PhD Journal Articles

I'm pleased to announce I now have two more papers published on my PhD research. The first article, "Game-Play Breakdowns and Breakthroughs: Exploring the Relationship Between Action, Understanding and Involvement" is in Human Computer Interaction and focuses on the case studies I carried out how they resulted in a theory of the relationship between learning and involvement within the context of games. The theory is represented as a set of 14 claims that relate to: micro and macro involvement; breakdowns and breakthroughs in action, understanding and involvement; progress; and agency, meaning and compelling game-play. In particular, the paper emphasises the ways in which players experience learning via breakthroughs in understanding, where involvement is increased when the player feels responsible for progress. We also argue that supporting the relationship between learning and involvement is vital for ensuring the success of commercial and educational games. (You can also find out a bit more about the methods I used in my 2013 DiGRA journal paper: "Making sense of game-play: How can we examine learning and involvement").

The second article, "The Gaming Involvement and Informal Learning Framework" is in Simulation & Gaming and provides a good overview of the three studies I carried out in and also presents the GIIL framework as the culmination of all my findings. Essentially, the framework is able to account for both how and what people learn from gaming while also highlighting the influence of player identity. Further, the iterative relationship between identity, involvement and learning is emphasised: the more strongly someone identifies themselves as a gamer, the greater their micro and macro-level involvement and the more likely they are to learn from their gaming experiences. This is represented in the figure below (taken from my PhD thesis and also reprinted within the article).

Technically these articles are still in press but both journals have put them up online before print. It's great to have them out there and see all that hard work come together :-)

CHI Play 2014: Toronto

Last month I went to the first CHI Play conference in Toronto - and it was fun :-) The full papers from the conference are openly available for a short time only so make sure to check them out here.

On the Sunday I took part in the somewhat provocatively titled "Participatory Design for Serious Game Design: Truth and Lies" workshop organised by Rilla Khaled, Mina Vasalou, Vero Vanden Abeele, and Maarten Van Mechelen. Participatory design (PD) is something I've recently become more interested in and our submission "Designing Persuasive Games through Competition" was about how PD influenced the organisation of the competition I ran at UCL earlier this year and some of the tensions that arose during the whole process. The workshop was a great experience as I got to meet a load of interesting people and to hear about different types of PD game research. And I learnt that defining PD, while a good learning experience, isn't particularly easy!

On the following day, I presented our paper on Player Strategies: Achieving Breakthroughs and Progressing in Single-player and Cooperative Games (Iacovides, Cox, Avakian & Knoll, 2014 - thanks to Anna Cox for the photo below!). The paper resulted from two UCLIC MSc projects I supervised and the conference also gave me a chance to catch up with Tom Knoll, one of my co-authors who is now at Amberlight. The paper builds upon my PhD work by looking at the types of strategies players use in an attempt to overcome breakdowns and breakthroughs. In single-player games, we found players use trial & error, experiment, stop & think, repetition and take the hint, while in coop games this extended to also include knowledge exchange, guidance and surrendering control/taking over. My favourite design suggestion from this work came from co-author Ara Avakian who suggested incorporating a "Quantum leap mode" in coop games but you'll have to read the paper to find out more about that :-)

In related work, Conor Linehan spoke about "Learning Curves: Analysing Pace and Challenge in Four Successful Puzzle Games", where learning curves refer to the structure and pace at which challenges are introduced to the player. We discussed how there might scope to combine our work as it would interesting to see how these learning curves actually map on to what players actually experience - particular in relation to more and less "successful" types of game. Essentially, it would be worth finding out out whether you see similar patterns of breakdown and breakthrough around the introduction of different mechanics and whether different types of learning curve lead to different types of strategy.

Some of the other highlights of the conference related to considering the design process e.g. Kathrin Gelring and Bob de Schutter presenting a framework for Gerontoludic design; Mina Vasalou reflecting on cultural appropriation when designing a Day of the Dead game for children; and Chad Richards considering the importance of context in developing gamification systems. Other highlights related to understanding game play practices e.g. Nicole Crenshaw highlighting the complexity of naming practices in online games; and Marcus Carter focusing on the use multiple screens to play different games at the same time. Meanwhile Zachary Toupes' categorisations of different cooperative communication mechanics (environment modifying, automated communication, immersive, expressive, emergent and attention focusing) got me thinking about how these forms of communication might relate to different kinds of player strategies.

There were also multiple presentations on games being used for different purposes such Michael Cristel discussing the development of a game for teaching children about the Cognitive Triangle concept of feelings, thoughts, and behaviors and Zachary Fitz-Walter discussing the gamifying university orientation (with mixed results). At a more meta-level, I also enjoyed Marcus' second presentation on paradigms in HCI game research and I'm definitely planning on looking at the paper in more depth. In addition, there was also quite a large industry presence at the conference, where I particularly liked the idea of "guerilla techniques" for user testing mobile games (e.g. at a hot dog stand) by the team from Scopely.

The keynotes were both delivered by people in industry, though I have to admit being a little disappointed by Mike Ambinder from Valve. His talk was titled "Making the best of imperfect data" and though he talked a lot about methodologies (e.g. user testing, data analytics) he mainly seemed to be lamenting the vast amounts of data he has access too and the constraints of not being able to do "proper" research in a commercial environment. Perhaps it's the result of having a background in experimental psychology (which I have too!) but it sounded like what he mainly wanted was the ability to measure everything, tools to automate data analysis and to magically remove all forms of bias. Which is fine, I guess, but I'm not really sure about the specifics of what he was wanted to find out and a lot of "why" questions he did seem to be asking a (e.g. rationales for player choice) really felt more suited to - dare I say it? - qualitative research...

In contrast, Jason VandenBerghe, Creative Director at Ubisoft, did a really good job of showing how he had engaged in research in this area and managed to use it in a positive way. Based on work such as the Big 5 personality traits and Self Determination Theory (SDT - recently applied to video games) he presented the "Engines of Play" - this is basically a tool for considering player motivations over time and for communicating with his team. His talk clearly outlined a problem space, involved some great game examples, suggested areas for further improvement (e.g. what about players drives such as "collecting"?) and managed to be entertaining as well :-)

Oh, and I almost forgot the student game design competition! This was a really quite an impressive showcase - there were games about privacy, sexual health, and even poetry while there were plenty of multiplayer opportunities e.g. a quest game involving IRC chat (and a lot of arguing!). The winner of the competition was a very cool looking game called OHR that took place in a Machinarium inspired world and required the use of physical electronic components. Below is a photo of Anna Cox enjoying a game where you have to shout into a mobile phone mic to avoid on-screen obstacles :-) Also, in the poster session, as part of Citizen Cyberlab, Anna presented some work on RedWire, a re-mixing tool for game design.

All in all, CHI Play was a good experience - and I'm sure I've missed loads out! I'm really looking forward to next year, where it looks like I'm going to be helping organise next year's conference in London :-)

Failing in Games at Aarhus University

 Last month I was invited to present at the Aarhus University's Interacting Minds mini-conference on "Failing and Confusion in Games and Gaming" along with Jesper Juul, Dennis Ramirez and Charlotte Janasson. Thanks to Andreas Lieberoth for the invite and organising a seriously interesting day :-)

Mine was the final talk of the day, where I presented some of my PhD research on Investigating Game-play: Are Breakdowns in Action and Understanding Detrimental to Involvement? (see pic below). You can find my slides here. I'm waiting to hear back about a journal paper we put together on the findings but in the meantime you can check out my DiGRA paper on why I did not find physiological data to be useful for identifying breakdowns and breakthroughs in game-play. My main argument was that action and understanding breakdowns will contribute to involvement when the player feels responsible for overcoming them but that they will decrease involvement if they take too long to overcome or have major consequences e.g. a loss of progress. There was some interesting discussion in the Q&A afterwards around defining involvement, whether "positive engagement" is a helpful term, the importance of triangulation and how we can avoid players getting into "negative cycles" where breakdowns don't lead to breakthroughs. While I think my work can help explain when certain breakdowns are likely to disrupt involvement, I think there is still plenty of scope to consider how and why some players are able to avoid these negative cycles and others don't.

(Thanks to Andreas Lieberoth for the twitpic)

In terms of the other presentations, I was glad to hear more about some of Andreas' initial work on Quantum Moves (a citizen science game) where they investigated player motivations e.g. in terms of fear of failing i.e. trying to avoid looking bad or achieving mastery challenges. While they chose a different focus, there is definitely some overlap with some work I presented at CHI this year in relation to the Citizen Cyberlab project, looking at why people chose to play citizen science games. I'm definitely looking forward to Andreas visiting next term so we can get into some more discussion about our research.

Jesper then kicked off the main talks by discussing failure in games (he's also written a book about the topic called the Art of Failure). Amusingly, he got different people in the audience to try out Super Hexagon and China Miner - I think I lasted about 10 seconds in the latter! Juul argued that while failure can be a source of learning, it's still an unpleasant experience and pointed out that there is a bit of a paradox going on here - normally we want to succeed but when we play games we seem to be seeking out experiences where we will fail (at least part of the time). I wonder though about how you define failure? I don't think all breakdowns are necessarily failures, often they are part of the challenge, or quickly overcome, whereas the word failure seems to indicate something more serious. What was really interesting was how when he pointed out how games can promise to repair some sort of inadequacy in us, but it is an inadequacy the game actually created in the first place! I think I'm going to have to read his book to get more to grips with the various paradoxes and philosophical arguments outlined in the talk but Jesper also suggested failure in games differs from real life as games offer a certain amount of plausible deniability e.g. "It's just a game", "It wasn't fair", or even "I wasn't trying that hard in the first place". I have thought about "its not fair" comments before - I see them as an indication that involvement has been disrupted, since the player sees the game rather than their own actions as being at fault - but either way I think they indicate a serious breakdown has occurred as player are essentially distancing themselves from the game.

Dennis' talk on his PhD research followed similar lines but he focused a little more of what failure means for learning and educational games. He pointed out that only 20% of players actually reached the end of Hitman Absolution (and apparently only 10% of players will see the end of any game) and argued that it's important to consider the metric being used to assess success within a game. Dennis also discussed various approaches to using games and assessing them - from chocolate covered broccoli e.g. Math Blaster to thinking about model based assessment e.g. Schaffer's epistemic frames. I particularly liked how he pointed out that we can't always infer competence from completion and when he discussed more recent approaches to evaluation that relate to "big data" (though also stressed the importance of talking to players too). For instance, he talked about some work going on at Wisconsin-Madison that was looking at heat maps in terms of how different players move through the game. The fact that progress doesn't always guarantee learning is something I've considered in my PhD research i.e. you can achieve action breakthroughs without understanding (though chances are these will be less satisfying) but it was good to hear more about what that means in terms of assessing learning from an educational point of view.

Charlotte provided a different perspective with her talk on Learning from errors in education. While not focusing on digital games, she provided an interesting account of failure in real-life settings, in this case a vocational school. She made the argument that while not exactly a game, school isn't quite real-life either and vocational schools offer a sort of real-life work game - where failure is considered part of the learning process. Charlotte used an example of the students learning how to clean, cook and prepare flounder (apparently very tricky!). She noted that the instructors treat the school as a practice space where errors are ok, but not if they are made as a result of knowledge you should have acquired already. Further, it seems that developing expertise is about becoming more skilled at paying attention and knowing what to pay attention too. Her talk got me thinking about my work on CHI+MED and errors within a healthcare environment, where I've been interested in how nurses are trained to use infusion devices. But, if errors are an unavoidable part of work practice and learning from them can help you become an expert, then how on earth do you go about supporting this process in an environment where the consequences of errors could literally be life or death?! I guess using a pump isn't normally that complicated but I do wonder about what sort of knowledge nurses have and how they develop expertise in this context.

Overall it was a really good day and it got me thinking a lot about games, failure and errors in the workplace. It was a great opportunity to talk to attendees at the event, catch up with Andreas and Yishay Mor, and enjoy lots of discussion afterwards when we went out for a lovely meal in Aarhus :-)

CHI 2013: Paris (Part I) - MOMA, games and learning, game players and the Games SIG

Last week I went to CHI in Paris - it's been a while since I've been to a major academic conference and I seem to have gotten out of the habit of blogging so I thought I would use this as an excuse to get back into it :-) Plus there was a lot of game sessions that have got me thinking.

It all started last Sunday with the MediCHI workshop. This was a good opportunity to talk to about the work I'm doing on CHI+MED, with respect to medical device safety, and to meet others in the field. The main conference started on Monday with a keynote from Paola Antonelli from MOMA. She gave us an overview of lots of intriguing design projects that MOMA has exhibited and while no specific HCI challenges were made explicit during the talk, I was reminded about how technology, including games, can make people think. Particularly interesting examples include PIG 05049 (Christien Meindertsma) and the Menstruation Machine (Hiromi Ozaki/Sputniko!). She also mentioned their recent games collection - extra points for the inclusion of Passage :-)

In terms of the game-related talks, Erik Harpstead discussed an educational game they had developed (a single player physics game called RumbleBlocks - see below) and how they used metrics to assess learning as part of the ENGAGE project. A toolkit was presented for logging game events and that allows for a replay of game-play so player behaviour can be analysed further. This toolkit seems like it could be really useful but my main question was whether collecting this type of logging data can actually account for situations where players progress but without gaining any real understanding of the principles behind what they are doing. This concern was partially addressed during the talk when the replay analysis indicated that the gameplay mechanics actually contravened one of the learning goals (where students were not lowering the centre of their structures, even though they were building one with wider bases and that were more symmetrical). The misalignment between content and gameplay was seen to potentially explain why there was not a difference between pre and post-test regarding centre of mass and also suggested that the game needs to be redesigned to remedy this issue.

Derek Lomas' talk on optimising learning and motivation in educational games through using crowdsourcing techniques also got my attention. What was particularly interesting about this study was the huge amount of data collected (one study has 10,000 participants the other 70,000 - all who played the online math game Battleship Numberline) and the questioning of the inverted-U hypothesis regarding challenge and engagement. Basically, flow theory suggests that if something is too easy, boredom will occur and if it is too hard, you'll get frustration - so a moderate amount of challenge would be the most engaging. However, the findings from Derek's work actually suggest that people find spent the most time playing when the challenge level was lowest thus indicating that  easier challenges are more engaging . Further, the studies indicated there is a trade-off between engagement and learning i.e. you can't have both... I'm going to have to read the paper for more details but there are several points here that I'd like to consider further. First, I'm questioning whether the length of time spent playing is a good measure of engagement (especially when children might be playing these games during school time - who is controlling the length of play if that is the case?). The terms engagement, motivation and enjoyment were all used interchangeably but I'm not sure they can all be reduced to amount of time spent playing. Surely I can enjoy something I play for less time more than something I might play for longer (e.g. if my motivation was to kill time)? Secondly, I want to look at how well integrated the game mechanics of Battleship Numberline are with the learning content - mainly because I don't like the idea that there needs to be a trade-off between engagement and learning! Further, given Jake Habgood's work on the importance of integrating game mechanics, flow and learning content I don't think there has to be. Finally, the authors also suggested that novelty might be more important than challenge in relation to engagement. This was particularly intriguing as I don't think it's something that has been explored in the literature on games and learning and I'm guessing there might be quite a lot to it.

Within the same session, Stephen Foster talked about designing diverse and sustainable educational games that support competition and meta-cognition. Inspired by the way Chess and Starcarft II players relfect and review their game-play, Stephen presented a game called CompetitiveSourcery based on the pre-existing CodeSpells platoform. The game requires players to compete by designing "spells" in java and using them against each other. Three users were observed over two months as they prepared as a team for a tournament - this included playing the game but also discussing strategies, bebugging each other's code and updating a team wiki. In general, this was a good example of tapping into both micro and macro involvement for the purposes of learning but I was surprised not to see any mention of Gee's discussion player affinity groups that exist around games (though Gee is mentioned in the paper). Plus, the idea that teachers should consider meta-level activities isn't entirely new (see Paul Pivec's BECTA report for the importance of the meta-game) while encourgaing discussion through having a tournament has been done before (e.g. research on Racing Academy). Also, while Stephen makes claims about the sustainability of this approach, there is always going to be an issue concerning whether all players will actually engage in the meta-level activities to the same extent. I'm not sure how you address that though...

There were several other game related sessions including Max Birk talking about the relationship between controller type and personality and Jeff Huang talking about patterns of game-play and skill in Halo. For both these talks I wanted a bit more detail on the methods so I'm going to have to add them to the pile of post-CHI papers to follow-up. In relation to the former, I was a little confused about the relationship between my "real" self, my "ideal" self and my "game" self as I'm not sure any of these can be static constructs but there may be some interesting differences to explore here (do standard controllers really make gamers more neurotic?). In relation to the latter, an awful lot of logging data was collected but I was a little disappointed that "patterns of gameplay" was more about how long people play for and how often than it was about gameplay strategies (but that's only because I'm more interested in player strategies!). Other highlights included Nicholas Graham discussing a tabletop game where one person plays the game and the other orchestrates the experience in real time i.e. builds levels and obstacles. This reminded me a little of Sleep is Death but Tabula Rasa seemed a bit more light-hearted in it's approach to foster open-ended creativity. Tamara Peyton (see below) then spoke about the alternate reality game I Love Bees and showed how leadership emerged from team-play. Interestingly, the players spontaneously used military terms and take on different roles within the team which she classified as General, Lieutenant and Private. I particularly liked that she emphasised that disjuncture can be as important as flow - essentially we should also be thinking about what it means to fail and how failing isn't necessarily a negative experience.

I also attended the SIG on Games and Entertainment and was pleased to see that there really is quite an active games community at CHI. Katherine Isbister and Regina Bernhaupt led the session but handed over the reigns of the SIG to Magy Seif-El-Nasr and Heather Desurvive. The topics that came up ranged from needing to foster links between industry and academia, introducing further games courses at next year's conference, and discussing other venues for games research. It was clear that while some people were interested in the user experience side and methods for assessing game-play others where interested in using games as research tools e.g. for the purposes of collecting data. Regarding the latter, there was a suggestion that there might be a workshop or course next year with a focus on how you might evaluate this kind of large-scale data but I think that will depend on whether someone volunteers to run it! I enjoyed the session overall and found a good way to see the range of game-related interests across the CHI community.

Ok, I think that's enough for today. There is still plenty more to write but I'm going to have to leave it for another post! For now I'm going to leave you with a pic of Charlene Jennett hugging a bear to make one jump on screen :-)

My PhD thesis

My thesis is finally available via ORO: Digital Games: Motivation, Engagement and Informal Learning.  I've included the abstract below though please feel free to get in touch if you have any questions or comments :-)

This thesis investigates the relationships between motivation, engagement and informal learning, with respect to digital games and adult players. Following the reconceptualisation of motivation and engagement (as forms of micro and macro level involvement respectively) three linked studies were conducted. In the first study, 30 players were interviewed via email about their gaming experiences. The resulting set of learning categories and themes drew attention to learning on a game, skill and personal level, which arose from micro-level gameplay and macro-level interaction with wider communities and resources. The second investigation consisted of eight case studies that examined how involvement and learning come together in practice. Participants were observed in the lab during two gameplay sessions and kept gaming diaries over a three week period. A method for categorising game-play breakdowns and breakthroughs (relating to action, understanding and involvement) was developed in order to analyse several hours of gameplay footage. The previous categories and themes were also applied to the data. The findings suggested a relationship between macro-involvement and player identity, which was further investigated by a third survey study(with 232 respondents). The survey helped to establish a link between identity, involvement, and learning; the more strongly someone identifies as a gamer, the more likely they are to learn from their involvement in gaming practice. Four main contributions are presented: (1) an empirical account of how informal learning occurs as a result of micro and macro-involvement within a gaming context, (2) an in-depth understanding of how breakdowns and breakthroughs relate to each other during play, (3) a set of categories that represent the range of learning experienced by players, and (4) a consideration of the role player identity serves with respect to learning and involvement.

"In The Game? Embodied Subjectivity in Gaming Environments"

It really has been ages since I last used this blog. Good news is I have finished the thesis! Viva passed, minor corrections and the final submission due at the start of Sept :-) I will make sure to post a link to it once the final version has been approved.

The last few months have been stupidly busy - I also started a new job at UCLIC - but I have managed to get some game-playing in. There are some thoughts I'd like to get down about those soon but for now I just wanted to post a video of my friend Rob Farrow presenting a paper we wrote together at the Philosophy and Computer Games conference earlier this year. There's some points he makes about meaning and choice that I'd like to think about more - particularly in relation to Skyrim and Mass Effect 3.

But for now, here's "In The Game'? Embodied Subjectivity in Gaming Environments". Thanks Rob :-)

UPDATE: We also had a longer journal article published in Philosophy & Technology, which you can find here.

Being more open about my research

As I mentioned in the last post, my recent part-time work where I've been looking at digital scholarship at the OU, has got me thinking about what it might mean to be a scholar in the digital age and how openness can be a part of that. I have touched upon aspects of my research in this blog, but mostly I tend to use it as a way to reflect about my own gaming experiences and as a way to keep track of my thoughts about different events I go to. As I was writing up the post about ECGBL 2011, I realised that I really did want to say more about what I had been doing and this might be quite a useful thing to do, especially as I'm currently writing up my PhD thesis.

So, in terms of what I have done my research, consists of three phases. Phase one included a conceptual overview of different frameworks of engagement and motivation and a set of interviews with a range of different games players (from casual to hardcore). This led to the development of a set of learning categories, which I presented at EARLI this year (extended abstract) where basically I found that people learn through games in three different ways: through play, through others and through external resources; and on three different levels: on a game level, skill level and personal level. The personal level refers to instances such as picking up general knowledge but also in terms of people mentioning things like developing perseverance and viewing game characters as role models - possibly an area that has received the least amount of attention in game studies though this is likely due to the difficulty of assessing it! I also developed a set of themes that relate to a concept Mia Consalvo calls gaming capital (in turn based upon Bourdieu's notions of capital), which players gain not just by being good at games but in terms of being knowledgeable about them. These themes were: competence, knowledge, community and identity. We published a journal article earlier this year, based on work I presented and GBL 2010, which introduces some of these concepts and outlines my position on engagement and motivation in terms of thinking about them as forms of involvement.

Phase two consisted of a set of case studies I carried out where I examined people playing games on a micro and macro level (i.e. analysing instances of play and wider involvement with players and resources). This consisted of eight case studies, again with a mix of players, some who identified as gamers and some who did not. At DiGRA, I presented the methods I adopted (which you can access here) while at ECGBL I focused on analysing game-play through analysing breakdowns and breakthroughs in terms of what they can tell us about learning and involvement in games (which you can find on ORO here). Whilst at ECGBL, I was asked about the use of AAA games within the case studies - I didn't choose to focus on these but the focus on consoles in the lab setup (see picture below) meant I was much less likely to look at more independent games like Braid or low budget games like Farmville. However, some of the observation sessions did involve more casual games like Big Brain Academy and some less familiar titles like Flower (which was produced by an indie developer) and Endless Ocean 2. Plus, I did try and tap into the different types of games people play by asking them to keep a diary of their experiences outside of the lab, though admittedly there is less detailed information about these in terms of considering breakdowns and breakthroughs. I was also asked about the types of players that took part but pointed out I was more interested in tapping into a range of experience by getting older/younger, male/female, casual players/gamers to take part in order to maximise the differences between cases, than in considering whether someone was an "explorer" or not. I probably should have been more explicit about how I was trying to contribute to a general theory of how involvement and learning relate to each other rather than trying to make statistical generalisations about how involvement and learning might differ with respect to player type/motivation and genre. That said, as I'm writing up, I will need to point out that in terms of the observation sessions at least, any claims I will make will relate to games where players control some sort of avatar and navigate through virtual environments (with Big Brain Academy as the only exception).

Another question I got asked at ECGBL was about how I actually identified breakdowns and breakthroughs with respect to action, understanding and involvement. In terms of action, this is pretty simple as strategies were either effective or not, while understanding was also relatively easy as this was something pretty clear from the post-play interviews (though occasionally breakthroughs would be more gradual). I also pointed out that I collected an awful lot of data so I was primarily focused on major issues, rather than a fine grained analysis of everything. However, involvement was definitely harder to identify, especially in terms of breakthroughs as it wasn't always clear exactly when these occurred and sometimes it may have been a much more gradual process. It seemed a lot easier to identify when flow breaks down for instance, than when it is actually happening. During the analysis, I ended up identifying involvement in affective terms i.e. with respect to evidence of negative emotion (where boredom or frustration would indicate a breakdown) and positive emotion (where enjoyment or satisfaction would indicate a breakthrough). On reflection though, I'm not sure the concept of breakthroughs could be applied as easily to involvement. This is something I discuss further in the thesis, while I also consider the relationship between the different types of breakdowns and breakthroughs. Note: I also collected a range of physiological data during the observation sessions - initially in the hopes it would help us identify different types of breaks but it turned out to be less useful than we hoped as it too difficult to interpret under these circumstances (i.e. because we didn't use a controlled experimental set up).

Finally, I was asked about how my work related to education - but since my focus is on learning that occurs when we are involved in games we play outside of formal educational contexts, I can't actually say an awful lot about that. However, I do think that building a better understanding what happens when we play the games that we do can help us design more involving educational games that are able to support effective learning e.g. by suggesting that it is important to avoid situations where progress can occur without being accompanied by understanding breakthroughs. So I think my work will have implications for education but the a more significant contribution will be to the area of informal learning.

One thing I didn't discuss at ECGBL that came out of the analysis of the diaries I asked players to keep (over a three week period), was that there wasn't really a lot of interaction with the wider gaming community. Sure, participants reported talking to other people about games and using various online resources to keep up to date with news and developments; while occasionally, they consulted guides or walkthroughs, but there really wasn't a whole lot going on in terms of people contributing to these sorts of things. Further, it seemed that the participants who identified as gamers were the ones who reported using resources more frequently than the non-gamers. As this was a small set of case studies, this led to us thinking about investigating this sort of thing on a wider scale through the use of a survey; in the final phase of my PhD.

It seemed important to consider this sort of macro level involvement in more detail, and how it might relate to identity and learning, as it links in to a lot of the stuff James Paul Gee discusses when he talks about games and learning; in particular with respect to semiotic domains and affinity groups/spaces. I'm not going to go into the results in detail (as that's a whole chapter's worth of discussion!) but it does seem that players who identify as hardcore are not only likely to interact with wider range of resources but that they also more likely to say they have learnt from their gaming experiences. This is significant, because while Gee talks about the importance of identity in learning, he discusses this is terms of a player reflecting on their personal identity in relationship to their avatar rather than in terms of how they identify as a gamer. We just got a short view points paper accepted by Learning, Media and Technology on the preliminary analysis of the questionnaire, so I'm quite looking forward to writing up the main analysis after I submit.

I'm not sure how coherant that all is and I still need to link everything so I can sum up how involvement and learning come together on a micro and macro level, but it's been interesting trying to sum up what I've been doing over the last few years! Now just need to get on with finishing off the thesis...

ECGBL 2011 - Athens

After rearranging flights to avoid the air traffic control strike, I made it to Athens last week for the 5th European Conference of Game Based Learning. Not everyone was so lucky but I was pretty impressed with the conference organisers for managing to make sure the conference went ahead and that we all were looked after so well whilst we were there. It was a bit surreal having to avoid the crowds of protesters on the way to the conference venue and trying to make sure we didn't get caught up in any of the running battles with riot police on the way back... We did avoid the worst of it (which, on the first conference day involved ducking into a restaurant for a little while until the trouble outside died down!) with only piles of burnt rubbish around the city to remind of us of what was going on (see below).

Oh, and t-shirts like this :-)

In terms of the conference itself, I am very glad I managed to make it as it was a great opportunity to meet up with people I had met before, like Alex Moseley from Leicester and Jantina Huizenga from Amsterdam and to talk to new people about games and research like Magnus Johansson and Kimmo Oksanen. In terms of the talks, one of the highlights came from Carlo Fabricatore from the University of Worcester, UK and Ximena Lopez from Initium Studios, Italy introducing the area of sustainability games - something I also know my OU friend Stefan Kreitmayer who I went to the conference with was very interested in (since he is working on creating collaborative games that deal with climate change issues). The presenters provided a good rationale for how games are able to support problem solving and systems thinking, and a review of some of the existing games you can find online. The review revealed that there is definitely room for improvement as there aren't a lot of games out there that consider sustainability in terms of environmental, economic and social issues, or that actually allow for emergent complexity. Further, a lot of these games seem to be directed at children so there it would be interesting to see more of them aimed at adults. While it wasn't the focus of the presentation, it also made me wonder how you might be able to evaluate this sort of systems thinking within a formal educational context.

Another talk I enjoyed, came from Matthew Jewell, a game designer from Rosetta Stone which produces language learning tools. He presented a game called Prospero which includes speech recognition software so players can practice their grammar (see below). This was pretty interesting because the game is part of a portal of flash games that are directed at different levels of language learning and it made me think a lot about intrinsic/extrinsic motivation and integrating game mechanics with learning. Prospero is a neat little game that gives players points for pronouncing the correct sentences and utilising a treasure hunting mechanic to allow players to choose a task, which also provides further reward to the player. I think you can also compete with other players if you want. On the surface, this seems to go against a lot of what is discussed in the literature (the importance of intrinsic motivators etc) but in reality I can see how it's a really effective way to get players to practice what is a essentially a dull task (learning correct grammar) in order to become proficient at it. Further, the only way to progress in the game is to pronounce phrases accurately and I can see how variable reward (in the form of finding treasure) can provide help provide the sort of "stickiness" that Matthew was aiming to achieve. And at this level of learning at least, it does seem like it will help make the player more likely to practice. I'm not entirely sure how Rosetta Stone evaluate their products (or if they want to share that info!) while I'd be curious to see some of the other games in the portal and how they work, especially since the Rosetta blog suggests: "once you gain a little more confidence, you can progress to one of our conversational games, like Identi or Chatonium." I guess I'm curious about whether the gaming mechanisms evolve along with the learning complexity. In general, I really enjoyed talking with Matthew about games as he pointed out things like how casual games can be ignored by game-based learning research in favour of more complex solutions and he made me think about how maybe the lines between the extrinsic and intrinsic motivation are more blurred than we sometimes like to think!

My own session on breakdowns and breakthroughs experienced during game-play went ok too, and seemed to generate some interest. I'm actually going to do a seperate blog post on this as I'd like to introduce my research a bit more as I'm realising that it's not something I've been too explicit about on this blog. I've recently taken up some part time work on a project about digital scholarship which has made me think more about openess and what that might mean so I think it will be interesting to be actually put some of my work out there, especially in relation to what I have presented at recent conferences. In general though, the questions I got were interesting and gave me plenty to think about in terms of writing up my thesis.

There were a couple of other interesting talks, such as Lorenzo Romeo's talk on reflective flow, which got me thinking about whether games really do support experiential learning or whether we tend to use the term to describe active learning i.e. learning by doing - can learning in the context of game-play really be seen as a "direct encounter with the phenomenon being studied"? (this relates a little to conversations I've had with Rob Farrow about how embodiment relates to games); and Colin Lemmon giving a really interesting insight into all the problems designers face when trying to develop and get funding for serious game applications. The keynotes also provided food for thought with Nikolaos Avouris providing an useful introduction into the use of games in museum contexts (and how their is really a lot of improvement here in terms of the educational value they actually provide and tapping into more social  and mobile experiences - e.g. contrast Play with the Frieze, where you have to match pairs of pictures of the frieze at the new Acropolis Museum; with Ghost of a Chance at the Smithsonian American Art Museum). Sara de Freitas also gave a talk on the Gamification of Life which provided an interesting overview into the work the Serious Games Insitute is doing and the challenges of doing work in this area. Unfortunately, the conference was a bit pressed for time at this point so it was a bit of whirlwind tour but I would have liked to have heard more about the evaluations carried out. Also, I'm a little confused about her use of the term gamification as it seemed to be used as way of referring to anything involving games (as opposed to the DiGRA gamification session definition of using game-elements in non-game contexts i.e. not whole games) so it would have been interesting to find out why she applied the term to the work that she discussed.

All in all, it was an interesting couple of days and I really benefitted from the chance to talk to other researchers about games and games research. I think I did see a bit more of the questioning I felt wasn't there at ECGBL 2008, though it was a shame there were quite a few people that couldn't make it so - depsite the fantastic efforts of the organisers, it wasn't quite the experience it could have been. I also think that the conference would benefit from tightening up the review process a little (perhaps by adding an additional reviewer?) as there were a couple of things that surprised me a little in the presentations e.g. the use of the somewhat outdated and unpopular term "edutainment" (though as in any international conference, translation might be an issue here). I'm also very glad I got to see Athens after the protests as the lively and historically amazing city that it is so will leave with a photo of the Acropolis from my hotel room :-)

DiGRA 2011: Hilversum (Part 1)

I recently got back from the 5th DiGRA conference - it was held at the Utrecht School of Arts in Hilversum, and has seriously given me a lot to think about! So much so that I think I'm going to have to split the post into two parts.

The conference opened on the Wednesday night at club De Vorstin setting up a playful atmosphere with Chick n' Run races (where you have to rock back and forth on adult-sized play garden chickens against an opponent), B.U.T.T.O.N. (encouraging Brutally Unfair Tactics are Totally OK Now as you physically do all you can to win or stop your opponents from winning - one of many there from the Copehagen Game Collective), and a Do It Yourself DJ installation (with which you can mix audio samples using old school cassette tapes) to name just a few of the attractions on offer. Plus Kid Koala performed the opening "keynote" - gotta love a conference that's opened by a guy in a koala suit!

The next day, Eric Zimmerman's keynote gave the audience plenty of food for thought when he used quotes from Art in Theory and replacing the word art with games to show how there really are quite a few parallels between the two. Further, no one seems to feel the need to justify art or discusses how to make it "educational"! He stressed that games are an important cultural and aesthetic form in their own right and had a go at educators who see games as instruments for transmitting content efficiently (or not, as the case may be). He argued that though developing gaming literacies such as problem solving, systems thinking and community building we should be able to understand and fix the systemic problems that affect the world we live, in what he termed the "ludic century". This wasn't suggesting that we should gamify everything but that we should recognise the value games have in their own right, with game researchers leading the way!

All the presentation sessions took places in cabins outside (see below), where speakers were matched together on topics in order to promote discussion. This worked well when the topics were similar enough but sometimes it felt like a bit of a stretch, and though powerpoint was technically banned, it didn't stop most people from presenting slides in some form or another. Most of the presentations were short though, which did allow for more interaction, especially with plenty of time planned between matches.

 It was clear the presenters of the first session I went to afterwards were still thinking about the opening keynote. Marcelo de Vasconcellos started the match (each presenter was matched on topics for the conference sessions) with a discussion of how games might be used for promoting public health communication in Brazil, while Mary Flanagan and Jonathan Belman introduced their Save the People! Pox boardgame which was developed as part of the Science literacy curriculum in order to teach how immunisation and viruses work. The session also led to an interesting discussion on transfer and how you might test for it. I think there was a concern that this was the sort of thing Eric Zimmerman was attacking but I think that the problem lies with this idea of using games to deliver course content. If we do use art as a parallel, while you might not make art to be educational in the formal sense, there is often a desire to use it as a way to change thinking and broaden perspectives. Education should be more than about whether you can transmit information efficiently, but it doesn't mean you games can't be designed in order to foster understanding and the development of different skills. Going back to the talks though, it was interesting to hear that players of the iPad version of Pox tended to play the game a lot faster - it would seem that a physical board (or mat) and hand held game pieces encourage people to take their time, which seems like something worth investigating.

Speaking of board games, they aren't something I've ever really thought to much about before to be honest. But one of the keynotes was by Reiner Knizia a board game designer who is responsible for selling over 15 million games - I really had no idea how big the industry was! He spoke about the design of games in terms of how games relate to real life, considering intuitive input/outputs, creating an appealing game system, using highly visible hooks and engaging game communities. There was a panel afterwards (below) which also included Andrew Sheerin and James Wallis which discussed board games trends, academic perspectives, and subversion in games. Turns out James was at the Hide & Seek session I went to introducing the special edition of his "not-quite" role-play game The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, but it was great to meet him at the conference and talk about games of all sorts. I also met Andrew after the panel, whose company Terror Bull games developed "War on Terror: The Boardgame". It's not a game I had heard of before but hearing about it, and the fact that it comes with a balaclava, made me think it's something I'm curious to try out. It was interesting to talk to him later on about the potential educational uses of such games, especially in terms of how they might act as catalysts for discussion. 

Other highlights of the first day include Valentina Rao who discussed how we might be able to interpret games as a form of experiential discourse, and considering the design of serious games with specific communicative purposes. During this match on critical thinking Daniel Joseph spoke about ludotopian and ludocapitalist rhetoric surrounding games, in terms of how people see games in terms of "the sublime" e.g. recreating the Starship Enterprise in Minecraft and Jane McGonigal talking about how games can save the world, and in terms gamification and making money from it e.g. Gabe Zickermann. Dan suggested that the truth is probably somewhere in between and we won't really know it until games have become prosaic, commonplace and cheap i.e. until we don't notice them so much! 

I also went to a match on engagement, where I met Gordon Calleja, who was talking about incorporation and the framework on player involvement I have been using within my research, and Henrik Schoenau-Fog who is looking at the continuation desires of players with respect to creating a player engagement framework. The fact that incorporation is not an experience that all games lead too was discussed, since it combines a feeling of intense involvement with a sense of inhabiting a virtual world. So you'd have to control an avatar, most likely in 3D space in order to achieve it. However, I do think Calleja's model and the frames within it can still be applied to most games, and that learning occurs when player's internalise each of the relevant frames. I did like the fact that Henrik distinguished between motivation (the carrot) and engagement (the hook) when he talked about continuation desires, as I don't think it's something that a lot of research considers. I was also intrigued by his introduction of First Person Victim (see below) in terms of thinking about how you can engage people to go through certain experiences which may not be that pleasant, in order to help them consider the plight of others and take part in discussion. 

Earlier in the day, I went along to a live book review on Garry Crawford's book Video Gamers where Frans Mäyrä interviewed him about it on stage (below). Coming from a cultural sociological background, Garry was interested in how games fit into wider cultures and gamers lives. It's a book about players rather than games that aims to provide a fresh perspective to the area through including ideas about Bourdieu's notion of habitus, Goffman's frame analysis and through questioning concepts such as the magic circle. It was an interesting session and I think I'm going to have to get hold of the book to find out more. Specifically, I'd like to find out whether he makes any distinction between different types of gamers and players (or are just all people who play games gamers) and while I appreciate he was focusing on people rather than games, I'd like to know if there was a consideration of how different games might relate to different gaming cultures and practices. 

Ok, I think that's enough for now - more later! 

GameCity 5 and Jonathan Blow's commentary on Braid

So like I said I was in Nottingham last week for a couple of things, as well as the ITAG conference there was the GameCity 5. I went along last year too, so had a better idea what to expect this time. The festival had the usual marquee in Market Square though one half of the arena was devoted to EA and the Nottingham Primary Care Trust who partnered up to "bring you the Best Health club in the WORLD" (according to the GameCity website anyway). That was a bit weird to be honest - games promoting fitness... still not sure I've got my head around all that though that doesn't mean I think it's a bad thing, just different. The other side was much closer to home though, as it was full of couches and TVs so people could comfortably try out different games:

Like the new Lego Universe - a massively multiplayer experience that has just been launched. It looked cute and funny, though I got the impression it's being aimed at younger players.

And Confetti Carnival, developed by Spiky Snail which was a lot of fun. The designers were kind enough to answer my questions about the platform and release date - apparently while they would like it to be multi-platform, that really depends on what deal they get, and it should be ready for release by the second half of 2011. 

The main highlight of the festival for me though was hearing Jonathan Blow do a sort of directors commentary on Braid:

It was seriously interesting, not just because it made me want to give Braid another go but because of what he said about game design. He first demoed the original prototype which he threw together in about 8 days to show his friends. The final game took about three years and looks a lot better, but it was quite interesting to see a lot of the main concepts (including the time reversal mechanic) in what was essentially a retro Marioesque platformer with crude graphics. Jonathan pretty much played through most of the game, explaining each world, though it was clear he wasn't going to say very much about the story. I think in some ways what the story means came across as something he didn't know how to verbalise, rather than something he was just refusing to talk about.  And like most things, you can't control how people respond to what you've created.

But anyway, what really struck me about his talk was what he said about designing the puzzles and wanting to make them intrinsically motivating (a phrase he actually used, though he did admit only coming across it after the game was finished). The idea was to try and create an intriguing universe of simple rules that players could figure out one step and a time. He would often try and achieve this by giving the player the clues they needed within the single screen they were occupying. He even talked about trying to encourage "incubation" (though that's not what he called it - it's another psychological mechanism, which occurs when you get stuck on a problem and only seem to be able to solve it by leaving it alone for a while and doing something else). So he would try and get players to store a symbolic representation of the salient puzzle pieces, by keeping the levels as simple as possible. He also talked about wanting the game to be non-linear, I think in the sense that you were meant to come back to different puzzles, but after a play-test he ended up changing it so people could play it all the way through if they wanted (though he didn't seem sure that was the best decision). During the Q&A session, he also mentioned Skinner in the sense that variable rewards are always a better design mechanic than a consistent one. This linked to the pattern-breaking concept he'd mentioned too - while he made a lot about introducing the rules to the player of each world in a scaffolded way, he also pointed out that it was good to break those rules as it gives the game greater depth. As the game progresses, there are even more pattern breaking incidents, signaling to the player that the end is drawing near.

All of what I've just said is about the puzzle solving elements of the game. Braid also has a narrative which is ostensibly about a boy called Tim who wants to find the Princess, but it seems to really be about being about relationships and making mistakes and whether you can ever take those back. Again, this is is a reference there to the early Mario platformers, except with Braid you actually start to consider why the hero is looking for the Princess in the first place. There is a lot of text in the game, but Jonathan made a choice to make it irrelevant to the game-play since you can go through the whole thing without paying attention to any of it. I'd argue that doing so means you would lose out on a richer game-play experience but I think the decision was based on an awareness that not all game-players like sitting through lots of text. I think the reason I enjoyed his talk so much was that he made me appreciate all the time, energy and love that was put into this game. I'm not a designer, and I've never really tried to make my own game, but hearing him made me think that this is what people who want to design educational games should listen too. There is a very particular kind of learning going on here - mostly in the form of cognitive problem solving - and I'm not sure how well that maps on to different curricula objectives but there is no way you could deny that players aren't learning as they progress through the game. Even Jonathan admitted that he found out new ways to solve certain puzzles, after he had finished it! Maybe the key is to think about how to create a universe  who's rules you want the student to learn, rather than to consider how to lots of educational content into a game? The thing is, I also think you could get a lot of out studying how something like Braid was put together, not so much in terms of the coding underneath but mainly in terms of the ideas behind it and how they are reflected in the game-play mechanisms and design rhetoric. I think I'm starting to see a place for the study of games alongside the study of films or books - something that involves a lot more than chocolate covered broccoli and a bit more imagination than trying to simulate real world activity as closely as you possibly can. Something which Michael Abbott, is trying to do at Wabash College with Portal. Which reminds me, Portal actually has a developer's commentary you can access after you finish the game - it might be quite useful to see more of this sort of thing.

I'll admit though, when I first tried Braid, I didn't quite get the time mechanic and while I had been meaning to get back to it, it wasn't until after hearing Jonathan speak and seeing the game in action that I decided to give it another go. And if I'm really honest, though I did complete it, I did resort to using YouTube walkthroughs. As with playing Portal, sometimes it was more about confirming I had the right solution - and needing to know whether I should keep trying what I was doing until I got it right - than having absolutely no idea what to do. I had also real trouble with the shadow mechanic so needed to see it action. I know I get impatient sometimes, but I really do think it's better that I get a little help than get put off the game entirely and stop playing. So I still  got to enjoy exploring and learning about the Braid universe, while figuring out (most of) the puzzles on my own. I'm not saying the game was perfect but it did a lot more right for me than it did wrong, though I know there are other opinions out there. Also, I have to admit that hearing Jonathan talk made me go back to it and appreciate the game differently - if I hadn't, I wonder whether I would have bothered?

Eurogamer Expo 2010

I spent yesterday afternoon at the Eurogamer Expo at Earl's Court in London. Here's a photo of me trying out Fallout: New Vegas.

As I just picked up from where someone else left off, I had no idea what I was doing so ended up shooting randomly at some people I think I was probably supposed to help. I didn't play for long as the people weren't very happy with me shooting at them and I died pretty soon after, so I'm not sure what to say about it. It felt a lot like the previous Fallout I guess, though the colours were less grey and more orange this time. Hmm, I'm thinking whatever happens after this PhD, I'm probably not going to get paid for writing game reviews... I know these events are supposed to give you a chance to try new releases, but I'm not sure how comfortable I feel playing in public. It seems a little too close to performing, even though I'm pretty sure no one is actually judging how well I'm doing. Plus, I think when it comes to new games, I prefer to try them out in my own time and space so I have a chance to get a feel for them - without the possibility of a queue forming. Though I was impressed with these guys trying out Dance Central on Kinnect.

So I saw Kinnect and the Playstation Move but didn't see any games for them that made me think I must try them. A lot of them seem to be party games - Wii Sports type spin-offs - which is fine, but I'm not sure that's going to convince me to shell out for either of them (especially when I already have a Wii). I'm sure there was an Xbox game that only literally involved you jumping, again, and again... Apparently, Heavy Rain has been modified so you can play it with the Move now, but I didn't have much luck finding it. I would have gone back after attending the last developer session to check again but the ensuing tube strike meant I wanted to leave a little earlier than I had originally planned.

If I'm really honest, a lot of the games at the exhibition came across as looking quite similar. Most of them involved running around with a weapon attacking monsters/aliens/humans in a post-apocalyptic/alien/war setting. Little Big Planet 2 was there, and looks as cute as the first, though apparently the level editors are easier to use. I also saw Rock Band 3 , which now has a keyboard accessory (even more plastic toys for my living room!). Nintendo was there too, but once I realised they weren't showing off a 3DS I moved on. Speaking of 3D, I did notice a lot of the games were being played with 3D glasses, and I think there were some 3D TVs. I probably would have been more impressed though, if the glasses NVidia gave out to watch their 3D demo had actually worked... I guess I'm just not convinced the technology is there yet, even if I could afford it! There was also an indie arcade, which perhaps I should have spent a bit more time at if I was looking for something different, but generally, I really can't say much really stood out. Maybe that says more about my reluctance to try lots of things though, than about what was on offer.

What I really did enjoy though was the developer sessions. First, I got to see Mike Simpson from Creative Assembly talk about Shogun 2 . I never played the original Total War game but what I saw and heard made me want to try out the second one. I think what I liked about it was how he talked about them using history - and not like it was a problem - in terms of it being the inspiration for the game and wanted to keep as close to it as possible. Someone asked whether the team had trouble deciding between whether to make it historical or fun, but his answer suggested that was actually quite a rare occurrence, with a lot of the fun stemming from the history itself. He also talked a lot about game strategy, perhaps with out meaning too, but it was pretty interesting to hear him talk during the demo about things like the best way to defeat archers (use a cavalry unit to sneak up behind them). I guess he (and experienced players) would take that sort of knowledge for granted but the rest of us have to pick it up as we play. It looks very pretty too, with a lot of work going into the details, like the Japanese trees. Apparently, it's been 10 years in the making (if you count the time if took to produce the original) - a lot of patience has gone into this game, and it shows. 

The other session I went to was held by Tim Willits (id Software) about RAGE there latest shooter. For those of you who don't know (and to be honest, I didn't until my friend Ashley told me at the expo), Tim Willits was involved in Doom and Quake, and there were a lot of people in the audience who were very pleased to be able to see him. He spoke a bit about Id tech 5 - the companies latest game engine - which allows for much more graphical detail. There was someone else there who played through sections of the game, but you could see that Tim was keen to point out how the engine allowed them to give different areas of the game, and enemies, a unique feel. He made a point about player choice too - through the addition of engineering items you can create your own weapons, while there are different sub-missions you can take on that allow you to indulge in vehicular combat, for instance, if you want to. It looks great but it was kind of funny to sit through the demo though. I mean, it's not really the sort of game I go for and I couldn't help but think that the story and mechanics were feeling strangely familiar - post-apocalyptic world, mutants, doing side-missions etc - and for all the talk about choice, the choices are mostly about how you decide to kill the bad guys . It's not like I can choose to set up a business and make money or find a cure for the mutants or something. But the majority of the audience was there to see an extremely polished shooter with awesome graphics, and I'm positive that is what they will get when it comes out next year.

I feel like I'm being a bit negative about shooters. What's wrong with wanting to indulge in a bit of carnage? It's not fair really, and probably the reason I don't like them so much is I'm not very good at them (and can't be bothered to get good). And obviously, there's a serious market for these sorts of games but I guess I'm just personally, not that interested. I did notice though that both Mike Simpson and Tim Willets talked about expansion packs, downloadable content and modding communities. Before the games are even out, they are figuring out ways to make them last longer (and presumably ways in which to make more money out of them - but when games like this have taken years to develop, who can blame them?). There must be a way serious games could do the same? Plus, both studios have a history of supporting modding, so it was nice to see that they were keen to continue that. It made me think a little about gaming audiences, and how I don't really know anyone who creates mods. A friend of mine from uni used too, but that's about it. I wonder how many people out there do and what they think about games like Little Big Planet which attempt to make that sort of thing easier for players? Though I imagine, building a mod for Quake is very different to creating a level for LBP...

All in all, I enjoyed the expo. I'll have to see whether I'll go next year or not, but for now, here is a rather blurry photo of someone playing a driving game on Kinnect. I think it sums up well why I don't want to play a driving game on Kinnect.