- Skyped Michael Dwyer, Senior Game Designer/Programmer at Large Animal Games and discussed thesis feasibility/direction. Has signed on board to be committee.
- Searching for reliable anthropometric numbers to use. ANSUR, CDC, and NSRDEC numbers have not been useful for finding civilian proportions. Only have useful military numbers for now.
- Reworking thesis proposal based on feedback from committee
- Researched UI of Character Creation Tools in popular games such as WoW 5.0, Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn, and Guild Wars 2
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Week Five 10/21 Reading Notes
Chapter 3 Experiment
Not just facts but relevant facts
- Which facts are relevant and which are not relevant to a science will be relative to the current state of development of that science.
- Many kinds of processes are at work in the world around us, and they are all superimposed on, and interact with each other in complicated ways.
- It is not possible to arrive at an understanding of these various processes by careful observation of events as they typically and naturally occur, it is necessary to do experiments
The production and updating of experimental results
Not just facts but relevant facts
- Which facts are relevant and which are not relevant to a science will be relative to the current state of development of that science.
- Many kinds of processes are at work in the world around us, and they are all superimposed on, and interact with each other in complicated ways.
- It is not possible to arrive at an understanding of these various processes by careful observation of events as they typically and naturally occur, it is necessary to do experiments
The production and updating of experimental results
- If experimental results constitute the facts on which science is based, then they are certainly not straightforwardly given via the senses
- Requires considerable know-how and practical trial and error as well as exploitation of the available technology
- Acceptability of experimental results is theory-dependent, and judgments in this respect are subject to changes as our scientific understanding develops
Experiment as an adequate basis for science
- however informed by theory an experiment is, there is a strong sense in which the results of an experiment are determined by the world and not by theories.
- We cannot make the outcomes conform to our theories.
Chapter 4 Deriving theories from the facts: induction
- Logical deduction alone cannot establish the truth of factual statements of the kind figuring in our examples. All that logic can offer in this connection is that if the premises are true and the argument is valid, then the conclusion must be true.
- Inductive arguments are general conclusions derived from a finite number of specific facts, distinct from logical, deductive arguments
- If inductive inference is to be justified the following conditions must be satisfied
1. The number of observations forming the basis of a generalization must be large
2. The observations must be repeated under a wide variety of conditions
3. No accepted observation statement should conflict with the derived law
Principle of Induction - If a large number of A's have been observed under a wide variety of conditions, and if all those A's without exception possess the property B, then all A's have the property B.
Week Five 10/21 Meeting
Met with Dr. Andre Carrington:
Leads from the meeting:
- Parallel studies done on dolls, consumer choice, and what they choose to do with them afterwards (study of "play"). Sales figures of dolls with different proportions.
- What does a player with xyz proportions choose a doll of xyz proportions tell us?
- How out of sync are players' choices both with reality and themselves?
- Difference between representation versus consuming presented media (Media Effects)
- How do people identify with avatars based on real life situations? (Disabilities, impairments, physical cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental)
- Implications of next gen consoles/games providing platform for instant sharing of gameplay. Models created by people are much more visible even in single player games.
- Misrepresentation (Documentary) media is the most persuasive force shaping cultural norms, the collective message that our young women and men overwhelmingly receive is that a woman’s value and power lie in her youth, beauty, and sexuality, and not in her capacity as a leader. Stories from teenage girls and interviews with politicians, journalists, entertainers, activists and academics, like Condoleezza Rice, Nancy Pelosi, Katie Couric, Rachel Maddow, Margaret Cho, Rosario Dawson and Gloria Steinem
- How to do things with Video Games (Ian Bogust) Potentials of video games beyond the two commonly taken paths of debate about video games: accusations of debasement through violence and isolation or defensive paeans to their potential as serious cultural works
- Unbearable Weight: : Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body
(Susan Bordo) ideas of body and what it means, range of issues connected to the body—weight and weight loss, exercise, media images, movies, advertising, anorexia and bulimia
- Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet (Lisa Nakamura) others have argued online identities as "liberation" from our bodies and their "restrictive" attributes like race, gender, and age. But Nakamura argues that the Internet is a place where race matters and that the harder race is pushed off-line, the greater the consequences in real life for people of color.
Stanford's study on The Proteus effect and experiences of self-objectification via avatars
http://vhil.stanford.edu/pubs/2013/fox-chb-sexualized-virtual-selves.pdf
Meeting with Stefan:
- Incorporate tools into existing games and provide game designers with feedback about player choice
- Second Life, and other games with character creation, find out what kind of data they collect
Indirect Measures - how often do players stay in the character creation screen? Questionnaires are harder due to truthfulness. (How many choose given templates, how many goes for unrealistic, and what if you include tool tips that identify realism?)
Leads from the meeting:
- Parallel studies done on dolls, consumer choice, and what they choose to do with them afterwards (study of "play"). Sales figures of dolls with different proportions.
- What does a player with xyz proportions choose a doll of xyz proportions tell us?
- How out of sync are players' choices both with reality and themselves?
- Difference between representation versus consuming presented media (Media Effects)
- How do people identify with avatars based on real life situations? (Disabilities, impairments, physical cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental)
- Implications of next gen consoles/games providing platform for instant sharing of gameplay. Models created by people are much more visible even in single player games.
- Misrepresentation (Documentary) media is the most persuasive force shaping cultural norms, the collective message that our young women and men overwhelmingly receive is that a woman’s value and power lie in her youth, beauty, and sexuality, and not in her capacity as a leader. Stories from teenage girls and interviews with politicians, journalists, entertainers, activists and academics, like Condoleezza Rice, Nancy Pelosi, Katie Couric, Rachel Maddow, Margaret Cho, Rosario Dawson and Gloria Steinem
- How to do things with Video Games (Ian Bogust) Potentials of video games beyond the two commonly taken paths of debate about video games: accusations of debasement through violence and isolation or defensive paeans to their potential as serious cultural works
- Unbearable Weight: : Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body
(Susan Bordo) ideas of body and what it means, range of issues connected to the body—weight and weight loss, exercise, media images, movies, advertising, anorexia and bulimia
- Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet (Lisa Nakamura) others have argued online identities as "liberation" from our bodies and their "restrictive" attributes like race, gender, and age. But Nakamura argues that the Internet is a place where race matters and that the harder race is pushed off-line, the greater the consequences in real life for people of color.
Stanford's study on The Proteus effect and experiences of self-objectification via avatars
http://vhil.stanford.edu/pubs/2013/fox-chb-sexualized-virtual-selves.pdf
Meeting with Stefan:
- Incorporate tools into existing games and provide game designers with feedback about player choice
- Second Life, and other games with character creation, find out what kind of data they collect
Indirect Measures - how often do players stay in the character creation screen? Questionnaires are harder due to truthfulness. (How many choose given templates, how many goes for unrealistic, and what if you include tool tips that identify realism?)
Monday, October 21, 2013
Week Five 10/21 Thesis Proposal Forever
Updated Thesis Topic/Question/Significance:
1. Topic: I am studying female character model design in video games.
2. Question: because I want to find out how to instrument in-game character creation tools in order to assess the impact of female character models on the enjoyment and self-concept of the players.
3. Significance: in order to help my reader understand that game designers and character design artists can benefit from a character creation tool that takes more realistic female body proportions into account.
1. Topic: I am studying female character model design in video games.
2. Question: because I want to find out how to instrument in-game character creation tools in order to assess the impact of female character models on the enjoyment and self-concept of the players.
3. Significance: in order to help my reader understand that game designers and character design artists can benefit from a character creation tool that takes more realistic female body proportions into account.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Week Four 10/14
Research Question progress:
- Met with Professor Bitzer
Leads from the meeting:
Very concerned about similar backlashes/responses as Anita Sarkeesian's efforts. Recommends contacting Anita directly regarding project. Professor Bitzer has worked with Indian feminist efforts and student study abroad programs. She has also worked with the afro/latina culture at University of Delaware creating podcasts held in Second Life. Specifically focuses on racism, how they felt empowered, and the very limited representation of women of color.
Tailhook Scandal 1991: a series of incidents where more than 100 U.S. Navy and United States Marine Corps aviation officers were alleged to have sexually assaulted at least 83 women and 7 men, or otherwise engaged in "improper and indecent" conduct at the Las Vegas Hilton in Las Vegas, Nevada. Military critics claimed that the scandal highlighted a hostile attitude in US military culture towards women in the areas of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and equal treatment of women in career advancement and opportunity.
Cynthia Enloe's Gender’ is not enough: the need for feminist consciousness discusses the invisibility of women in military measures and the political disregard for the needs and ideas of women and girls are highlighted and given proper context.
Sharon Collins' teaching in Second Life: How E-learning With Second Life, an Online Virtual World Technology System, Affects Teaching and Learning
- Met with Professor Nora Madison (Gender Studies and New Media)
Leads from meeting:
- Find articles about game designers predominantly producing games that are targeted towards heterosexual males, resulting in objectified female video game characters.
- Find further literature on female gamer experience with unrealistic characters
- T.L Taylor from MIT has written Play Between Worlds: She looks at the women who play Everquest and finds they don't fit the narrow stereotype of women gamers, which may cast into doubt our standardized and preconceived ideas of femininity. And she explores the questions of who owns game space—what happens when emergent player culture confronts the major corporation behind the game. She played a female gnome necromancer because the other female avatars were all hypersexualized to the point where she didn't feel like she identified with any of them.
- Bailey C. Virtual Skin: Articulating Race in Cyberspace (1996)
- Gayle Rubin: several articles on gaming
- Justine Cassell & Henry Jenkins: From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games (2000)
- Norah Madison: "Are you a ‘real’ female? Gender and authenticity in Asheron’s Call.”
- Looking further at objectivity when it comes to video game character proportions. There may not be objectivity at all.
Meeting with Dr. Andre Carrington (English Department focusing on gender) Wednesday 10/16 at 3pm.
Final Fantasies - Virtual women's bodies: http://fty.sagepub.com/content/4/1/51.full.pdf+html
Mega-fiers link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BeKrGRy3jo
Unity Multipurpose Avatar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0cyN7k1zww
- Met with Professor Bitzer
Leads from the meeting:
Very concerned about similar backlashes/responses as Anita Sarkeesian's efforts. Recommends contacting Anita directly regarding project. Professor Bitzer has worked with Indian feminist efforts and student study abroad programs. She has also worked with the afro/latina culture at University of Delaware creating podcasts held in Second Life. Specifically focuses on racism, how they felt empowered, and the very limited representation of women of color.
Cynthia Enloe's Gender’ is not enough: the need for feminist consciousness discusses the invisibility of women in military measures and the political disregard for the needs and ideas of women and girls are highlighted and given proper context.
Sharon Collins' teaching in Second Life: How E-learning With Second Life, an Online Virtual World Technology System, Affects Teaching and Learning
- Met with Professor Nora Madison (Gender Studies and New Media)
Leads from meeting:
- Find articles about game designers predominantly producing games that are targeted towards heterosexual males, resulting in objectified female video game characters.
- Find further literature on female gamer experience with unrealistic characters
- T.L Taylor from MIT has written Play Between Worlds: She looks at the women who play Everquest and finds they don't fit the narrow stereotype of women gamers, which may cast into doubt our standardized and preconceived ideas of femininity. And she explores the questions of who owns game space—what happens when emergent player culture confronts the major corporation behind the game. She played a female gnome necromancer because the other female avatars were all hypersexualized to the point where she didn't feel like she identified with any of them.
- Bailey C. Virtual Skin: Articulating Race in Cyberspace (1996)
- Gayle Rubin: several articles on gaming
- Justine Cassell & Henry Jenkins: From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games (2000)
- Norah Madison: "Are you a ‘real’ female? Gender and authenticity in Asheron’s Call.”
- Looking further at objectivity when it comes to video game character proportions. There may not be objectivity at all.
Final Fantasies - Virtual women's bodies: http://fty.sagepub.com/content/4/1/51.full.pdf+html
Mega-fiers link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BeKrGRy3jo
Unity Multipurpose Avatar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0cyN7k1zww
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Week Three 10/7
Research Question progress:
- Met with Professor Stefan and established adviser role
- Met with Professor Frank Lee to discuss thesis
- Meeting pending with Professor Bitzer on 10/10
- Women Studies' Interim Director Kathryn Hughes responded to inquiry: recommends Dr. David Fryer (Women Studies), Dr. Andre Carrington (English Department focusing on gender), and Professor Nora Madisen (Gender and Media, COM) for possible leads and contact.
Mega-fiers link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BeKrGRy3jo
Unity Multipurpose Avatar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0cyN7k1zww
- Met with Professor Stefan and established adviser role
- Met with Professor Frank Lee to discuss thesis
- Meeting pending with Professor Bitzer on 10/10
- Women Studies' Interim Director Kathryn Hughes responded to inquiry: recommends Dr. David Fryer (Women Studies), Dr. Andre Carrington (English Department focusing on gender), and Professor Nora Madisen (Gender and Media, COM) for possible leads and contact.
Mega-fiers link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BeKrGRy3jo
Unity Multipurpose Avatar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0cyN7k1zww
Week Three 10/7 Chapter 9/10 Notes
Reading Notes:
Chapter 9: Assembling Reasons and Evidence
Offer plausible set of reasons, in a clear, logical order, based on evidence the readers will accept.
Make a storyboard, and read just the reasons across to see if it makes sense:
Introductory Claim - Reason 1 - Reason 2 - Reason 3 - Reason 4 - Conclusion
Evidence 1 - Evidence 2 - Evidence 3 - Evidence 4
Really skeptical readers just never give up. Neither should we. Don’t let them question your validity.
Be as close to the primary source as possible, reliability of evidence is paramount.
Evidence should be accurate, precise, sufficient, representative, and authoritative. (Readers also expect evidence to be relevant.)
- Report evidence accurately. Even when you use questionable data, you can acknowledge its dubious quality, which shows you to be cautious, self-critical, and thus trustworthy.
- Be appropriately precise depending on your field. Nanoseconds for physicists, millenia for paleontologists.
- Provide sufficient representative evidence. Show enough evidence to be representative of the full range of variation of what’s available.
Chapter 10: Acknowledgements and Responses
If you only plan your argument around claims, reasons, and evidence, your argument will seem ignorant and dismissive of other people’s views. You must respond to their predictable questions/objections.
Question of intrinsic soundness: clarity of your claim, relevance of your reasons, quality of your evidence
Question of extrinsic soundness: considering alternatives, different ways of framing the problem, evidence you overlooked, what others have written on your topic
1. Why do you think there’s a problem at all? What are the costs or consequences in this situation?
2. Why have you defined the problem as you have? Is it conceptual or pragmatic? Maybe the problem involves not the issue you raise but another one.
Questioning your solution:
3. What kind of solution do you propose? Does it ask me to do something or to understand something? Does it match the problem exactly? Are they both practical or both conceptual?
4. Have you stated your claim too strongly? I can think of exceptions and limitations.
5a. Why is your conceptual answer better than others? It contradicts our well-established knowledge.
5b. Why is your practical solution better than others? It will cost too much, take too much time, or create new problems.
Note where your argument looks weak but is not. You can defuse concerns about it easily.
The most common and toughest objection is “you need more evidence. One data point (quotation, number, anecdote) is not proof.”
• plausible charges of weaknesses that you can rebut
• alternative lines of argument important in your >eld
• alternative conclusions that readers want to be true
• alternative evidence that readers know
• important counterexamples that you have to explain away
Candidly acknowledge questions you can answer and respond that
- the rest of your argument mroe than balances the falw
- while the flaw is serious, more research will show a way around it
- while the flaw makes it impossible to accept your claim fully, your argument offers important insight into the question and suggests what a better answer would need
Saturday, October 5, 2013
Week Two 9/30
Refinement from The Craft of Research: Chapters 4
1. Topic: I am studying female character model design in video games.
2. Question: because I want to find out how we can assess if the inclusion of a female character creation process impact the enjoyment of video games.
3. Significance: in order to help my reader understand that game designers and character design artists can benefit from a character creation tool that takes more realistic female body proportions into account.
that there are many misrepresented/lacking female models in video games that can cause body image issues and worse.
1. Topic: I am studying female character model design in video games.
2. Question: because I want to find out how we can assess if the inclusion of a female character creation process impact the enjoyment of video games.
3. Significance: in order to help my reader understand that game designers and character design artists can benefit from a character creation tool that takes more realistic female body proportions into account.
that there are many misrepresented/lacking female models in video games that can cause body image issues and worse.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Week One 9/23
Notes from The Craft of Research: Chapters 4/8
1. Topic: I am studying female character model design in video games.
2. Question: because I want to find out how more accurate and realistic female models can increase enjoyment of games for female gamers.
3. Significance: in order to help my reader understand that there are many misrepresented/lacking female models in video games that can cause body image issues and worse.
(2. Question: because I want to find out why female gamers have responded to inaccurate portrayals of women in negative ways.)
Practical problems and conceptual problems have the same two part structure:
- a situation or condition, and
- undesirable consequences caused by that condition, costs that you (or better, your readers) don't want to pay
• The condition of a practical problem can be any state of affairs whose cost makes you (or better, your reader) unhappy.
• The condition of a conceptual problem, however, is always some version of not knowing or not understanding something
Consider mentioning important limiting conditions even if you feel readers would not think of them.
Research Question progress:
- Met with Professor Wagner and established adviser role
- Met with Professor Frank Lee to discuss thesis
- Set up dates to meet with women studies professors this Thursday (10/3) and next Thursday (10/10)
- Research further on cultivation theory
Side Research into Male Gaze:
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/21661221/ns/health-behavior/t/honey-i-was-just-looking-defense-ogling/#.Ukrw-mTXRQM
http://widgetau.org/male-sexualization-in-video-games/
http://www.1up.com/features/op-ed-mainstream-gaming-male-gaze
http://gradworks.umi.com/14/94/1494400.html
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/171567/the_designers_notebook_triplea_.php
http://www.amazon.com/Female-video-game-characters-gaze/dp/124907486X
Player agency can be a powerful contributor to empathy.
1. Topic: I am studying female character model design in video games.
2. Question: because I want to find out how more accurate and realistic female models can increase enjoyment of games for female gamers.
3. Significance: in order to help my reader understand that there are many misrepresented/lacking female models in video games that can cause body image issues and worse.
(2. Question: because I want to find out why female gamers have responded to inaccurate portrayals of women in negative ways.)
- a situation or condition, and
- undesirable consequences caused by that condition, costs that you (or better, your readers) don't want to pay
• The condition of a practical problem can be any state of affairs whose cost makes you (or better, your reader) unhappy.
• The condition of a conceptual problem, however, is always some version of not knowing or not understanding something
Consider mentioning important limiting conditions even if you feel readers would not think of them.
Research Question progress:
- Met with Professor Wagner and established adviser role
- Met with Professor Frank Lee to discuss thesis
- Set up dates to meet with women studies professors this Thursday (10/3) and next Thursday (10/10)
- Research further on cultivation theory
Side Research into Male Gaze:
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/21661221/ns/health-behavior/t/honey-i-was-just-looking-defense-ogling/#.Ukrw-mTXRQM
http://widgetau.org/male-sexualization-in-video-games/
http://www.1up.com/features/op-ed-mainstream-gaming-male-gaze
http://gradworks.umi.com/14/94/1494400.html
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/171567/the_designers_notebook_triplea_.php
http://www.amazon.com/Female-video-game-characters-gaze/dp/124907486X
Player agency can be a powerful contributor to empathy.
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