• Tychsen, A. (2008). Innovations In Character: Personalizing RPGs, Retaining Players (Gamasutra)
• Tychsen, A., Hitchens, M., & Brolund, T. (2008) Character Play — The use of game characters in multi-player Role-Playing Games. Computers in Entertainment.

I have been reading Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion, a light summer reading (non-work related, I though), which had some interesting stuff. Dawkins cites Gregory S. Paul who concludes: “higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies”. (Cited in Dawkins 2006, pp. 263.)

On the other hand, if we look game sales and violent crimes rates seem not to correlate (see, Jesper Juul’s blog entry).

What we should conclude from these? Ban religions and promote games? At least, Paul’s research gives somereasons to be cautious on media effect studies.

References

• Dawkins, R. (2006). The God Delusion. London: Black Swan.

I probably need these in the future:

• Is UK game development in trouble? And can women save it?
• Suomen pelialan koulutustarpeet 2008 (PDF)

Graveyard (Tale of Tales) is a small game (or one could say it is game-like thingie) in which player controls an old lady who visits a graveyard. All there is to accomplish is to walk to church and sit a bench next to, yet the game manages to keep you interested. If you buy a full version, there is a change that the lady dies. Designers of the game  are writing a postmortem that is still unfinished, but, even in half-finished state, is an interesting read.