Comments on: First Person

By: Grand Text Auto » Third Person: Authoring and Exploring Vast Narratives

Grand Text Auto » Third Person: Authoring and Exploring Vast Narratives — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:31:42 +0000

[...] POV series: Third Person: Authoring and Exploring Vast Narratives. Following the first two volumes (First Person and Second Person) this project broadens our scope yet again. While the first volume was mostly [...]

By: noah

noah — Fri, 22 Oct 2004 14:09:49 +0000

There's an Italian review of First Person over at neural.it (and a translation is currently at the top of their English page).

By: andrew

andrew — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I picked up a copy of First Person at the MIT Press Bookstore two days ago. I’ll write more later when I have some free time, but first I really want to thank Noah and Pat for putting this together. This is the kind of book I’ve been wanting and waiting for. The idea of gathering together so many active, knowledgeable voices into one volume, who are making a real effort to dig into the multitude of possibilities of the playable and anticipating the challenges that lie ahead, is extremely helpful to me as a practitioner. And, having the contributors respond back and forth to one another, laid out on the page in parallel with the essays themselves, is really valuable, and a lot of fun to read. (Admittedly it’s not quite as novel as it would have been before many of us started blogging over the past year, but still… :-)

It’s not an overly thick volume, but the book is bursting with ideas and perspectives. I’ve skimmed it so far; and while I’m already familiar with some of the essays and arguments, there are several that are new to me, and of course all of the back-and-forth responses are new. I wish I could just sit down and read it cover to cover, but it’ll have to wait until my plane ride to GDC next week, I think…

I’m looking forward to the forthcoming thread on EBR too.

By: Gonzalo

Gonzalo — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Hey, congratulations! Thanks for First Person (and for the New Media Reader). I’ll grab a copy next week, first thing after I get to San Francisco. Congrats again!

By: noah

noah — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Hey Gonzalo – thanks for the congratulations! They tell me First Person will be on sale at the GDC bookstore, so no need to search around San Francisco. Also, as you’re one of the essayists, MIT Press should be sending you a copy before long.

By: nick

nick — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I can’t wait to get a copy. Having glimpsed at the bits of the project as it was in progress (writing an essay, reading John Cayley’s essay to reply to it, writing a response to that, writing a reply to Brenda Laurel and Janet Murray’s replies to my essay, seeing the book manuscript in the late stages before typsetting) I’m particularly excited about the book.

Obviously, it was a huge load of work – and I suppose will be for a while as the discussion continues on ebr. The type of conversation it contains, and will engender, will be proof that the book can play new and interesting roles in new media studies.

Best of all, I think the book will be one that people read not to plunder it for citations or to expose an individual’s point of view for precision attacks, but in the way they attend a really influential conference or have transforming discussions with faculty and students in a great class.

So, congratulations to Noah and Pat!

By: nick

nick — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

I got to see a copy today, as Joe Tabbi was in town speaking. (Definitely worth a blog entry, but I am exhausted.) The book looks great. Surprisingly small, thanks to a compact and familiar layout. (Surprisingly similar to The New Media Reader typographically, too!) I am looking forward to reading the essays in the book and to following up on that reading in ebr.

By: Jesper

Jesper — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Congrats to all! Looking forwards to seeing a copy at GDC!

By: noah

noah — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

… and it looks like it’s finally starting to show up “in stock” at online retailers:

http://isbn.nu/0262232324

By: bryan-mitchell young

bryan-mitchell young — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Is there a table of contents available online somewhere? I’m sure I’ll pick this up eventually, but it would be nice to see the names of the articles.

By: noah

noah — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Ah – good question! I realize it’s a little long for a comment, but here’s a TOC for the book:

I. Cyberdrama

Janet Murray: From Game-Story to Cyberdrama

Response by Bryan Loyall

From Espen Aarseth’s Online Response

Ken Perlin: Can There Be a Form between a Game and a Story?

Response by Will Wright

From Victoria Vesna’s Online Response

Michael Mateas: A Preliminary Poetics for Interactive Drama and Games

Response by Brenda Laurel

From Gonzalo Frasca’s Online Response

II. Ludology

Markku Eskelinen: Towards Computer Game Studies

Response by J. Yellowlees Douglas

Note Regarding Richard Schechner’s Response

Espen Aarseth: Genre Trouble: Narrativism and the Art of Simulation

Response by Chris Crawford

From Stuart Moulthrop’s Online Response

Stuart Moulthrop: From Work to Play: Molecular Culture in the Time of

Deadly Games

Response by Diane Gromala

From John Cayley’s Online Response: Playing with Play

III. Critical Simulation

Simon Penny: Representation, Enaction, and the Ethics of Simulation

Response by Eugene Thacker

From N. Katherine Hayles’s Online Response

Gonzalo Frasca: Videogames of the Oppressed: Critical Thinking, Education,

Tolerance, and Other Trivial Issues

Response by Mizuko Ito

From Eric Zimmerman’s Online Response

Phoebe Sengers: Schizophrenia and Narrative in Artificial Agents

Response by Lucy Suchman: Methods and Madness

From Michael Mateas’s Online Response

IV. Game Theories

Henry Jenkins: Game Design as Narrative Architecture

Response by Jon McKenzie

From Markku Eskelinen’s Online Response

Jesper Juul: Introduction to Game Time

Response by Mizuko Ito

From Celia Pearce’s Online Response

Celia Pearce: Towards a Game Theory of Game

Response by Mary Flanagan

From Mark Bernstein’s Online Response: “And Back Again”

Eric Zimmerman: Narrative, Interactivity, Play, and Games: Four Naughty

Concepts in Need of Discipline

Response by Chris Crawford

From Jesper Juul’s Online Response: Unruly Games

V. Hypertexts & Interactives

Mark Bernstein and Diane Greco: Card Shark and Thespis: Exotic Tools for

Hypertext Narrative

Response by Andrew Stern

From Ken Perlin’s Online Response

Stephanie Strickland: Moving Through Me as I Move: A Paradigm for

Interaction

Response by Rita Raley

From Camille Utterback’s Online Response

J. Yellowlees Douglas and Andrew Hargadon: The Pleasures of

Immersion and Interaction: Schemas, Scripts, and the Fifth Business

Response by Richard Schechner

From Henry Jenkins’s Online Response

VI. The Pixel/The Line

John Cayley: Literal Art: Neither Lines nor Pixels but Letters

Response by Johanna Drucker

From Nick Montfort’s Online Response

Camille Utterback: Unusual Positions — Embodied Interaction with

Symbolic Spaces

Response by Matt Gorbet

From Adrianne Wortzel’s Online Response

Bill Seaman: Interactive Text and Recombinant Poetics —

Media-Element Field Explorations

Response by Diane Gromala

From Jill Walker’s Online Response

VII. Beyond Chat

Warren Sack: What Does a Very Large-Scale Conversation Look Like?

Response by Rebecca Ross

From Phoebe Sengers’s Online Response

Victoria Vesna: Community of People with No Time: Collaboration Shifts

Response by Stephanie Strickland

Natalie Jeremijenko: If Things Can Talk, What Do They Say? If We

Can Talk to Things, What Do We Say? Using Voice Chips and Speech

Recognition Chips to Explore Structures of Participation in

Sociotechnical Scripts

Response by Lucy Suchman: Talking Things

From Simon Penny’s Online Response

VIII. New Readings

N. Katherine Hayles: Metaphoric Networks in Lexia to Perplexia

Response by Eugene Thacker

From Bill Seaman’s Online Response

Jill Walker: How I Was Played by Online Caroline

Response by Adrianne Wortzel

From Warren Sack’s Online Response

Nick Montfort: Interactive Fiction as “Story,” “Game,” “Storygame,”

“Novel,” “World,” “Literature,” “Puzzle,” “Problem,” “Riddle,” and

“Machine”

Response by Brenda Laurel

From Janet Murray’s Online Response

I’m at GDC, along with Andrew and Michael, and just got to interact with Facade for the first time yesterday!

By: noah

noah — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Hey! The book's been sighted over at ludology.org: http://ludology.org/article.php?story=20040324124623829 We didn't manage to post anything from GDC, but we expect to do some post-GDC blogging soon. The GDC bookstore, by the way, was already sold out of First Person when I went to ask about it yesterday. I was glad to hear it!

By: noah

noah — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Jill mentions First Person in a post today, and paints a tri-generational image: showing the book to her mother, then reading it while her daughter reads a book to herself. There's no generation after mine in my (immediate) family — and neither my brother nor I seems in a hurry to change that — but I think I experienced a somewhat-similar moment with my mother and First Person. My first copy of the book was delivered to my mother's house (I'm visiting California this spring) and when it arrived, and she called, I asked her to open the envelope and describe it to me. We were both smiling, I could tell even over the phone. Later, at her house, she said, "You're old enough, you can post it on the refrigerator yourself." Ah, but where do we find magnets strong enough for hardback books?

By: Jill

Jill — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Oh, I love the idea of posting it on the refrigerator!

By: Margaret

Margaret — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

What a pleasure to find this book on the table at GDC! When will the site be up at electronic book review?

By: noah

noah — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Margaret, thanks for your kind words. All of the URLs printed in the book are “live” now. However, we haven’t publicly launched the ebr incarnation of First Person yet. When exactly that launch will take place is a current topic of conversation — but it won’t be too much longer.

By: andrew

andrew — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Click to see Joe Bates enjoying First Person. (I'd embed the image here if I could, but it appears Movable Type doesn't allow images in comments)

By: andrew

andrew — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Greg Costikyan begins reacting to the book here.

By: noah

noah — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Two First Person links of note today. Mark Barrett's got a note up at his site (looking forward to that rant!). And as Gonzalo and Ian note here's an article about computer games with a political message at The Guardian titled "The role of play." In addition to quoting those two bright fellows extensively, the article's author also makes the pleasing move of mentioning First Person. Andrew, thanks for noting those other links above!

By: Grand Text Auto » Bernstein’s Bait Redux

Grand Text Auto » Bernstein’s Bait Redux — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

[...] ait Redux by andrew @ 3:01 am Echoing the debate we had two years ago in both book and blog, Mark Bernstein has recently restated his argument, with the coda, “ [...]