Comments on: Game Spaces Public and Private

By: M R

M R — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:28:03 +0000

Hi!
I enjoyed reading it. I am also working on the production of space in SL. I would like to read your thesis. I wonder if it is available online. Thanks

M Rahman

By: Bobby

Bobby — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 03:40:44 +0000

@Ben

I did not take a look at Assassin’s Creed, as I focused only on New York City games. I’ll put it on the list to consider if I get to turn this thing into a book, though.

As for sandbox games, I actually chose to put the concept of sandbox aside. Nitsche has a good quote in his book which reads “Words like sandbox do not refer to structures but rather their use (Nitsche 171).” I’m focusing on a specific use, which is the player’s imaging of space through the guided activity of mission and level structure. Sandbox possibilities aren’t completely unrelated, of course, and are definitely a way that people get to know the space, but I chose to focus elsewhere. Maybe I’ll throw a little something into the paper about that to cover my ass.

By: Ben

Ben — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 03:27:55 +0000

Like the comparison of public and private spaces. Did you cover Assassin’s Creed in your thesis? Simon made me think of it when he mentioned that GTA cops have a hard time catching the player on foot. In AC the guards that you encounter are almost as athletic as you are, they can climb and run as fast as the player.

However, I think AC is framed differently. With GTA the player is in a modern day city, which brings our cultural norms with it. In AC you are in medieval Jerusalem so fading into crowds, killing people and generally getting away with horrible acts can be masked by our romanticized notions of a lawless or ruthless medieval time. In this way I would compare AC to something like Tony Hawk’s Underground more so than GTA since the player in AC is an outsider entering into public city spaces in order to use them to complete their job.

Did you go into the trend of sandbox type game spaces in your thesis? It’s interesting to see how games like Underground, AC and GTA all have similar open formats but can be seen as very different representations of space.

By: Simon

Simon — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 22:18:53 +0000

Good little snacky bite of the thesis. When’s the defense? What you write about GTA 4 pretty much echoes what I wrote about the spatial rhythm of L4D – wide open spaces fucking suck, because all of a sudden you’re covering 360 degrees of zombies instead of two directions. In GTA 4 it’s especially annoying, because one shotgun blast from a cop pretty much sets you back 30 minutes of play time. When we talked about GTA in Ian’s class, I shared my secret of -always- running on foot to get away from cops. They never follow you very well down alleyways, and then can’t jump over walls and fences like you can – definitely a Certeau-ian disruption of the control of the city.