I'm gonna make you sweat (sweat, 'till you got sweat no more)

I was really amazed when I read THIS STORY . I guess I shouldn't have. the piece is from the NY times and it tells the story of World of Warcraft (WOW) sweatshops where Chinese people plays/works almost every day of the month for 30 cents an hour. they achieve magical weapons and artifacts (+5 anti-wrist infection stone) and their bosses sell them online. it was obvious at some point when big money got into the industry that things like that would happen but it made me think about few things that I would like to share here.

WoW. behind every strong man there is a chinese swaetshop worker.

First of all, is it the job of the ludologist to address phenomenas like this. the real question is should ludology perceive itself as a meta-critique or just a cultural-texts-analyzing-machine. should we speak about those Chinese at the same time we speak about important issues like Lara Croft's hooters or the psyche of the gamer. can we talk seriously about Agon (competition) or Alea (chance) when there is no category for abuse.

As it seems (and as always) there is no simple yes or no answer. but I think that if we imagine our ludic field of knowledge as a field that can embrace every phenomena of the human experience we can see right away that there is a lot of work need to be done. maybe the six categories of our fathers ( Huizinga's and Caillois's) are insufficient to hold all the ludic situations. Huizinga described games as a voluntary activity but can it be voluntary for those chinese ?is it not gaming than? is patching Nike logos for 20 hours a day can be voluntary or is it just one of a very few possibilities some people have to survive. on the other hand, can we imagine an athlete that sprint's for 10 years do anything else than sprinting in the next 10 years to come. or maybe most of us don't have as many possibilities as we would like to imagine.

Thomas More. Neo Ludo is not my cup of tea. bling bling is.

I wouldn't like to draw an Antihumanism conclusion, but at glance the neo ludology is not an emancipating project . maybe when society would understand itself as nothing much than a platform for characters to interact, when goals are valuable only until the next goal arrives, maybe there we can find some freedom. is freedom of consciousness is real freedom?what is real freedom? as i see it maybe the key is for people to take life like it was nothing more than a game. accept the limited possibilities. people can go behind their given options but it is nothing more than a bug, a glitch, in the system not the goal. do you already feel better?

From pre to neo ludology

The first major work on gaming in the western world was written in Spain at 1283, by king Alfonso the 10th, AKA Alfonso the wise. the book was a complete game guide, with rules for games like Chess, Backgammon, dice and cards. It was dictated by Alfonso to three monks and he truly felt that it is god's will for people to play. I couldn't agree more.

"...those who like to enjoy themselves in private to avoid the annoyance and unpleasantness of public places, or those who have fallen into another's power, either in prison, or slavery, or as seafarers, and in general all those who are looking for a pleasant pastime which will bring them comfort and dispel their boredom. For that reason, I, Don Alphonso... have commanded this book to be written."

Alfonso X. It was certainly wise of him to bring his own Wiimote and nunchuk.

I Love this introduction. games help you deal or avoid with the unpleasantness of public. next time when i think of grabbing a beer at my local, I will re-think it through and turn on my box360 or my PS2. though probably when he wrote the book he didn't saw through the relation ship problem that might arose, or to be more specific the game-envy that your significant other might develop.

this help us to draw a line that starts with the pre-ludo which is mainly about the game as set of rules and/or as a part-time activity. the modern ludology which started with Huizinga's "Homo ludens" or Caillois's " Les Jeux et les Hommes" or even with fresca's "ludo vs. narratology" that address games as an important cultural texts. and the Neo -Ludology (which I will dedicate my life to develop) that will see the games , as life, as a whole, which through understanding games we can analyze and critic the whole cultural structure. neoludo will see every phenomena or situation as a ludic one, one that consists of conditions of possibility which by the way the character ( the person) or the game (society) symbolizes will lead to an outcome that can be important or not by the same standards (person or society or both symbolization).

Homo Ludens. Yes... it is practically our ludic bible.

of course what I offer here is an insufficient outline partly because I myself cant see the full picture (yet.. I hope). but from very close reading of the current ludic work, It is easy to see that there is a lot of work need to be done. and the episteme or the cultural ground that is based on is mainly modern/structural episteme (and even more common is to use a hip post thinker and subordinate him to his terms and/or to a structural theory). neo-ludo should give the respect to video games as a a new form that couldn't be described or analyzed by the old categories. it is no longer sufficient to speak about the Author but the experience. the spotlight shouldn't be on the character but about the person in the dark, the gamer and his real and virtual spatial experience.