Here are my thoughts and comments related to me my research on videogames and culture.
Bryan-Mitchell Young aka jccalhoun


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Adventures in Consumerism...

So (to start yet another entry with "so") I went out today with the intent of buying GTA Double pack for the X-Box. Why does buying a console game have to be so hard? First I went to the first store and of course there was no one in the electronics section to unlock the case. So I walked across the parking lot to the mall. It was like the freaking day after Thanksgiving. I went to the two game stores there and for whatever reason they both had GTA behind the counter. I go into your store to give you me my money. I don't go into your store to talk to you. Even if the store was dead I would dislike having to ask for a game like it was a dirty magazine, let alone when there is a line of people with merchandice already in their hands. So I am supposed to stand in line empty-handed to ask for the honor of being able to get a game? I don't think so. So I finally went to K-Mart. I love K-Mart, no matter how busy other stores are K-Mart isn't. I should have known that and jsut went there first. They actually had someone in their electronics department --they actually had TWO people. I still had to ask for the permission of giving them their money though. I realize kids steal games and all, but where does preventing theft end and making your customers feel welcome begin?

I finally buy the game -- and no Jack Thompson they did not card me! I might have been a 6ft 4 graying 10 year old! -- and anyway while it comes with GTA III and Vice City it comes in two seperate boxes. Why does it come in two seperate boxes? Two disk DVDs manage to come in one box. The Seaga GT/Jet Set Radio pack that came with my xbox even came on the same disk. While it is certainly posible that the GTA games are too big to put both on one disk, it still doesn't answer my question of why they need two boxes, especially when each box is marked "NOT FOR INDIVIDUAL RESALE."

So I open up the plastic on the box and guess what? Each individual box within the larger box is also shrinkwraped. What the hell is that? I get the shrinkwrap off of GTA III and then find that it also has one of those damn stickers over the edge. I have to got through 3 layers of plastic to get to the game? 3??? Is this some sort of obscure attempt at child proof packaging?

I thought capitalism was about making it easy for me to buy things?

Anyway, I finally got to play GTA and I'm enjoying it. The X-Box version is supposed to be basically the same as the other versions but with better graphics. One of the big deals is that they upgraded the hands in GTA III so that the characters actually have fingers and not just paws. However, and remember I've only played like an hour of it, I did notice that a black chaaracter that helps you in the very beginning still has paws. Hmmmm...
posted by Bryan-Mitchell at 9:20 PM

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First-Person Shooters Aren't Like Movies and That is a Good Thing --A paper about why Shooters aren't like films and how comparisons to them do a disservice to what Shooters are.

That paper was presented at the 2002 PCA under the title "More Than Moving Pictures: Developing New Criteria For Designing and Critiquing Computer Games. The presentation version can be found here. The handout I distributed can be found here.

Identification in First-Person Shooters

Flow in Multi-player FPS gaming (.rtf file)

my reviews

here are a couple of reviews I wrote for joystick101.org

Mark J. P. Wolf's The Medium of the Video Game.
Arthur Asa Bergers Video Games: A Popular Culture Phenomenon.