GAMES AND APPARENT AUTONOMIES – Elizabeth Losh

Moral Choices
How are games different from movies? 
Game Liberation by Jesper Juul http://www.jesperjuul.net/gameliberation/
First-person POV not dysfunctional in FPS and role of weapon in frame (Alex Galloway)
Choice and the replay factor in games
Tragic zero-sum dilemmas like BioShock and Shadow of the Colossus
Decision Trees – “interactivity”/”participation” vs. constraints

NPCs vs Avatars  (non-player characters vs. representations of real human subjects)
AI that seems autonomous – the Turing test, ELIZA, Façade, etc.
Cantina Crawls in Star Wars Galaxies http://onlineworlds.tumblr.com/ (#8-10) and goodbye films
When real players are involved, how are emergent rules negotiated?  Just war theory
Ganking and Gold Farming in World of Warcraft: http://onlineworlds.tumblr.com/ (#7 & #3)

The Call to Participate
Violence and the mimesis / catharsis debate:
Torture Game 2 http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/439144
The Grand Theft Auto franchise and Super Columbine Massacre RPG
A different kind of resistance: http://www.machinima.com/film/view&id=561
Nonparticipation as a choice: September 12: http://www.newsgaming.com/games/index12.htm
Tracy Fullerton and Bill Viola’s game about religious enlightenment: http://www.thenightjourney.com/

Games and Learning
What is the relationship between authority and subversion for pedagogy?
James Paul Gee and “situated learning”
Defying authority and playing as the bad guy. 
Lara Croft in Tomb Raider and Shadow the Hedgehog in Sonic Adventure

Games and Cheating  
Mia Consalvo’s research showing all players cheat
The question of transgression: Consalvo and Gee

The Serious Games Movement and the Culture Industry
Henry Jenkins as a spokesperson for games for training and consciousness-raising
Critiques of the serious games movement: as games, as education, as ideological constructs
Do we always learn the rules by playing? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqk1-q8gXcY
Games and political critique: Two games critical of fast food
http://www.kentuckyfriedcruelty.com/superchicksisters/index.asp vs. http://www.mcvideogame.com/
The Redistricting Game http://www.redistrictinggame.org/

Games and Procedural Rhetoric
How does ideology function? 
Ian Bogost and the examples of Tenure and games about airport security
The Rhetoric of Failure in Darfur is Dying http://www.darfurisdying.com/
Unwinnable games: McKenzie Wark and “God’s suicide” in SimEarth

Games and Real-World Rules
What if games aren’t just objects of study but simulations of how rules structure unit operations?
The games of Jason Rohrer http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/jason-rohrer/
What do cheek kissing, hospital entrances, and sexual harassment tutorials share? (Handouts)
Alternate Reality Games and Jane McGonigal
Making politeness into a game: Cruel 2B Kind http://www.cruelgame.com/