Listing entries tagged with novel


class, cheating and gaming Post date  12.09.2005, 3:20 PM

The New York Times reports that a company in China is hiring people to play Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG), like World of Warcraft or EverQuest. Employees develop avatars (or characters) and earn resources. Then, the company sells these efforts to affluent online gamers who do not have the time or inclination to play the early stages of the games themselves.

Finding hacks or ways to get around the intended game play is nothing new. I will confess that I have used cheat codes and hacks in playing video games. One of the first ones I’ve ever used, was in Super Mario Brothers on the original Nintendo Entertainment System. The Multiple 1-Ups: World 3-1 was a big favorite.

The article also briefly mentions something that I've been fascinated by: selling the results of your game play on auctions site, such as ebay. These services have turned game play into commodities, and we can actually determine valuations and costs of game play.

It made me to think about the character Hiro Protagonist in Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash, a pizza delivery guy in the real world and lethal warrior in the "Metaverse." He was an exception to the norm and socio-economic status usually carried over into the virtual reality because more realistic avatars were expensive. To actually see that happen in the game spaces of MMOGs by the purchasing of advanced players is quite amazing.

Why do I find that these gamers are cheating? In the era of non-linear information, I select and read only the parts of a text I deem to be relevant. I’ve skipped over parts of movies and watched another part again and again. Isn’t this the same thing? The troubling aspect of this phenomenon is that it is bringing class differentiation into game space. Although gaming itself is a leisure activity, the idea that you can spend your way into succeeding at a MMOG, removes my perceived innocence of that game space.

Posted by ray cha at 03:20 PM | Comments (1)
tags: Games , MMOG , Massively , Multiplayer , Neil , Online , Snowcrash , Stephenson , Warcraft , World , cheat , everquest , gaming , narrative , novel , of

creative versioning project Post date  10.03.2005, 11:59 AM

"I don't have a single early draft of any novel or story. I just 'saved' over the originals until I reached the final version. All there is is the books themselves." - Zadie Smith

This is a call (re-published from the Electronic Literature Organization) for writers to participate in a creative versioning project, hopefully to begin this winter:

Matthew Kirschenbaum is looking for poets and fiction writers willing to participate in a project to archive versions of texts in progress. An electronic document repository (known as a Concurrent Versions System, or CVS) will be used to track revisions and changes to original fiction and poetry contributed by participating writers who will work by checking their drafts in and out of the repository system. The goal is to provide access to a work at each and every state of its composition and conceptual evolution ­- thereby capturing the text as a living, dynamic object-in-the-making rather than a finished end-product. A reader will be able to watch the composition process unfold as though s/he were looking over the writer’s shoulder.

For guidelines and contact info, visit ELO.

Posted by ben vershbow at 11:59 AM | Comments (2)
tags: CVS , ELO , book , books , concurrent_versioning_system , digital , digital_literature , ebook , editing , eliterature , lit , literature , novel , project , revision , revision_history , story , versioning , writing

"bringing karaoke to literature" Post date  09.15.2005, 3:47 PM

china mini novel.jpg

Shanghai Daily reports on a Chinese "mini novel" contest where writers submit bite-sized narratives (350 words or less) by text message.

Commenting on the contest, well-known writer Yu Hua says: "To hold the competition is like bringing 'karaoke' to literature. Before the invention of karaoke, there were only few people who could or would sing in public. Thanks to karaoke, anyone and everyone can sing in public whenever they feel like it. Now, thanks to the mobile phone, the same is true with writing.

The karaoke analogy is apt, and a bit scary.

(via textually)

Posted by ben vershbow at 03:47 PM | Comments (0)
tags: Microlit , book , books , cellphone , china , chinese , karaoke , lit , literature , mini , mobile , mobilelit , novel , phone , writing