Actual citations are posted after the jump, if desired.

O’Donnell, Casey. 2007. “Commentary: Making an Open Source Case for Offshoring.” IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication 50.2:85-87.
O’Donnell, Casey. 2004. “A Case for Indian Insourcing: Open Source Interest in IT Job Expansion.” First Monday 9.11.
O’Donnell, Casey. 2007. “The Labor Politics of Scratching an Itch.” pp. 460-467 in Handbook of Research on Open Source Software: Technological, Economic, and Social Perspectives, edited by Kirk St.Amant and Brian Still. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.

The first series of tabs are perhaps critically linked to the second post I’ll be making, but fundamentally about different issues. In my dissertation, especially in the “MOD(ify)-ing Game Development Worlds” sections I talked about some of the critical issues facing the videogame industry. I also talk specifically about how those practices which are hurting the videogame industry are actually many of the practices which are being imported into other “industries,” but most directly in other New Media industries. Those two particular chapters are titled:

• “Game Development Practice: A Postmortem”
• “The Game Industry Galaxy: A Postmortem”

Though I tease the Phil Harrison of 2007s Game Developers Conference and his “Game 3.0″ slide from the Sony keynote, recent news reports have me wondering if he was really commited to the concept and his job at Atari has created an opportunity for him to pursue Game 3.0. The other possibility is that his experiences at Atari thus far have convinced him that Game 3.0 as the industry is currently structured will never be the lively world of Web 2.0 they wish it to be.

It was that question that got me to thinking about how perspective within the videogame industry has likely shifted how Phil Harrison thinks about what is good for the industry. Recently he’s begun talking like me, which honestly is either a good sign or a really bad one for his career. Considering some of the nonconstructive criticism I’ve received from industry side people, I have to wonder if it was his transition to Atari that made him realize this, or if his departure from Sony had more to do with that.

At the same time, the nonconstructive words I have gotten are often not from “rank and file” developers. They tend to be people who deal regularly with industry executives and manufacturing companies. This is precisely the position that Phil Harrison is in, so I wonder greatly what has influenced this change in thinking and if suddenly it will become all the rage throughout the videogame industry? Or will this movement go just like the movement for improved QoL? What no one has really put together, or at least vocalized yet, is that the two are critically linked.

GamesIndustry.biz - Phil Harrison: It’s Time for a Change in Games Development

Atari president Phil Harrison has revealed his belief that the process of game development needs to change, in order to make it a less risky experience overall, and one that will help to promote innovative and creative ideas.
…
“That’s pretty much the definition of why projects fail - because you don’t know what you’re building, you don’t know how you’re going to build it, you don’t know who you’re building it for, but you’ve got 60 people working on it and they’ve all running in different directions - that’s how most games fail.

Gamasutra - Atari’s Harrison: Democratizing Development is an Industry Must

Harrison compared the low-cost game creation movement to the Net Yaroze development platform for the original PlayStation, which resulted in a number of “fantastic games”, per Harrison, being developed by international teams during the 1990s.

He clearly thinks that bringing amateur and indie developers into the fold with tools such as Unity addresses a real need within the games industry at large. “The comments that I was making [during my keynote] were primarily from an industry perspective.”

“Managing the funnel of recruitment, training, educating, and getting the skills shortage, skills gap closed, is kind of an industry-wide problem… ”

Harrison concluded: “I was primarily making that comment from an industry perspective, but from an Atari perspective… I think we would want to work with creators of all types, and that’s why I’m so interested in Unity, because it does democratize development.”

Gamasutra - Atari Boss Harrison at Unite 08: ‘Fail Early’

Harrison’s keynote, in which he noted that he ‘wanted to be here’ due to his enthusiasm for the tool, rather than any commercial/strategy interest, evangelized Unity as a tool that could potentially change the game industry, referring to the first time that he saw Unity running in his web browser as “a transformational moment.”

Atari lite-C

I wasn’t sure if any of these clips would be posted on Youtube, but I’m glad this one was. The song was written and recorded by the students as well as the production of the video itself. Very Impressive. The credits are listed below.

Created by
Benson Greene
Michael Patterson
Nick Scofield
Weston Ver Steeg

Director of Photography
Megan Mitchell

The image links to the Flikr set of other production shots. I wont give away too much, as I know many of the students are hoping to get their creation aired in other places and it is simply delightful to discover the “underlying system and structure” of this creative collaborative creation. I guess just looking at the cast might do that, but I digress. Congratulations to everyone featured in the event, and to those groups in particular that simply made incredible creative contributions.

Level 84 Info:
Executive Producer: James Biddle
Directed and written by: Zack Goulet
Assistant Director: Rachel Kohl
Directors of Photography: Megan Mitchell, Rebekah Cheyne

Mark- Kiley Dorton
Louie- Bryan Redding
Amber- Elly Prothero
Big B- Brandon Wentz
Toad- Gary Holbrook
Hammer Bros- Jordan Thomas
Henry- Rob Kohl

O’Donnell, Casey. 2008. “The Work/Play of the Interactive New Economy: Video Game Development in the United States and India.” Dissertation Thesis, Science and Technology Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic University, Troy, NY.

The other advantage to using this link is that it makes the point clear that the document has been released under the Creative Commons license.

Each of you should take a series. When you finish with one let Casey know and he can set you up with the next one. Please stay consistent with the naming of the projects

…

10 am start tomorrow, so get there by 9:30 so everyone can get in. Make sure they all have your cell # so they can reach you, and set up the best way for them to get to you in the morning(s). If something comes up and you are going to be late, give Sharon a shout so she can let them in. As they finish each series, I want them to come to you for assignment of the next one, which ever that may be, so we can keep a tally of what’s been done. I don’t really care what order they are loaded in, as long as the priority stuff gets done. I left it with Vinny that he should come in Sunday to start working with the 30th anniversary stuff.

The email addresses and those who were CCed seem valid, what I think made me nervous about the whole thing was the general language being used. Of course this might also just be an interesting cross section into how people who are part of the same community of practice communicate with one another. It seems like some sort of video post-production work based on my media industry experience, but I’m curious who  has the name Casey O’Donnell working in the media industry.

The text of the email:

First of all… Thank you to everyone who came for the inaugural Athens GGDA/IGDA chapter meeting. The event was quite a success. We had 14 people in attendance with a broad variety of interests and areas of expertise. The conversation that followed the introductory presentation was excellent and I think everyone came away excited about the event. Publicity around the event was kept to strictly the GGDA announcement and word of mouth. This created an excellent situation where many of our attendees were GGDA members and interested/committed to the local chapter. We’ll begin scaling the events up as our chapter activities increase.

A special thanks also goes to the folks at The Pub at Gameday who hosted our event free of charge and allowed us to make liberal use of their large HDTVs for presentation and subsequent Wii gameplay. Not to mention the exceptional beer selection that should draw future attendees event without the draw of game development talk.

Also thanks to the folks at Hi-Rez (Michal Adam and Stew Chisam in particular) for providing Global Agenda Alpha Testing Invitations which were distributed to several attendees.

The opening presentation centered largely around the role that the GGDA and the IGDA play in encouraging game development efforts and other larger industry issues. It also focused on how small independent game development communities can thrive given the right support structures like the GGDA and IGDA. Several examples which I have been a part of in the past were talked about.

Slides can be found here (To advance click on the little white border… Yes, super annoying…).

Based on this initial meeting, I have begun setting up an Athens GGDA website, list-serve, and GameJam Wiki. We have also been officially included in the Global Game Jam which will be January 30th from 5PM until February 1st at 5PM. The event will be held in the New Media Institute at the University of Georgia. Several subsequent GameJams will be arranged that draw on concepts developed on the Athens GGDA GameJam Wiki.

All in all is was an excellent beginning for a local chapter and I thank everyone who took the time to participate.

I’ll be in touch with everyone as I get our virtual coordination tools online.

Best.
Casey

The launch meeting of the GGDA Athens Chapter will focus on letting interested members of the Athens community know about these efforts and the role that the GGDA and IGDA plays in assisting the efforts of members. Dr. Casey O’Donnell of the University of Georgia and President of the Athens Chapter will be updating attendees of his and UGA’s gaming related efforts as well as discussing what he hopes will be a new pocket of game development and innovation. It is also an opportunity to gauge interest in participation in the Global Game Jam events on January 30th

I will post photos and event notes here after the meeting. The slides have been posted as a SWF file here.

Post-event details will be posted here…

Pat also mentioned that she is working with the ICA and communication scholars more generally in developing a set of Fair Use best practices for comm. scholarship. On November 11th, the SfSM will be releasing a set of best practices for Media Literacy Education.

Ultimately, Fair Use comes down to practice. One quote in particular stuck in my head, “Fair Use is like a muscle, it grows with use.” Fortunately for us as well, that in many cases judges are interested in serving the balance between copyright holders and creators. The process for going about developing these best practices are several:

1. Find out what the problem is, or if you have a problem.
2. Show the field that there is a problem.
3. Brainstorm best practices.
4. Publish and publicize the developed code of best practices.

What is impressive is that many industries, have adopted these sets of best practices, they are hungry for them, because in many cases insurers of errors and omissions will also handle fair use claims, which protects organizations. Broadcasters, cablecasters, filmmakers, and web companies have adopted these best practices already.

One of the elements that continues to concern me is two things. The first is that I wonder what the long term consequences of most copyright court cases being settled out of court will be. Because our legal system is one based on precedent, and we cannot ultimately make the argument about First Amendment rights without first being taken to court and having the case tried is problematic. The second concern I have is that there are significant efforts being made to deteriorate young people’s understanding of Fair Use. There are active endeavours by organizations like the ESA’s ©Team efforts. These misinformation tactics deteriorate Fair Use. They atrophy the base muscles which many are hoping to grow. Perhaps a set of best ethical practices for copyright holding industries ought to be developed as well.