Eric Zimmerman of Gamelab at 92Y Tribeca
Before going on a wonderful Thanksgiving adventure in Las Vegas I attended a great lecture by Eric Zimmerman of Gamelab at the 92Y Tribeca space. Eric is a funny guy; he was really entertaining to listen to. I haven’t read his book, but I am a fan of the co-author Katie Salen’s work, particularly Karaoke Ice, so now I’m definitely going to buy it (unless of course he wants to send a poor librarian a free copy…hint..)
A nice concise biography from 92Y:
“Eric Zimmerman has been working in the game industry for fifteen years. He is the co-founder and Chief Design Officer of Gamelab ( www.gamelab.com ), an independent game development company based in New York City. Gamelab creates and self-publishes innovative singleplayer and multiplayer games that are distributed online, on mobile phones, and through retail, including the hit downloadable games Diner Dash, Miss Management, and Jojo’s Fashion Show. Eric’s company received the first major game-related grant from the MacArthur Foundation to create Gamestar Mechanic, an online world that lets kids create games. Pre-Gamelab titles include SiSSYFiGHT 2000 and the PC title Gearheads. Eric has taught courses at MIT, New York University, and Parsons School of Design. He has lectured and published extensively about game design and is the co-author with Katie Salen of Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals (MIT Press, 2004), and The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology (MIT Press, 2006), as well as the co-editor of RE:PLAY (Peter Lang Press, 2004).”
Eric spoke to the audience about media literacy and all the other emerging literacies associated with the internet, gaming, and digital culture. A lot of it is stuff that I ramble on about regularly, about how public libraries need to be offering programming that helps patrons build new skillsets that are absolutely essential to being a productive member of contemporary society. I also know that it is the kind of thing ‘gaming in libraries’ champions like the Shifted Librarian talk about regularly. So I’ll be honest: I’m not sure I heard anything really new, instead it was one of those situations where every time Eric said something I wanted to stand up and say “Yeah! You said it bud!” or “Preach on!”. What really made me happy was the fact that he showed us the Gamestar Mechanic beta, and no longer was all of this talktalktalk just theory. I was actually sitting there looking at a fun, inventive, remarkably simple interface for players to create rules and build their own games. Here’s a screenshot:
I hope public libraries will embrace Gamestar Mechanic. If beta testing and whatnot isn’t already going on with groups at public libraries, it should be. This is EXACTLY the kind of tool we need: no longer will librarians have to explain away why it is important to have kids playing Grand Theft Auto in library basements. This is a tool librarians can flaunt in front of critics.
The one thing that remains unsettled in my mind is Eric’s discussion of ‘cinema envy’ in games. I think what he was suggesting is that what makes a game exciting for a player is actually how cleverly the rules and regulations are designed, and that too many poorly designed games overcompensate with dramatic, cinematic effects. I believe was saying that a really good game doesn’t need that much glamour. This may be true; I certainly keep coming back to the arcade classics from the 80s. I didn’t think much of the ‘cinema envy’ statement at the time, but upon reflection I think this is a very complicated question. I went to Las Vegas for Thanksgiving week right after Eric’s lecture. I didn’t win. I know the thing that attracts most people to gambling games is exactly what Eric was speaking of- the rules, and the desire to negotiate your way through all of those rules as a big winner. For me, and I don’t think I’m too much of a freak, the thing that kept me going back into the casino was the spectacle of it all rather than the rules and the desire to win. The lights, the sounds, the lions in cages: they were all so seductive, so hypnotic, so beautiful. Isn’t this the same as ‘cinema envy’? I guess this gets at an age-old question: when do aesthetic choices cease to support content and become gratuitous seduction? What is the perfect balance for effective communication, or, in the case of gaming, how do you maximize the enjoyableness of play?
Enjoyableness = not a word. Sorry. You know what I mean.
