A project in Stanford Humanities Lab
The aim of this project is to explore the history and cultural impact of a crucial segment of New Media: interactive simulations and video games. The current generation of video and PC games has established genres that effectively use narrative, competitive, and play structures for community-based interaction, performance and content development, and push the boundaries of computer-generated animation, graphics, and audio.
Contributors are conducting research in five-genre defined areas of computer games: storytelling, strategy, simulation, sports, and shooters (3d first-person games). In addition to traditional methods of publication, the project is working on web-based presentations of our content, including collaborative timelines, digital archives, and high doses of interactivity. Another important aspect of the project is the preservation of software, media streams, screenshots, and documentation; a digital archive of source materials is in preparation. The project has also led to the introduction of a Stanford class offered in the Science, Technology and Society Program and now in its fifth year: STS145. "History of Computer Game Design: Technology, Culture, Business".
One of the goals is an edited volume of papers on the topic of the project, including several contributions from students who have taken this course. Student papers from this course (nearly 200 from the first four years) are available through a project website. Accomplishments of the project thus far include two significant museum exhibits that took place in 2003 and 2004, featuring installations from the worlds of computer games, art and military simulation; the Machinima Archive, a digital archival repository for this new game-based medium; the 73 Easting archives at Stanford University, which documents the most important military simulation of the 1990s; and numerous panels, conferences, and publications.
The "graphics card" for 73 Easting - the military simulation
Core Personnel:
Tim Lenoir
Henry Lowood
Contributors:
Casey Alt
Georgios Panzaris
Rene Patnode
Doug Wilson
Waynn Lue
David Liu
Sarah Wilson
Technical Development:
Casey Alt
Zachary Pogue
