnell asked a Microsoft rep if they would pull down a game like, say, "George Bush: War Criminal." The answer? "Basically, yes."

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It happens every election cycle, it seems. Games that allow players to make their favorite candidate box against their least favorite candidate, or some variation on a theme of same. We had Kerry vs. Kerry back in 2004, as well as the mobile game Bush vs. Kerry Boxing that same year. Not to mention the Osama vs. Bush boxing toy puppets.

Here's the salvo for this year so far. Kewlbox released Hillary vs. Obama. "The faster you click, the more punches you throw!" Then the New York Post offers 2008 Democratic Fight Night (via Kotaku). Both of these are clickfests of varying quality -- the NY Post specimen, despite technically being a "newsgame" thanks to its context, loses by TKO. Not that it's much of a victory.

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If you read the Guardian, you may have noticed that they are running a series of articles and opinion pieces as a part of a self-declared "games week." Richard Bartle and John Kirriemuir already offered great pieces on games and censorship and games and learning, respectively.

I wrote a piece that ran yesterday on games and advertising. The refrain is probably familiar to readers here, but I'll excerpt a bit nonetheless:

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In case you didn't notice, Grand Theft Auto IV was released yesterday. The coverage is predictably overwhelming, although standing out among the noise about sales records and politicians is Heather Chaplin's piece on NPR's All Things Considered, which includes a series of interviews with GTAIV writer Lazlow Jones. I've criticized Rockstar before for failing to put people in front of the media to discuss their games, so this is a welcome change of pace. Jones's thesis about the game is summed up in the call-out quote near the top, "It's a satire of not only New York, but of American consumerism and culture."

Lazlow Jones is a writer, and he points out all the terrific textual and graphical materials that have always graced the storefronts, billboards, and airwaves of the series (sure to catch the NPR segment about GTA's NPR radio station parody). But playing a couple hours of GTAIV tonight, I couldn't help but wonder if the bite of the gameplay will ever catch up. As an advocate for the power of the procedural representation of social and political positions in games, I can still appreciate the clever signage and speech in the series. I have a long way to go before I'll know if GTAIV cashes out its social critique in its model of the world rather than just in the skin it puts around it, but part of me wonders why, if it does, I haven't yet felt that sensation two hours in.

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Clark Boyd interviewed me the other day for a piece on BBC's The World radio program which covered a mobile game supporting gorilla conservation. The game, called Silverback, is a cute, involved J2ME title in the platformer-adventure game genre. It turns out the game was actually created back in 2003 by Kiwanja, and this is a re-release for the benefit of Fauna & Flora International. You can download the game free over-the-air, although A £5 donation is requested.

Unlike so many advocacy games, Silverback is actually pretty good! The player takes the role of a young gorilla facing challenges from youth to adulthood. There are a good dozen levels and the game is both challenging and well-designed for the handset. As I've argued before, one of the powerful features of games is their ability to let players take on a role and experience a life constrained by the rules of that role. Silverback does an admirable job of putting the player in the fur of a gorilla, even constrained to the tiny graphics of a mobile device.

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Earlier this week I reported that NASA had pulled the $3m worth of funding previously committed to an educational MMO project. Other reliable sources ran the same story (1, 2, 3).

Sean Hollister wrote a new story on the topic, including some interview material from Daniel Laughlin, one of the NASA project managers and recent WCG commenter.

1. Yes, NASA lost the $3m, but they have another $2m.
2. But, they're not going to spend that on game development. Instead they're going to spend it on "education experts" and NASA insiders
3. The non-reimbursable Space Act Agreement is actually Good For Developers because it means that they can profit from the game by selling it in stores or by some other means. If the development were funded by the government, "it would be illegal to be paid twice."
4. By not paying developers, NASA unburdens them from bureaucracy.
5. What developers are really bidding on is the right to a no-cost license to the NASA name.

I'll be the first to admit that serious games need complex, novel business models. But is this the one? The game developers take all the risk while NASA throws money at educational designers? I think I had this nightmare once. Does NASA even have a brand worth licensing anymore? "From the team that lost taxpayer-funded planetary probes and blew up two space shuttles comes PowerPoint To Space!"

Also interesting is how foolish the NASA crew were in managing the public expectations for their RFP. What other conclusion could anyone have come to but the one reported widely online? Now they just look like stooges who kiss the hand of government bureaucracy with reverence and contrition.

Earth to NASA: this isn't how the world works anymore. Get a grip.

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(Updated here, 23 April)

A while back, NASA started talking about a large-scale, well-funded MMO they wanted to make for educational purposes. The organization published a Request for Information (RFI) that claimed "A high quality synthetic gaming environment is a vital element of Nasa's educational cyberstructure." The goals of the project were to "foster career exploration opportunities in a much deeper way than reading alone would permit and at a fraction of the time and cost of an internship program." The reported budget for the project was a respectable $3 million.

Today, the Second Life Herald reports comes news that the budget has been slashed -- to nothing. Literally.

There are probably many complex reasons for the change, but the result is nightmarish. What organization could and would volunteer the massive resource commitment? Perhaps some clever space-frenzied developer can find a way to justify the investment by other means, but on the face of it doesn't sound like NASA is open to monetizing the game in any way -- it's an educational project.

Oh, the scourge that is Serious Games.

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Finally something to look forward to! Majesco announces Air Traffic Chaos for Nintendo DS!

As someone obsessed with both air travel and mundane work experiences (having made games about both), this is a must-have. Sure, you can get ATC Simulator for Windows, and some may remember Kennedy Approach for Atari/Amiga/C64, but now we have an air traffic control game you can play while actually waiting to be air traffic controlled! Of course, you'll have to turn off all electronic devices for takeoff. And on Alitalia, as Jesper recently discovered, you'll never be able to turn it on at all.

(thanks to Ben)

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