"S" is for Sesame Street

The Kidscreen Summit is going on right now, providing an endless stream of children's media related news items. In particular, two announcements from the Sesame Workshop have caught my eye. For a number of years now, Sesame Workshop (formerly the Children's Television Workshop) has had full-run of the Sesame Street franchise, using it to propel research, educational curriculum, and a staggeringly significant global kids' media brand. The show itself has had some ups and downs over the years, but continues to be both a critical success and a huge audience draw. For example, as of 2005, it had won over 100 Emmy Awards, the most awards given to any one show in the US (and last year, it won 8 more). It's also won awards and praise from a variety of organizations, governments and NGOs, both domestically and abroad (even Kofi Anon digs it!). It's the most-watched children's television program in the world (though I can't find the stats on total audience reach, which is too bad) and airs in over 140 countries.

(BTW: It was just nominated again for several Emmys, including Outstanding Pre-School Children's Series, Outstanding Directing in a Children's Series, 2 nominations for Outstanding Performer in a Children's Series (one for Caroll Spinney, as Oscar the Grouch, and one for Kevin Clash, as Elmo), and Outstanding Writing in a Children's Series.).

The first announcement is that Sesame Workshop, in conjunction with German networks NDR and Ki.Ka as well as Five's Milkshake in the UK, will be launching a new claymation spin-off series called The Adventures of Bert and Ernie, set to air in 2008. The show represents something of a jump for Sesame Street into a new genre, but the company fully intends to maintain its brand identity. As KidScreen magazine describes:

"We want to bring Sesame Street into the 21st Century, but, we're not ready to make huge changes to the overall show and brand," says Jennifer Monier-Williams,VP of global television distribution for Sesame Workshop. Accompanying the German and UK deals, presales have been made to ABC (Australia), Cartoon Network India, DBC (Denmark), Disney Asia, Disney Spain, HOP (Israel), NPS/Zeppelin (Netherlands), NRK (Norway), and SVT (Sweden). Interestingly, there is no US broadcast deal in the works, but look for the segments to pop up on DVD releases and in special promotions.

The second announcement (also courtesy of KidScreen) deals more directly with Sesame Street's global media project, in particular a community-focused website called Panwapa (and accompanying DVD) that aims to teach kids about globalization and their roles as global citizens. The site will consist of a portal, hosted by six new Muppets created specifically for the program, and will emphasize social issues and responsibilities. As KidScreen describes:

The site's users will be encouraged to set up their own "Me Page" that will include a personalized avatar, a home-country setting, and a list of interest topics to choose from, including favorite food, animal and musical instrument. Interactive games, such as treasure hunts where participants will be asked to search out citizens who like peanut butter sandwiches, for example, will also be part of the site. The end goal is to get kids thinking about the world as a diverse place, full of different languages, cultures and economic circumstances.

These new international projects got me thinking about how problematic Sesame Street is as a case study in media globalization. Here is a cross-media, totally synergized children's media brand, that exports its programming around the world, oftentimes with state or NGO assistance as a result of its promise that television can be used to teach young children basic literacy and academic skills. As a media megabrand, Sesame Street traverses into other media forms (from direct-to-video, to computer software, to books and in-school programming), and is heavily involved in merchandising and licensing (just think of the massive success of the Tickle-Me Elmo dolls, or all the products, toys and accessories that bear the images of the Sesame Street characters). In 2005 alone, the Sesame Workshop made $96 million, 68% of which was generated by licensing and merchandising spin-offs. When analyzed from a political economic perspective, the Sesame Workshop is every bit as commercial and imperialistic as Disney or Pokemon.

Yet, Sesame Workshop's particular brand of globalization often involves localized versions of Sesame Street that are co-produced with local creative teams. In so doing, they have often succeeded in creating locally sustainable and culturally-inclusive children's programming. They're also at the forefront of promoting awareness of social issues using child-friendly language and themes, taking on HIV/AIDS in South Africa and ethnic tensions in Kosovo. The contents of the show/brand itself represent children's television at its finest--its fun storylines and engaging characters, age-appropriate themes, probably educational emphasis on language, letters and math (although this is one of the issues under debate), and its commitment to children's own cultural experience and concerns. From this perspective, it suddenly becomes very difficult to clump the Sesame Workshop in with those other global media brands. This is truly an example of corporate identity clashing with financial reality, and (I think) a particularly clear example of the tension between cultural studies and political economy.

A great way to explore this further is to watch The World According to Sesame Street, a documentary film released last year by Participant Productions (the same peeps who brought us Syriana and An Inconvenient Truth). While the film, an official selection at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, is certainly not an overly critical examination of Sesame Street's own felt-coated brand of cultural imperialism, it does provide a nice counterbalance when juxtaposed with the literature on (evil) globalization and political economy. I fully intend to use this film once I start teaching, as a way of demonstrating the grey areas of globalization...that not everyone involved is doing so for the sole dark purpose of exploitation...and yet that this can nontheless be the consequence of even the best intended projects.

Here are some additional academic sources on the issue:
Moran, Kristin (2006). The global expansion of children’s television: a case study of the adaptation of Sesame Street in Spain. Learning, Media & Technology 31(3): 287-300.

Fisch, Shalom M. and Rosemarie T. Truglio (eds.) (2000). "G" Is for Growing: Thirty Years of Research on Children and Sesame Street. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Hendershot, Heather (2000)Sesame Street: Cognition and Communications Imperialism, pp.139-176 in Kinder, Marsha (ed.) Kids Media Culture. Duke University Press.

And here's an article on Sesame Workshop'snew distribution deal with Genius Products/The Weinstein Company, as well as an article on how to submit shorts for inclusion in the series.

Okami Nominated for Best Game 2006

Second posting today, I know, but the GDC nominations are out! Yay! I am SO excited about this nomination for Okami. Although I embarassingly haven't had a chance to play it yet, it looks and sounds absolutely amazing, as you can tell from the WomenGamers review. But most importantly, it's a stark departure from the usual testosterone-fueled war and/or sports games that usually get all the props. In fact, the Game Developer Choice Awards nominees are fairly well-rounded this year, with Gears of War, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Wii Sports rounding out the list for best game, Bully getting a nom for writing, and Viva Pinata earning itself 3 design-related noms (character design, game design and visual arts).

Children and Media Risk

A number of articles and reports have come out this week focusing on the many ways that children are "under threat," a couple of which offer both interesting findings and some good insight into adults' ongoing worries about kids and technology. The first is a report by market research group Insight Media, on the things parents worry about the most when it comes to their kids. The article from Associated Content reads:

Modern day parents are more worried about their kids' consumption of TV and the Internet than they are about their their kids' involvement with sex or drugs according to a recent studied conducted by Insight Media Group.

Specifically, parents are worried about their kids' "overuse of media" including social networking, downloading music, playing video games, and and of course, watching TV.

Overuse of TV, not the Internet, is still TV that made the top list of parental concerns in regard to media overuse, according to the study.

Percentages attributed to each type of media, and parental concern of its overuse:

29% Television
24% Internet
18% Video Games

I suppose that television's near ubiquitous presence in children's homes is what puts it at the top of the list here, although there's also been continued rumblings about high levels of violence and commercialization on TV, which may relate to this "concern." As always, video games are up there in the top 3, though didn't score quite as high as I would have expected.

The second report hails from the EU, where mobile phone manufacturers have banded together to make phones "safer" for kids. No, they're not implementing some new protective shielding to protect kids brains from potentially harmful radiofrequency energy (RF) exposure. Instead they're tackling issues related to access - namely other people's access to kids through mobile phone technologies. From the MAGIC mailing list:

A group of more than a dozen European mobile phone companies signed an agreement to help make mobile phones safer for children. The Framework on Safer Mobile Use was developed in response to a European Commission study on child safety and mobile phones. Threats to children via mobile phones include bullying, sexual grooming for abuse, access to pornographic and violent content and privacy risks.
[...]
By signing the European Framework on Safer Mobile Use by Younger Teenagers and Children, the mobile phone companies agreed to support access control for adult content, awareness-raising campaigns for parents and children, the classification of commercial content according to national standards of decency and appropriateness, and the fight against illegal content on mobile phones. The agreement, brokered by the European Commission, calls on the companies to develop national self-regulatory codes by February 2008.

Kids' Media Synergy Gets a Little Slap in the Face

My fixation on the newly proposed FCC requirements for kids' websites has resulted in one heck of an oversight, missing the boat on this new rule banning kids' television channels from promoting websites with commercial content (ads). Here's the CNET News story, courtesy of Chris Schuepp from the Young People's Media Network at UNICEF:

Kids' TV faces new Net restrictions
Feds want to keep commercial Web site references out of children's programming, but some say the rules don't go far enough.

By Anne Broache - Staff Writer, CNET News.com - Published: January 24, 2007, 9:51 AM PST

CNN can promote its advertisement-laced online presence however it likes during broadcasts, but new federal rules mean TV channels like Nickelodeon that cater to children no longer enjoy the same freedom. The Federal Communications Commission decreed that during shows geared toward children age 12 and under, cable and broadcast operators may not display addresses for Web sites that contain any links to commercial content. The rules took effect on January 2.

Never mind that recent visits to NickJr.com and Noggin.com, online properties of kid networks, turned up more advertisements for Tylenol cold medicine and Nissan minivans than for anything youth-targeted. And some child advocacy groups would argue that many kids' television shows amount to program-length commercials for the toys and edible goodies endorsed by their stars.

You can access the full article here. Notice how the age range for media regulation is getting smaller and younger...interesting. I wonder what this will mean for all those kidnet MMOG projects, but then again these new initiatives might even be strategically designed to compensate for this new rule. If the site is big and fun enough, they may not need to rely as much on traditional forms of advertising to lure kids in.

Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi Takes Over my DS

If you've ever seen Japanese import Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi Show, starring J-pop duo Puffy (Ami Onuki and Yumi Yoshimura) and their cartoon selves, taking on bad guys while rocking the house, you'll understand my excitement to play Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi: The Genie and the Amp (for Nintendo DS) when I came across it last week in the discount bin at Superstore. Not because I thought it would be especially well-designed or particularly challenging, but because--having seen the show--I knew this would be one heck of a bizarro game. And boy am I ever not disappointed.

Switching between Ami and Yumi, and with the aid of a watch-your-copyright-infringement genie, you set out on a time travelling adventure to find musical inspiration by wacking creatures and musical geniuses with an electric guitar. You accomplish said wacks by churning out tunes on 5 guitar strings, which you can also "strum" into chords using your stylus. The "bad guys" are a motley crew, following in the theme of each location and time period. So, for Japan circa "the day before yesterday", I had to fend off 2D arcade karate dudes...how very postmodern....and in 1994 Slovenia, it's all skeletons and vampires. Another level features garden gnomes, but I don't really get why. There's a LOT I don't get about this game, which is what makes it so fun. Each level has special guitars for the girls and millieu-appropriate outfits you can buy in vending machines dispersed throughout the game. But even better than that is collecting ingredients for sushi, which you then get to roll yourself between levels. I can now see why Cooking Mama is such a massive hit - cutting virtual fish to make sushi rolls is surprisingly satisfying.

You can check out the trailer here or read the Gamespot reviews here.

Dance Dance Revolution

There was a lot of hoopla last year when, following a successful pilot project conducted the previous year, West Virginia decided the use popular dance game Dance Dance Revolution to supplement underfunded gym programs across its public school system, and respond to the state's massive child obesity problem. The West Virginia Games For Health project has now released the results of a year-long study into the outcome of this initiative, which you can find here, courtesy of Gamasutra. From the article:

The researchers have found that although not all of the children lost weight, the majority did not gain weight while experiencing improvements in their aerobic capacity, blood vessel function and overall fitness level. Just as significantly, their attitudes towards exercise improved as did their self esteem. Murphy pointed out that, "Most of our subjects had historically felt awkward about participating in gym and physical activity at school. After the program, they demonstrated a new sense of confidence and desired to maintain their new found skills."

Dr. Murphy was also quoted as saying:

"This Institutional Review Board approved study has now provided evidence that consistent playing of DDR improves arterial function in overweight children."

Good for West Virginia for finding a fun way to get kids more active, though it's kind of sad to think of the state of affairs that has led to the necessity of such a project. For those of you that are still skeptical about using a video game to increase kids' physical activity (instead of promoting more traditional forms of sport and exercise), I should point out that it is the opinion of one of the project's primary sponsors (the Public Employees Insurance Agency - kinda creepy but predictable that the insurance industry is getting in on this issue) that children in West Virginia do not currently have the same opportunities for healthy eating and exercise as children from more advantaged areas.

The shrinking space for children's play (and mere presence) in public places and urban areas is often ignored as a possible contributor to childhood obesity, but if kids have nowhere to run around and be active, how are they supposed to get any exercise? Opportunities for children's physical activity are often limited to structured activities, such as soccer practice and ballet--which are usually pretty expensive--and gym class, which is severely underfunded in the majority of public schools, particularly those in disadvantaged areas. The correlation between socio-economic status and obesity is no coincidence. Not only are unhealthy foods more accessible to lower-income families than the healthy alternatives, but opportunities for exercise, especially in urban areas, are often positively linked with income. Besides which, I'm a big supporter of the "kids' play should be fun" approach.

On the other hand, if you doubt that a video game can be sufficiently active to have any health benefits, check out this kid!

Next Month: Reel 2 Real

The Reel 2 Real International Film Festival for Youth is coming up next month (February 23 - March 2, 2007), with some pretty intriguing films on the schedule. The unofficial theme this year seems to be boys' culture which, considering the amount of press and moral panic around boys and violence these days, is not a bad thing at all.

Here's my short list of feature-length "i must-see's":

We Shall Overcome: A Danish film set in 1969 about a 13-year old who, inspired by the televised speeches of Martin Luther King Jr., takes it upon himself to challenge a headmaster and school system who are failing to uphold the newly established ban on corporal punishment.

Treasure of the White Falcons: Think The Outsiders meets The Goonies in Germany. This coming of age movie seems to have everything - children's gangs, lost treasure, a secret cave...I'm there.

The Horror Bus: A Dutch film (based on a popular book series) about Onnoval, an 11-year old who writes fantasy revenge-themed horror stories as a way of coping with his outsider status at school, until one day a mystical (??) being steals his stories and starts bringing them to life. Our would-be villain thus finds himself pushed into the role of reluctant hero, as he sets out to retrieve the stories before anything bad really happens. I like the idea here and the distinction the film seems to be drawing between fantasy and reality, particularly within the context of violent and darker themes, which are such a normal-yet-demonized part of childhood.

Others to catch include many of the short films (several of which were made by teens and young adults), and two more films exploring unique perspectives into boys' culture, The Boy Inside and Boy Called Twist.

Nicktropolis has arrived

More developments in the Kids' TV Goes MMOG front. Nickelodeon is finally ready to launch its kid-MMOG project, which it has *cleverly* named "Nicktropolis" (hmmm - sounds vaguely familiar doesn't it?). We can now add MTV to the growing list of kidnet giants hoping to cash in on the Second Life/MMOG euphoria that seems to have spread throughout the commercial media and children's industries. The site, just like all the others, will blend social networking, gaming and user-generated content with existing (TV) character-brands and programming content. According to Reuters:

Children will be able to create their own personalized 3D rooms on the site, which launches on Tuesday, and move through Nicktropolis by taking on a self-designed 3D avatar similar to those on popular virtual world Second Life.
The site will feature gaming, online video, popular Nickelodeon brands and other elements to help children interact with each other or Nickelodeon characters in real time.

You can read more (but not much more) about it in today's Reuters, or here at PaidContent.org, or you can check it out for yourself here.

You will note that -- similar to the Disney.com revamp and CBBC's planned venture -- Nickelodeon's MMOG has incorporated an array of so-called safety measures (in collaboration with the Center for Missing and Exploited Children). This aspect of the sites should not go unexamined...with DOPA-esque legislation back on the block via the recently proposed 'Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act' it will be interesting to see how children's rights and/or agency are limited in the hopes of quelling parental anxieties about online predators and bullying.

Child Tangible Interaction

Yesterday, I went to SFU Surrey to hear Alissa Antle (my new supervisory committee member, yay!!!) give a grad colloquium presentation on Child Tangible Interaction, the focus of a 3-5 year research project she is conducting under NSERC. Her work involves the development of "tangibles"--mixed reality interfaces, which combine physical and digital/virtual components--aimed at supporting certain processes of children's cognitive development. As she explains it, children often enjoy playing and creating on the computer, but they'd rather be actively (physically) playing with their friends than sitting alone at a computer console. What Alissa is trying to do is bring the vast potential of the computer into the existing reality of the playroom, through the introduction of physical objects and environments (and toys!) that combine tactile play with computing technologies (+ information processing). I'm just beginning to understand it myself, which makes it a bit hard to explain it all right now, so here's the abstract for yesterday's talk:

Alissa Antle’s current research program builds on her recent work adapting methods from human computer interaction to children and investigating how cognitive and embodied processes can be used to design highly interactive environments. By embedding sensors in everyday objects, tracking the movement of these objects, and using them as controls for the display of images and sounds that help to explain real world phenomena, she creates situations where children can successfully make the transition through the stages of cognitive development. This type of early stage research, which grounds the development of new technologies in understandings of perceptual, cognitive and embodied processes, is a critical precursor to the intelligent and human centred development of sensor-based tangibles and other mixed reality environments. Alissa will conclude her talk with some playful demonstrations of her previous industry work.

By far the coolest application she looked at was an amazing new technology developed by the MIT Media Lab called the I/O Brush. This thing is absolutely the coolest digital/electronic toy I've seen to date. As the project description explains:

There are many paint/drawing programs on the market today that are designed especially for kids. These let kids do neat things, but kids usually end up playing only with the "preprogrammed" digital palette the software provides. The idea of I/O Brush is to let the kids build their own ink. They can take any colors, textures, and movements they want to experiment with from their own environment and paint with their personal and unique ink. Kids are not only exploring through construction of their personal art project, but they are also exploring through construction of their own tools (i.e., the palette/ink) to build their art project with. [...] I/O Brush looks like a regular physical paintbrush but has a small video camera with lights and touch sensors embedded inside. Outside of the drawing canvas, the brush can pick up color, texture, and movement of a brushed surface. On the canvas, artists can draw with the special "ink" they just picked up from their immediate environment.

Check out the demo and prepare to be amazed!

Needless to say, I am SO happy to have found Alissa and so grateful that she has agreed to join my committee. Her work is intriguing and awesome, and she provides both the child-centred design expertise and hands-on industry experience that I believe will be crucial to the completion of my project. I look forward to learning more about her research and especially to future collaborations on children's technology and design.

TV Goes MMOG - Part II

The quest to get kids 'playing television' within the digital realm continues, as BBC announces its plan to build an MMOG for kids based around its CBBC television line-up. You can read coverage of the announcement courtesy of Joystiq, The Guardian, and Marketing Vox. I'm getting itchy to start research on this phenomena, which will definitely be included in my study of advergames as a form of "immersive branding" (to expand upon a term first coined by Neopets Inc.). From Cartoon Network/Nickelodeon to Canadian YTV/Corus Entertainment, it seems that all the big players in children's television are moving into the wonderful world of MMOGs. Bringing television and film to life in MMOG-form is a strategy experiencing growing success now that the MMOG-hype is fully underway (with MTV's Laguna Beach coming immediately to mind as an example of a TV-based MMO-environment that actually became more popular than the show itself!). And if the massive success of many kids' TV websites are any indication, transplanting existing characters and narratives into their own "virtual worlds" could lead to the establishment of a significant kids' market for MMOGs (to date that market has been pretty much dominated by Disney's Toontown, and social-networking gamesites such as Habbo Hotel and Club Penguin).

I can't help but see this as something of an extension of previous forms of branded or narrativised play, terms used to describe what happens when children play with action figures and playsets based on popular television or film series -- media-based toys that come with fairly pre-defined scripts about the characters and possible plot developments. In this way, branded toys provide a set of more-or-less general parameters on how to play with the toys (i.e. in accordance with the companion media programming). What is also interesting is how many of these initiatives are promoting the idea that their TV-based MMOG will be "ad-free," whereas in many ways the games themselves can be seen as a promotional vehicle for tie-in media and consumer products. This type of media synergy or cross-media promotion has already successfully cut across (or integrated, depending on your perspective) traditional media and most other forms of digital gaming. I suspect, however, that some new issues will arise with these new adver-MMOGs, which present an opportunity to reach new, possibly unforeseen levels of media intertextuality and branded play.

Could we be seeing the development of a persistant, digital incarnation of the "30-minute commercial" (advertising disguised as programming - see Saturday Morning Cartoons for a myriad of examples), or will the MMOGs instead (as well?) present new opportunities for subversive and creative child-appropriations of once-static (and adult-controlled) media narratives?

Jesus Camp gets an Oscar Nom

I've been dying to see the newest documentary film by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (makers of The Boys of Baraka) called Jesus Camp, which exposes the strange and frightening world of evangelical "summer camps" for kids. Here's the description from the film's website:

"A growing number of Evangelical Christians believe there is a revival underway in America that requires Christian youth to assume leadership roles in advocating the causes of their religious movement. Jesus Camp follows a group of young children to Pastor Becky Fischer's "Kids on Fire Summer Camp", where kids are taught to become dedicated Christian soldiers in God's army and are schooled in how to take back America for Christ. The film is a first-ever look into an intense training ground that recruits born-again Christian children to become an active part of America's political future."

The filmmakers were interviewed last night on The Hour, which you can watch here. The film and the phenomena it studies sound absolutely fascinating. Watching the trailer and seeing those tiny kids driven into religious hysteria would make anyone's skin crawl, but the growth of the movement and concerted expansion into younger and younger age groups demands the attention of anyone with an interest in children's culture. While the Evangelists remain a minority, especially within Canada (and despite reported figures of its spread, I refuse to believe that this type of extremism could ever attract a majority of Americans), their impact is felt throughout North American culture and society. The film will be out on video Jan.31st, and I will definitely be checking it out.

In other news, the Animated Film category is once again dominated by high-budget but unimaginative computer-animated productions from the contemporary "Big Three" in American animation: Cars (Disney), Monster House (Sony), and Happy Feet (Warner Bros.). My money's on Happy Feet to win.

More Press for Club Penguin

Canadian-grown Club Penguin, a social-networking/gaming site for the under 12-set, has been getting a lot of press lately, perhaps in response to growing concerns about the ill-effects of "advergaming", or perhaps in the wake of the now-defunct Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), which sought to ban kids from chat and social-networking online. NPR did a recent story outlining the site's safety features, while it's success is also attracting the interest of advertisers seeking to capitalize on the social-networking craze. While Club Penguin mirrors many of the same features found in Neopets, possibly establishing something of a "genre" for kid-oriented MMOGs, it's most distinguishing feature is that it is ad-free! (for now at least). The site received the Editor's Choice Award for 2006 from the Children's Technology Review, and has held onto the number 1 spot over at Miniclip since April 2006 (one month after it's launch). While I haven't started researching the site in any meaningful way as yet, my initial impression is that this will make a promising case study for my thesis (for the privacy and IP issues alone, if not for the commodification aspects). Here are some links to media coverage of the site (as provided by the site itself, so criticisms are few and far between in this batch...more to come, I promise):

Globe and Mail
Post Gazette
Wall Street Journal (reproduction)
Business Week
And here's a link to the Club Penguin Q&A

Some additional resources on advergames:
Children Now report
Shaping Youth coverage
Kaiser Family Foundation report

Fairy Fad Watch

A couple of months ago I posted about a concerted plan amongst the children's industries to turn "fairies" into the next big fad among young girls (see my September post, Fairies - the next big thing). Since then, winged sprites have popped up pretty much everywhere, prompting me to start compiling a list of those implicated in this "fairy conspiracy" :) :

Disney Fairies
Winx Club
Barbie Fairytopia
KOL Scary Fairies
Bratz Fashion Pixiez

Chick-sent-me-high-ee: Playing flOw theory

In doing my background research a couple of weeks ago on Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced "Chick-sent-me-high-ee") (see Comps Part I for details) and his increasingly famous "flow" theory (of play and everyday life), I came across an MFA project that had seemingly quite successfully articulated the theory in game-form, resulting in a widely acclaimed online game entitled flOw. It was among the nominees who pulled out of the Slamdance Geurilla Gamemaker Competition in solidarity with Super Columbine Massacre (who were dropped from the running due to controversy). The game (flOw that is) has since been picked up for expansion and distribution on the PS3, which is pretty awesome for an MFA project AND still quite rare for an online game. Congrats to Jenova Chen (the game's creator) for rocking my worldview of grad school and making my comps preparations that much more enjoyable. For what better way to explore theories of play than to see them applied in the creation of a gameplay experience!

Kids' Advertisers Prepare to Rumble

The US Association of National Advertisers' Advertising Law & Business Affairs Conference began today with a warning: "2007 will be a year of focus on kids' advertising." Concerned legal council and related experts (including legal council for the tobacco industry) are meeting this week to discuss the anticipated impact of the growing controversy around junk food marketing and childhood obesity, as well as how this development could resurface in other areas of the children's industries. As John Feldman, partner at law firm Reed Smith, described at a panel this morning called "Overweight and Overwrought: Children's Advertising in the Crosshairs":

Right now...the scrutiny is on food marketers' advertising to children, but a number of other self-regulated categories could be next on the docket. "Politically," he said, "what gets traction better than kids?"

Feldman also announced the launch of a new, industry-focused website KidAdLaw.com, which will provide news and updates on regulatory developments relevant to marketing to children. So far, the site is pretty US-specific, but I did see a couple of news items on the UK, where advertising junk food and unhealthy food on television to children and youth under the age of 16 years was recently all but banned.

Check in with AdAge for ongoing coverage of the conference. Otherwise, this KidAdLaw.com site looks like an excellent (although industry-biased) resource for following new and ongoing developments in this area...although not quite as awesome as GamePolitics.com, which maintains this handy-dandy, interactive legislation tracking map for US legislation pertaining to digital games.

Journal of Children and Media

The Taylor & Francis Group is in the process of launching a new journal (published by Routledge) dedicated entirely to my field of study (yay!), the Journal of Children and Media. Here's the description of the journal's aims and scope, from the publisher's website:

Journal of Children and Media is an interdisciplinary and multi-method peer-reviewed publication that provides a space for discussion by scholars and professionals from around the world and across theoretical and empirical traditions who are engaged in the study of media in the lives of children. It is a unique intellectual forum for the exchange of information about all forms and contents of media in regards to all aspects of children's lives, and especially in three complementary realms: Children as consumers of media, representations of children in the media, and media organizations and productions for children as well as by them. It is committed to the facilitation of international dialogue among researchers and professionals, through discussion of interaction between children and media in local, national, and global contexts; concern for diversity issues; a critical and empirical inquiry informed by a variety of theoretical and empirical approaches; and dedication to ensuring the social relevance of the academic knowledge it produces to the cultural, political, and personal welfare of children around the world.

The journal will be launched this year (2007), and they are currently accepting submissions on any relevant topic. The editorial board includes numerous heavy-hitters in the field, including Dafna Lemish (Editor), Charlotte Cole (Review & Commentary Editor), David Buckingham, Stephanie Donald, Kirsten Drotner, Shalom Fisch, Maya Götz, Dale Kunkel, Sonia Livingstone, Norma Pecora, Ellen Seiter, Patti Valkenburg, Elizabeth Vandewater,and Ellen Wartella. Very exciting news to say the least.

The Sims Goes Casual

Cool announcement from EA today that they will be releasing a series of new games called The Sims Stories, designed to bring The Sims to a larger number of "laptop-yielding youth." With less sophisticated graphics and a clearer segmentation of levels or 'chapters,' the franchise hopes to expand into the casual games market, as well as the "multitasking teen" market (by allowing gameplay to coincide with other applications). The Sims remains EA's most lucrative franchise, having sold over 70 million units since 2000 (and attracting a 50% female userbase). Check out coverage of the story here on USAToday, or stop by the mini-site.

Playing Bully...Firsthand

After following the controversy from the sidelines last semester (primarily as a result of a hectic course schedule and backlog of games that I first needed to catch up on), I have finally procured a copy of Bully and started in on one of the most talked about games of 2006. Comps readings have limited how much time I've been able to spend in Bullsworth Academy at this point, which is too bad because this game is both "addictive" (for lack of a better term) and endlessly fascinating. So far my in-game-days have been focused on keeping up with classes (which are much too easy to skip), trying not to get pounded too often (which is really tough, since everyone is out to get me), and slowly building up my "cred" amongst the various, violent boys' cliques around school. While you can minimize the violence you choose to engage in, it's impossible to get by without getting scrappy. In my first run through of the very first mission it took me about 0.2 seconds to resort to violence after a growing gang of older boys jumped me on my way in. The characters themselves provide (both explicitly and implicitly) interesting commentary on some pretty heavy social issues and the stresses associated with being a teenaged boy. This is a game about trying to fit in amongst a population of frustrated and alienated--yet highly affluent--youth, where social status reigns supreme and random acts of bullying and aggression all too easily lead to more serious forms of violence. More to come as I progress beyond "5% completed" (this game is enormous!).

Kidscreen's Top Toys of 2006

The most recent issue of Kidscreen magazine features a story on the 2006 nominations for TIA's "Toy of the Year" awards, which includes their own "top picks" based on a survey of children's media and marketing professionals. Here's a list of the toys that really excited the pros this past year:

Best Infant/Preschool Toy: Aquadoodle Sing 'N Doodle (Spin Master)

Best Girls Toy: FurReal Friends Butterscotch Pony (Hasbro)

Best Boys Toy: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest Ultimate Black Pearl Pirate Ship Playset (Zizzle)

Most Innovative Toy: FurReal Friends Butterscotch Pony (Hasbro)

I highly recommend checking out Kidscreen's two-time nominee, the FurReal Friends Butterscotch Pony. Not only does it seem to be a serious contender for Toy of the Year, but its integration of traditional "girl culture" (girls love horses, right!?!) and advanced robot-esque technology makes it one heck of an interesting artifact of study (gendered technology, virtual/robot pets, etc.).

Neopets Pops Up in House of Commons

This past November (29, 2006), as part of the PIPEDA (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) hearings, Valerie Steeves (Assistant Professor in Criminology at the University of Ottawa) gave testimony before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics on the unethical market research practices going on in popular children's websites, including Neopets.com. She highlighted the covert nature of the site's research activities, focusing mainly on the polls and surveys that feature prominently within the site, as well as the site's failure to adequately inform kids or parents about the nature and extent of their data collection and its subsequent usage. She has recommended a number of revisions be made to the PIPEDA, to better account for emerging business practices and to provide more extensive and specific protection for online privacy rights. Tara Berish, a law student articling with the CIPPIC, summarizes Steeves' recommendations as follows:

1) Principle 4.3.2 – Make it clear to companies that they must explain what they will do with personal information on or before a person consents to its collection;
2) Clarify guidelines with respect to types of consent (express, implied, opt-out etc.);
3) Privacy policies need to be fixed – require that they be written in plain language;
4) Require specific definitions of the purposes of collection;
5) s. 5(3) should state that the purposes should be reasonable to the consumer;
6) Principle 4.3.3. – Make it clear that a business can only refuse to deal when the information in question is necessary to the completion of the transaction at hand;
7) Amend s. 3 to state that privacy is a human right, and a social and democratic value. It should outweigh the business practices when they are in conflict.

It's great to see someone else using Neopets to highlight the current inadequacies of PIPEDA and the existing regulatory framework, though I'm a bit disturbed that I haven't come across Steeves' work before now. Better late than never, I suppose. Anyway, here's a link to a publication Steeves co-authored with Ian Kerr (CRC in Ethics, Law and Technology at UofO) that appeared in the Canadian Journal of Law and Technology, as well as some additional coverage of the hearings.

Disney to Launch Social Networking Site for Kids

Tomorrow (Jan. 8, 2007), Disney will unveil it's new Disney.com redesign, which is purported to feature a variety of social networking tools modified for children's use and represent a sort of "MySpace for kids." As Mediapost journalist Gavin O'Malley writes,

Catering to kids' penchant to multitask online, users of the new Disney site will be able to carry on Web chats while watching video clips, listening to music, and playing video games simultaneously. The company also will offer a broadband tool, dubbed Disney Xtreme Digital, which will allow users to create customized profile pages and share them with others.

However, the tools will also come with an array of parental controls, which analysts think could result in the site's failure...despite Disney's growing web reach with the rising success of its video-streaming site Disneychannel.com, where kids streamed over 53 million webisodes of Hanna Montana and High School Musical over a six month period alone in 2006. Analysts seem to be of two minds - on the one hand, they argue that past attempts to merge social networking and parental control (such as Walmart's The Hub) have failed, while on the other hand they recognize Disney's consistently good track record in creating highly popular kids' online destinations. I would also point to Disney's Toontown Online as a great example of a very successful past attempt (by the same company) to merge the social expression and play of MMOGs with a fairly extensive array of parental control features.
Check out the full story here, or read the Red Herring coverage here.

An Advergame By Any Other Name...

Ian Bogost has published a new feature on the Burger King advergames, or "promogames" as he has termed this particular incarnation, over at Serious Games Source. He argues that we need to understand the emergence of these types of games as more promotional than ad-based, arguing:

We use the name advergames to describe video games whose primary purpose is to promote a company’s brand, products, or services through gameplay. [...] I suggest a new way to understand this intersection of advertising and videogames. I give the name promogames to video games whose primary purpose is to promote the purchase of a product or service secondary or incidental to the game itself. [...] While advergames promote the company, promogames offer an incentive to consume the company’s goods independent of the game’s representational properties.

Many of the distinctions he raises to argue his point are certainly worthy of consideration--including the observation that advergames are usually casual web-based games aimed at selling a particular product, whereas these new forms of promotional games are console-based and aimed at drawing an audience in for some immersive brand exposure. However, I'm not sure I agree that more immersive forms of branding and advertising (such as those found in the Burger King games) deserve this level of differentiation. Advertising in most media formats has been focusing on brand exposure (loyalty, goodwill, etc.) and meta-level promotional strategies for years now, and yet these ads still qualify as ads. Promotion, marketing, and advertising strategies are increasingly integrated and cross-referential--their sophistication in some contexts seem to exceed traditional definitions, and yet their basic function and surrounding political economic processes remain consistent...as do the growing implications for audiences.

I also question the uniqueness of the Burger King strategy, particularly when considered in contrast with longstanding branding/promotional traditions of cross-media synergy found within the children's "supersystem". For example, Bogost points out that while "In-game placements and advertisements have certainly graced the Xbox 360 [...], but the Burger King games are the first titles developed from the ground up for that platform as advertisement." While this may indeed be the case (although I'd argue that Viva Pinata may in fact hold this title), other consoles and formats have definitely featured a variety of promo/advergames, making the XBox 360 distinction somewhat unimpressive. The Lego Star Wars games come to mind immediately.

Bogost likens the Burger King game strategy to that applied by McDonald's Happy Meals. He explains, "Burger King used these games as a lure to draw Xbox owners into their stores to buy a Value Meal. This and this alone was the primary goal of the games. [...]In the world of marketing, this strategy is called promotion. Promotions offer an incentive to patronize a vendor, which may have little or nothing to do with the business’s products and services." Perhaps--although the branded aspects of the games themselves should not be underestimated. The fact remains that the games feature the restaurant chain's mascot (the creepy King from the television ads), but also integrate food products into the very fabric of gameplay. His later example of giving away a copy of Halo with purchase of a particular (though unrelated) product is perhaps more in tune with the "games as promotion" distinction he is trying to argue. I remain unconvinced that the game's contents are not of primary significance to Burger King's overall strategy here.

The fact that Burger King claims to have sold 2 million copies as of December 20, 2006, at first glance seems to support Bogost's claim that the primary goal of the campaign is to sell accommpanying yet somewhat unrelated products. Or does it? Considering that an average of 1 in 4 Americans visits a fast food restaurant every day, and that obesity rates in the US are now a staggering 60% , reaching the 2 million mark among a possible pool of 75 million potential customers does not seem all that extraordinary. What strikes me the most about all the hoopla around the Burger King games is the lack of supporting evidence that people really are going out of their way to buy the games--that the games really are drawing in new customers, a la Happy Meal--or that anyone is actually playing them.

The commercialization of game content, while certainly not new, is slowly but consistently reaching extreme new levels of pervasiveness and sophistication, a process that has thus far escaped governmental regulation or any coherent public awareness (the one exception being the campaign to ban junk food and fast food advergames, which I'm sure Susan Linn and the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood will now turn toward the Burger King games). A more useful exercise for understanding how advergames or "promogames" operate within the larger media matrix is, I think, is to expand our definitions of advertising and other commercial practices, and to situate their new manifestations within larger socio-historical contexts. From a political economic perspective, I think it is more useful to see the Burger King games as the next evolution in "immersive advertising" rather than isolate them from their obvious origins in web-based advergames and cross-media branding initiatives. In this respect, I think that Bogost's last point is particularly apt and timely:

Games like these show us that a single perspective on advertising games is not only an inadequate way to understand the intersection of these two worlds today, but that it wasn’t even adequate twenty-five years ago. No matter one’s opinion about the relative merits or dangers of advertisers’ continued invasion of video games, we must try to understand approaches to game-based advertising in complex ways—not just as serious games developers or advertisers interested in creating new games, but also as game players interested in understanding how and why brand companies seek to persuade us to consume their products.

Play Comp - Part I

I've officially registered for comp exams this semester and so it's time for some "nose to the grindstone" serious reading and prep work so that I have time to write the comps in two installments before the end of the semester. I'm going to hit up the play comp first, which is the only one finalized at the moment and which I'm supposed to schedule asap. Luckily, most of this is review work, since I did the bulk of my readings for this comp in the summer in the form of a directed reading with Rick Gruneau. Part 1 of my play comp consists of readings that explore the developmental aspects of play, and we've decided to include the following:

1. Bettelheim, Bruno (1987) "The Importance of Play" Atlantic Monthly, March: 35-43.
2. Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (1991) Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
3. Paley, Vivian Gussin (2004). A child's work: the importance of fantasy play. Chicago: University of Chicago.
4. Pepler, Debra J. and Rubins, Kenneth H. (eds.) (1982). “Historical, Conceptual, and Definitional Issues” (pp. 4- 29) in The Play of children: current theory and research. Basel/New York : Karger. Includes: a. Rubin, Kenneth H. “Early Play Theories Revisited: Contributions to contemporary research and theory” (pp. 4- 14; b. Vandenberg, Brian “Play: A concept in need of a definition?” (pp. 15-20); c. Schempp Matthews, Wendy and Matthews, Robert J. “Eliminating Operational Definitions: A paradigm case approach to the study of fantasy play” (pp. 21-29)
5. Piaget, Jean (1965). The moral judgment of the child. The Free Press: New York.
6. Vygotsky, L. (1933). “Play and its role in the mental development of the child” in Bruner, Jerome S., Jolly, Alison and Kathy Sylva (eds.) (1976). Play: its role in development and evolution. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

I'm currently working through Csikszentmihalyi (which was recalled - boo!) and flow theory, which explores concepts of happiness through optimal experience, including play, of course, but also work, sports, everyday activities and interpersonal relationships. More than just an important theory for understanding play and digital game theories, however, this reading may actually serve the double purpose of providing tips to getting through comps successfully. For example:

The optimal state of inner experience is one in which there is order in consciousness. This happens when psychic energy--or attention--is invested in realistic goals, and when skills match the opportunities for action. The pursuit of a goal brings order in awareness because a person must concentrate attention on the task at hand and momentarily forget everything else. These periods of struggling to overcome challenges are what people find to be the most enjoyable times of their lives. A person who has achieved control over psychic energy and has invested it in consciously chosen goals cannot help but grow into a more complex being. By stretching skills, by reaching toward higher challenges, such a person becomes an increasingly extraordinary individual.

Nice!

Data-mining in games bill proposed in CA

A story appeared on Joystiq yesterday about a California Assemblywoman named Lori Saldana who is trying to introduce a bill into state legislature that would make it illegal for companies to embed spyware into their games. They write:

Battlefield 2142 has come under scrutiny for requiring players to install software that collects personal data from users' PCs and transfers it to foreign servers for advertising purposes. Consumers aren't warned of the adware application until opening the game box.

Read the short coverage on Joystiq here, or go to the original article on GamePolitics.

TV Goes MMO

Corus Entertainment - parent company of Nelvana, YTV, etc. - is launching an MMOG (named "Constellation" for now) based around its various children's brands. According to KidScreen, the beta has already launched at this point, with the full game expected to become available in early 2007. From the KidScreen coverage:

The popularity of gaming on YTV's website - which hosted 17 million gameplays in the first 10 months of 2006 - along with YTV Tween Report research that reconfirmed tweens' love of on-line games, prompted the initiative. Corus has since set an ambitious course to create the largest MMOG network in North America for its kids audience.

The apparatus will include a number of on-line worlds where users will be able to play games, compete and chat with other users, collect information and interact with their surroundings. The plan is for the environments to be secure, monitored, and above all kid-friendly. Access to the game will be free for all users with revenue being derived from sponsorship and in-game advertising.

You can read the rest of the article here.
This news comes right on the heels of a similar project announcement by US-based Cartoon Network, which plans to launch an MMOG based around its programs and characters in 2008. It can also be seen as an attempt to reproduce some of Disney's massive success in transforming its theme park areas/brand franchises into MMOGs, such as Toontown and the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean MMOGs. With these large commercial media companies jumping onto the MMOG bandwagon, I think that issues around commercialization and data-mining in online games--especially when minors are involved--are only going to rise to the forefront in the next couple of years, as ventures such as these produce online environments that serve primarily as marketing initiatives. While it's nice to see a Canadian initiative of this size and significance, I can't help but cringe at the idea that it will be entirely ad-supported. I can't wait to read their EULA!

Mission in Snowdriftland

Another quick note (and evidence of procrastination) on something I found through Joystiq...this awesome online advent calendar by Nintendo: Mission in Snowdriftland. You're allowed one level a day, as per the advent calendar rules, although since it's the 11th, we get to play a few extras as catch-up. Check it out!

Happy International Children's Day of Broadcasting!!!

I'm emerging briefly from end-of-semester paper-writing mayhem to post a short appreciation of UNICEF's International Children's Day of Broadcasting, which is today! Broadcasters around the world, including Canada's own YTV, participate by showing special programming for kids, and invite child participation in the production and presentation of the broadcasts. UNICEF will also be giving out awards to broadcasters who "capture the spirit" of the day. You can read more info about International Children's Day of Broadcasting on the UNICEF website, as well as on the website of this awesome initiative (that I am proud to belong to) called MAGIC: Media Activities and Good Ideas by, with and for Children.
I celebrated by watching a wonderful short film which aired on YTV this afternoon called If the World Were a Village, based on David Smith's children's book (of the same name) on the global population. The film presents a wonderful overview of what the world's population looks like - in terms of geography, ethnicity, religious beliefs, languages spoken - before getting into major issues such as poverty, hunger, gender, and a child-friendly discussion of global inequalities. A great resource for parents, teachers and especially kids. Ask your library to order it if they don't have it already.

McDonald's Kiddie Gyms! Ha!

From USAToday, a disturbing and hilarious story about McDonald's new attempt to pacify the mounting uproar over childhood obesity (and their contribution to the problem) by replacing its famous PlayPlaces with "R Gyms" ("R" for Ronald of course). They're currently being tested in seven outlets across the US and, if successful, may soon become available nationwide. From the article:

Some typical R Gym gear:
- Video bikes. The stationary bikes are hooked to video games kids can only play while peddling.

- Electronic hoops. T he mini-basketball court gives electronic feedback like cheers and broadcasts "Great Shot!" when a kid makes a basket.

- Climbing equipment. Think rocks of molded plastic. Monkey bars. And some have climbing ropes.

- Video dance pads. Kids dance on electronic pads that signal video screens to show the moves.

It looks like a strong focus is being placed on hybrid fitness/video game technologies...Which of course opens the door for all kinds of corporate "synergy" including, most obviously, the use of advergames and other forms of "sponsored" games (that would coordinate with Happy Meals campaigns, for example). What I really don't get is, isn't playing on play structures pretty active already? This is ultimately just lipservice--come and eat unhealthy fast food and we'll let you play in our "high-tech" gym to burn off some of the calories we've sold you.

Anyway, if you're interested in childhood obesity, I just found a great site for resources on media and childhood obesity at Common Sense Media.

Kids Love Reality...TV!?!

Media Life Magazine reports on findings from a recent study into the television preferences of 2-11 year olds, and found that reality television shows rank highest among this age group. From the article:

As falling numbers for CBS's "Survivor," NBC's "The Apprentice" and ABC's "The Bachelor" indicate, the reality TV craze seems to have faded among most TV viewers. Except among kids. For those ages 2-11, reality remains the hottest thing on TV, occupying the top five spots in that demo on broadcast this season.

Some of the results are really surprising. I was expecting to see So You Think You Can Dance, The Amazing Race or even America's Next Top Model, but no--although these shows seem skewed younger, none appear in the top five. Topping the list? A home improvement show! How weird is that!?!

1: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
2: Survivor
3: Dancing with the Stars
4: Dancing with the Stars (another version) *tied with* America's Funniest Home Videos

The article gives a few reasons why reality shows are such a hit with kids, including that they are family-friendly (parents and kids can watch them together), they're on during prime time, and that they are currently filling a gap left by the lack of family sitcoms. They point out that the jokes in shows like The Office, while popular among adults, are a little too sophisticated for younger kids. Makes sense!
Looks like a good time to come up with some new show ideas, networks!

Regulating the Media Suddenly Becomes a Costly Affair

From Gamasutra, a disturbing story of greed and corruption:

The video game industry's trade body, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has announced that US District Court Judge George Caram Steeh has ordered the state of Michigan to pay $182,349 to the ESA, for attorney's fees and costs derived from the legal battle that found the state's anti-violent game law unconstitutional.

So, let's recap here: The State of Michigan, like many other states (who are also being sued by ESA, by the way, to an overall tune of $1.5 million) tried to pass a law making the video game industry's own (ESRB) ratings system mandatory and enforceable, which would stop kids from being able to legally purchase games rated for teens or adults. The ESA opposed the law, and launched a lawsuit that eventually saw the bill shot down in April on grounds of "freedom of speech" infringement. And now the ESA is suing the state for the legal fees it incurred because it decided to oppose the law in the first place--the one that would make its own ratings system mandatory. ESA President Douglas Lowenstein had this to say:

"States that pass laws regulating video game sales might as well just tell voters they have a new way to throw away their tax dollars on wasteful and pointless political exercises that do nothing to improve the quality of life in the state. In nine out of nine cases in the past six years, judges have struck down these clearly unconstitutional laws, and in each instance ESA has or will recover its legal fees from the states.”

To track these and other developments, I recommend Game Politics.

MediaWise Video Game Report 2006

Correction: It seems that many of these initial reports were actually referring to LAST year's report, as THIS year's report is actually much harsher on parents than on many retailers. In the intro to the report, NIMF states:

This year we acknowledge the strides taken by both sectors of the industry. For example, the major retailers have made real progress in fulfilling their commitment to restrict the sale of mature-themed games. [...] This report suggests that the solutions to the problems presented by video games lie in eradicating ignorance on both the scientific-technical and the parental knowledge levels. Simply put, parents need to step up to the plate and the experts need to conduct more and better research. The research and anecdotal findings we already have portray the present rating system is broken and can't be fixed. Growing health crisis on multiple levels, each of which shows an important link to video games. [...] As the world of video games continues to evolve, parents are falling behind. As we found last year, this year’s parental survey uncovered an alarming gap between what kids say about the role of video games in their lives and what parents are willing to admit.

The report goes on to outline several areas of research in need of deeper study, as well as strategies for parents to assume more control over their kids video game consumption. Sounds a bit like my own thoughts below - apologies for the erroneous info, however, as I certainly jumped blindly onto the bandwagon on this one.

Original Post:
Joystiq and 1Up have both published sneak peaks of the centre-to-right-wing National Institute on Media and the Family's annual MediaWise Video Game Report Card, which will be released today. According to these sources, they give the video game industry an overall grade of "D+" and call it "beyond repair." Read the Joystiq coverage here and here. For the 1Up coverage, click here.

Why the National Institute on Media and the Family chooses to single out the titles it does remains a mystery. All of the games listed above already carry M-ratings, as do countless others not on the list. Wanna protect your kids? Just go with the rating on the box.
[...]
The report calls the ESRB's rating system "beyond repair," and questions why so few games receive an Adults Only (AO) rating. It is wise to read the report, even if you do not agree with it, because these are the kind of sentiments that mainstream media will pick up.

The selection of "blacklisted" games does seem pretty arbitrary, and I agree with Joystiq that the best way to ensure that kids aren't playing inappropriate games is to take the ESRB ratings seriously. Kids shouldn't be playing an M-rated game any more than they should be watching R-rated movies. The ratings themselves may need to be tweaked - and I definitely think that Canada should branch out on its own in this regard, seeing as American sensibilities are so divergent when it comes to violence and sexual content. On the other hand, I can also see the usefulness of a media watchdog providing parents with guidelines (assuming their priorities are in tune with those of the organization providing the advice). But the best first line of "defense" here really does seem to be parents taking on a greater role in their kids' media choices/allowances. I think that the best way to accomplish this, mandatory ESRB ratings aside, is media education for families...both kids AND parents...so that they can better understand the issues and research, and become better equipped to make well-informed media decisions, as a family.

Viva Pinata Strikes At Last!

Microsoft is finally (officially) launching its attempt at breaking into the kids market, Viva Pinata. From the Joystiq website:

Historically, Xbox has failed to penetrate the Japanese market. Microsoft has also been slow to make Xbox appealing to another important market: kids. But Rare's Viva Pinata looks to change this, becoming Microsoft's first big attempt at reaching out to the younger folk -- heck, it's even got a Saturday morning TV tie-in on Fox.

This weekend, Microsoft is hosting a Viva Pinata party for the entire family, complete with life-size Pinata characters, Viva Pinata dance lessons, a carousel, and of course, gameplay stations. So is the Pinata craze catching on? Does Microsoft have a killer one-two punch for the holidays? That is, Viva Pinata for your kids, Gears of War for yourself?

Read more coverage of Microsoft's big party plans at Gamerscore Blog.
I will be acquiring a copy of the game (which was released in Canada earlier this month) for the Games Lab asap, though my initial feeling about the brand = lame! The thirty-minute commercial, I mean Saturday morning cartoon designed to promote the show, is terrible and although I've heard a lot of buzz around the brand from industry watchers (who wouldn't be interested in Microsoft putting out a direct challenge to Nintendo's domination over the kids?) I haven't heard anything about kids actually getting into the characters...so far. Since the nexus of the Viva Pinata franchise will certainly be the 360 game, we'll have to see how the game does before writing the brand off entirely.

In other news, Microsoft has furthered its use of every old trick in the "targeting-the-kids-market" book, in the form of fast food-themed advergames featuring the Burger King. *Sigh*

Media Panic Kills Rule of Rose

The UK release date for Rule of Rose has now come and gone, in the midst of a Europe-wide (media-produced?) controversy that has effectively killed any plans to release the game in the EU. Online news publication Ars Technica has a great article on the controversy and ultimate "canning" of the game, as does Matteo Bittani's Videoludica, with backgrounders here and here. The Ars Technica article has some particularly good stuff to say about the press' misrepresentation of the game's content, including exaggerations and all-out-inaccuracies:

This is starting to become something of a standard by which games with odd or questionable content are talked about. Bully was described as a "Columbine Simulator," and many groups used the title as a talking point against games as a whole, even though the game was rated Teen and has very light scenes of violence, and in fact can be seen as being anti-bullying. The truth of the game, which came out when the press and the ESRB played the game, did nothing to stop the bad and exaggerated press from saying surprisingly inaccurate things about it. When the mainstream press gets a hold of a story about the game with the possibility of sensationalism, truth seems to get thrown away very quickly, as does the value of actually sitting down and playing the game.

The end result of all the bad press? 505 Games has made the decision to cancel the game’s release. So far, no news has been released concerning any other publishing houses being interested in releasing the game in the UK or Italy. This isn't a big loss for gamers on the surface—the game simply isn’t worth all the talk it has inspired—but it does create a bad precedent. With a few talking points and by misreporting the content in a game, it is possible to exert enough pressure to block the game from being released. This is the strange case of the sensationalist press being able to sell a story that anyone could prove was wrong by simply playing the game—and no one listened.

So, I finally got what I was anticipating - a big "hoopla" around Rule of Rose - though to pretty dismal results, unfortunately, as the game has been banned and pulled in European markets. In terms of my study, however, this development has further significance, because it just highlights even more the lack of any such attention in the US.

p.s. For some historical context on this, read this awesome Gamasutra interview with the creator of Night Trap, one of the first games along with Mortal Kombat to attract massive political controversy.

Debunking Media Effects Debates

One of the major criticisms of media effects research, particularly in regards to the linkage between viewing/playing violent content and actual violent behaviour, is that the studies showing causality/correlations aren't longitudinal, and therefore lack in validity or generalizability. This was certainly brought up in the Amici Curiae brief used to challenge evidence presented during early court cases around video game violence. As it turns out, however, that's not exactly true. In 2003, Huesmann et al. published findings from a 15-year longitudinal study into the impact of children's exposure to television violence on their behaviour and attitudes as adults. Here's a link to the press release on apa.org, and here's a copy of the abstract:

Although the relation between TV-violence viewing and aggression in childhood has been clearly demonstrated, only a few studies have examined this relation from childhood to adulthood, and these studies of children growing up in the 1960s reported significant relations only for boys. The current study examines the longitudinal relations between TV-violence viewing at ages 6 to 10 and adult aggressive behavior about 15 years later for a sample growing up in the 1970s and 1980s. Follow-up archival data and interview data reveal that childhood exposure to media violence predicts young adult aggressive behavior for both males and females. Identification with aggressive TV characters and perceived realism of TV violence also predict later aggression. These relations persist even when the effects of socioeconomic status, intellectual ability, and a variety of parenting factors are controlled.

This certainly seems to debunk the argument that there is no conclusive evidence that media affects behaviour and challenges the reliance of media effects critics on the supposed lack of longitudinal studies. I'm surprised, however, that this study has not come up before now in my research into the debates and court cases around video game violence (though included in lit reviews and the APA's meta-analysis). The initial reliance on Anderson's early studies has certainly hindered the quality and accuracy of the discourse around these issues.

Top Ten Most Wanted

Christmas toys (among US kids) that is! The new stats on what kids (allegedly) want this Christmas are now out, courtesy of The National Retail Federation. Note: they do not specify age range, which might explain some of the inconsistencies. For the most part, girls' and boys' choices continue to divide on traditionally gendered 'pink vs. blue' lines, but I found a couple of nice surprises on the girls' list, including Nintendo DS and Playstation 3. Way to go gamer girls! Here are the lists in full:

Top Toys for Girls, 2006
1. Barbie
2. Dolls (generic)
3. Bratz
4. TMX Elmo (Tickle-Me Extreme Elmo - here we go again?)
5. Dora the Explorer
6. Disney Princess
7. Ipod/MP3 Players
8. Nintendo DS
9. PlayStation 3
10. The Little Mermaid (DVD? Toys? They don't specify)

Top Toys for Boys, 2006
1. TMX Elmo (Tickle-Me Extreme Elmo)
2. Cars (generic)
3. PlayStation 3
4. Video games
5. Legos
6. Nintendo DS
7. Hot Wheels
8. XBOX 360
9. Remote Controlled Cars
10. Trucks

Play as Work: Chinese Gold Farmers

We hear a lot about Chinese Gold Farmers in MMOGs, but it's oftentimes hard to picture exactly what this emerging form of labour would look like. Is it fun? Exploitative? Co-operative? I happened upon this project-in-progress through YouTube, where you can catch previews of burgeoning filmmaker Ge Jin a.k.a. Jingle's new documentary Chinese Gold Farmers. Here's an excerpt from the synopsis on the film's website:

Multiplayer online games have given rise to a virtual economy, in which all kinds of virtual assets from in-game currency, magic shield to whole characters are traded against real world currency. In China, there are tens of thousands of gaming sweatshops that hire people to play games like World of Warcraft and Lineage. The gaming workers kill monsters and loot treasures for 10-12 hours a day to produce virtual assets that are exported all over the world. They are called Chinese gold farmers by western gamers and many myths about them are circulated in the game universe.

This documentary leads you into several different Chinese gold farms. Who opened those gold farms? How did this industry emerge? What international connections do the gold farm owners have? How do they manage the virtual transactions? Who are these gaming workers? What is it like to play games for a living? Why don't they do something else? You will hear several gold farmers tell their own stories and see their everyday struggles to live at the border of the virtual and the real.

Sounds awesome. Here's the link to the director's vlog on YouTube, where you can watch previews of the film.

Not So Happy Campers

MTV International (yes, that MTV) has just released a major study into global youth culture to reveal...That there isn't one! Well, not exactly, but their findings do highlight persistent differences in the way that young people from developed and developing countries experience the world, culture, how they feel about personal safety and above all their sense of wellbeing. The TV giant surveyed kids and teens from 14 countries, supplemented by in-depth interviews and other qualitative research methods. One of the main goals of the study was to test their newly developed "Wellbeing Index," which seeks to measure "perceived overall wellbeing" based on a variety of interrelated factors. Their general conclusion? Kids in the developed world have a lower perceived sense of wellbeing that kids in developing nations. I really don't see that kind of clear-cut pattern in the reported results, however, which seem to show the opposite - 5 of the top 6 are developed nations after all. Anyway, they state:

"The country where young people had the greatest perceived sense of wellbeing was India, followed by Sweden with the USA coming third. The full list runs in the following order: 1) India, 2) Sweden, 3) USA, 4) Denmark 5) France 6) UK 7) Argentina 8) Indonesia 9) Germany 10) Japan 11) South Africa 12) Mexico and 13) Brazil (China was not included in the Index as not all questions were able to be asked)."

The Wellbeing Study's other main findings include:

The Future
"Kids in developing countries were more positive about their future than those in developed nations. A majority of 16-34 year-olds in developing nations expected their lives to be more enjoyable in the future, led by China with 84%. [...] In contrast to developing nations, a majority in every developed country expected to earn less than their parents."

Happiness
Globally, only 43% of 16-34 year-olds said they were "happy with the way things were." Younger children aged 8-15 were slightly happier (57% on average). It is important to note, however, that "developed nations dragged down the averages. Young people in developing countries were at least twice as likely to feel happy as their counterparts in developed nations."

Religion
"Young people in the developing world were more religious, and there was a correlation between youth who were actively religious and happiness levels."

Stress
Youth across age groups and in every country report feeling pressure to succeed. "More than half of 8-15 year-olds worry about getting a job. By comparison, only 34% were concerned about fitting in at school and only 25% worried about looking cool." Furthermore, many kids are handling their stress through media consumption: "65% of 16-34 year-olds chose listening to music as their main form of stress relief, with television (48%) their second choice. For younger children, watching television (59%) was slightly more popular than music (58%)."

Terror and safety
Kids and teens are much more afraid of parents dying, cancer, AIDS and being robbed than they are of terrorism (which came in 10th in the list of fears among 8-15 year-olds). The report goes on to note that "Personal safety is a major issue for young people in the developing world," though they don't really clarify what "major issue" means. However, they also found that "the more news media young people watched, the less safe they felt."

School and bullying
In 12 out of the 14 countries, over two-thirds of 8-15 year-olds reported "getting good grades in school" as their top priority.
The study also found that bullying happens everywhere, especially in Argentina (where 72% of kids had been bullied), the USA and the UK (where 56% of kids had been bullied).

They also asked questions about new technology, which they are obviously hoarding for their own projects, as their key reported finding was simply that "Digital technology and media is changing kids behavior." No kidding!

Check out a press release of the study here.

The findings are interesting, but hardly ground breaking, and seem to be interpreted (in the press release at least) with just a tad bit of bias. The company is planning to use the findings to develop new "initiatives," i.e. commercial programming and advertising. Oh well.

CFP: Women in Games 2007

This just came in through the Games Research Network:

Women in Games Conference 2007
Aesthetics in play: new platforms, new perspectives, new players
University of Wales, Newport
19-21st April 2007

Over the past 3 years, The Women in Games conference has become the European forum for women working in and around the computer games industry. The event is characterised by its mix of women from industry, the academy and other sectors of society united in their passion for games. WIG 2007 is interested in continuing this tradition and broadening the dialogue on games to a wider context by seeking contributions from more traditional media disciplines, gender studies and the ICT sector.

Games combine visually led, screen-based arts with performance media to create a gaming experience. The art of gaming is one of action; it is about the player and their performance within the game context. Further than this it is of interest to deepen our exploration of what the unique characteristics of the game experience are in order to celebrate and expose new form, WIG is in a unique position to express a feminine perspective on these possibilities.

Key Dates:
20/11/06: Call for Abstracts released
26/01/07: Submission deadline
16/03/07: Notification

Themes and details can be found at: http://www.womeningames.com. Head's up: there are publication opportunities attached to conference participation!


In other news, Wired magazine has published an article on Lonelygirl...Remember her?

Super Princess Peach

Gonzalo Frasca has written up an interesting analysis of Super Princess Peach for Nintendo DS, entitled "Playing with Fire: Trouble in Super Macho World". It's a great, though brief, examination of the gender stereotypes that continue to pervade the Mushroom Kingdom. He highlights some of the most obvious, such as the blond, pink-dressed Princess Peach's limited arsenal of "emotional" powers in lieu of more traditional fighting or magical powers, but also more subtle aspects, such as how this compares to Mario's new "gigantic" ability in New Super Mario Bros. As Frasca writes,

I never thought about this until I wrote this article but Nintendo's choice of female and male superpowers for both games in nothing short of hilarious. One game defines women as emotionally unstable while the other one presents boys as being obsessed with their size.

Contrary to one of Frasca's arguments, however, Super Princess Peach actually does not mark the first time the Princess has been featured in a protagonist role. She was also a playable character in Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario RPG and Super Smash Bros. Melee. She has also enjoyed a fair amount of popularity among girl gamers, as evidenced in Sharon R. Sherman's 1997 article "Perils of the Princess", wherein she found that every girl she asked preferred to play as the Princess in Super Mario Bros. 2. I distinctly remember this being the case in my own family, where both me and my sister definitely preferred playing as the Princess, and would fight over who got to "be" her. This obsession with "getting to be" THE Princess (and there was often only one) easily transferred over from other realms of our play, where role-play games often included Princess Lea or Princess Adora/She-Ra, and toy boxes were populated by dolls wearing "princess dresses," princess costumes (fairy-princess, princess ballerina), and other princess-themed toys and media. In many ways, Super Princess Peach may very well represent a legitimate attempt to cater to existing female fans of the Super Mario franchise - by finally featuring girls' favourite character in her own adventure - as well as draw in new girl gamers through a tried-and-true motif within "pink culture."

In this respect, the Super Princess Peach website is obviously designed with girls in mind, with printable Princess Peach-themed mad libs, a DIY Super Princess Peach "magazine," a T-shirt maker and an introductory "how to" guide to playing platform games. The site also features an online "mood ring" (reflecting the moods or "vibes" from which Princess Peach draws her powers) and links/ads to other games that girls might (and do!) like, such as Animal Kingdom, Kirby, Yoshi and Nintendogs. The site is simple, and I'm not sure that it's actually attracting many hits, but it's part of a larger advertising campaign that obviously has girls in mind...a refreshing change from the norm.

I find myself conflicted about this game and its position within the "pink games" debate. The incessant perpetuation of gender stereotypes in mass culture and particularly kids' culture is troubling to say the least. And yet, despite my feminist sensibilities, I thoroughly enjoyed playing Super Princess Peach earlier this semester. I thought it was kind of cool that Princess Peach draws power from "emotions," which are so often seen as negative and used to denote weakness and inappropriateness. I found many redeeming qualities to the game, not the least of which were the quality of the game design and ease of the gameplay (it was my first time playing a Nintendo DS, and I found it a great baby-step into the design/mechanics of the system) - two things that are sorely lacking from other "girl-oriented" video games, which usually consist of a popular girl-branded character solving mundane puzzles amid buggy game mechanics and sub-par graphics and sound design. Girls' games, or "pink games," are rarely played by girls, it would seem, though a few hours spent trying to get through one clearly reveals the systematic deficiencies that continue to plague the genre.

How can we promote more and better games that girls will actually enjoy playing? How do we end the perpetuation of harmful male and female gender stereotypes (including the pervasive hyper-sexualization of female characters) within video games and other media? Focus within game studies seems to be shifting back to these issues once again, with a new book coming out soon that revisits the discussions of From Barbie to Mortal Kombat, along with upcoming articles in Feminist Media Studies Journal (including my own co-authored "discussion" of gender and games with Mia Consalvo and Helen Kennedy). I look forward to seeing how the debate has matured since its first incarnation in the mid-1990s, and hope that it will result in a revival of interest in gender issues in gaming. My big question after reading Frasca's article: are girls playing it?

US Government Seeks to Revive COPA

The Children's Online Protection Act (COPA) is back in the news today, as new findings were presented to the Justice Department in the ongoing and erratic saga of US children's Internet regulation. COPA represents a sort of revised version of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which was first introduced in 1996 in an attempt by US Congress to ban online pornography. In 1997, the Supreme Court decided that major components of the law were unconstitutional (mainly around freedom of speech rights), because it would have made it essentially illegal to put "adult-only" material where children could access it (so, pretty much anywhere on the Internet). The legislation was narrowed in 1998, as COPA, to apply only to commercial websites, and provided a more specific definition of "indecency" (they also included requirements for credit-card info to access porn sites, and proposed a $50K fine and 6-month prison term for commercial website owners who allowed children to view sexually explicit materials).

But the law has yet to be enforced: the US Supreme Court blocked COPA in 2004, again on free speech grounds, though they seem to have focused primarily on the rights of adults. At the same time, however, in 2000, Congress also passed the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which forces schools and libraries to use filters on their public Internet terminals to block porn and kids' exposure (i.e. access) to dubiously-defined-as-indecent materials. CIPA was upheld in 2003. Note: COPA is different from COPPA, which I talk about a lot in my work.

At the centre of the new trial are findings from a recent study conducted by Philip Stark, a stats professor at University of California, Berkeley, who conducted an analysis of Internet content filtering. With the aim of supporting a revival of COPA, Stark's findings show how relying on filtering software to restrict children's exposure to sexually explicit content is ineffective and does more to restrict children's access to information than protect them from perceived harm.

Thomas Claburn at InformationWeek offers the following overview of key findings from the study:
- Only 1.1% of the webpages indexed by Google and MSN are sexually explicit
- Content filtering software will miss between 8.8% and 60.2% of sexually explicit sites
- Meanwhile, content filtering software will block between 0.4% and 23.6% of "clean" (non-explicit) Web pages

While Stark is using these stats to make a case for governmental regulation of content (instead of relying on biased and sweeping filtering technologies), he also addresses jurisdictional issues.
- About half of Internet content is posted "overseas...making them beyond the reach of U.S. law."
- Nonetheless, Stark agrees (and so do I!) that the most popular sites (especially among children and teens, I would add) originate from within the US.

This new development highlights issues around children's rights to access and participation that need to be balanced with society's right to protect its children from potentially detrimental knowledge and experiences. Though I'm not so sure that COPA would really ensure this, it's good to see regulation being debated at this level, with a plurality of interests on the table (quite different from the proposed "Rule of Rose" ban, for example...See below!).

Rule of Rose causing European controversy

The mayor of Rome has announced that he intends to have Rule of Rose banned across Italy, stating "this game must not enter Italian homes." Coverage of his recent statements can be found on Gamespot, as well as Joystiq, which writes:

Apparently Rome's mayor doesn't think there's any more room on the market for another mediocre horror game; that, or Rule of Rose's erotic themes bugged him too. Either way, Mayor Walter Veltroni is outraged, declaring "There is no way that a violent video game should be sold and distributed in our country."

The game is also causing a stir within EU discussions around a proposed video games "Code of Conduct," which would implement a Europe-wide rating system (possibly the PEGI system???). EU justice minister Franco Frattini has been particularly vocal around the inappropriateness of certain video game content for children, as reported by Adnkronos International:

Frattini said he been particularly shocked a new psychological horror game, Japanese-designed 'Rule of Rose' for Sony Corp.'s Playstation 2 console. In the game, a young girl, Jennifer, is subjected to mental and physical torture by a gang of sadistic female teenagers, whose ringleader also turns lesbian attentions on the hapless Jennifer before she is buried alive.
[...]
"One of the latest games recently available on the European market, relates to a young girl who becomes submitted to psychological and physical violence. This has shocked me profoundly for its obscene cruelty and brutality," Frattini said about 'Rule of Rose' in his letter [to the EU bloc's 25 interior ministers]."

Dawson College Talk and Gamer Ethics

A recent survey by Evolution Research found that most parents are familiar with ESRB ratings (71%, versus the industry's reported 83%), and that people who don't play games are much more likely to think that some games should be banned based on content. As Kris Graft reports:

"Of these non-gamers, 77 percent said that they "really agree" or "agree" that some games should never see the light of day because of material deemed unfit for the general public."

The survey shows that 60% of consumers believe that video games have more influence on children's behaviour than other media forms. At the same time, however, the findings also reveal that, "Despite the heed paid to ESRB ratings, individuals from all age groups felt that video games do not and could not have a negative effect on them." Read full-coverage of the survey findings here at Next Generation.

These types of contradictions came up quite a bit in my talk at Dawson College last Wednesday (Nov. 8, 2006), where we discussed how conflicting beliefs and research around video game violence contributes to seemingly irresolvable debates within the press, public sphere and legal system. Thanks again to Sean Elliott and the awesome students of his Knowledge: States of Nature class for iniviting me to participate in last week's seminar, and for their lively discussion and thoughtful comments around this sensitive and controversial topic. I was deeply impressed by the sophistication and insight of all the students who participated in the exchange.

"Social Networking Is Hot, but Research Is Hotter"

I'm right in the throes of conferencing, so I won't elaborate too much on this news item, but I thought this report from Advertising Age presents a particularly ominous and interesting (especially to my thesis) summary of what market researchers are into these days. Social networking sites (think YouTube, MySpace, etc.) continue to be all the buzz amongst the e-Marketer crowd. Experts had this to say at the recent Ad Tech conference in NYC:

As Roy deSouza, CEO, Zedo, pointed out during a panel that afternoon focusing on the ubiquitous topic of Web 2.0, smaller online communities that didn't exist at this time last year are already making major impact. Social-networking hubs such as the consumer-written restaurant reviews of Yelp, and Dogster, a canine-centric version of Friendster, are helping define the new movement by staying out of their users way and letting them provide editorial content.
"It's not about the technology. It's about making the kind of site that allows users to talk with friends," Mr. deSouza said.

What will keep the sites relevant, said co-panelist Charles Buchwalter, senior VP-industry solutions at Nielsen/NetRatings, is continuously surveying users.

Read the coverage here (free for now, subscription req'd later).