Stardust Speedway 044 - Anne Allison Details

I have been using an essay by Anne Allison over the last few months in my research which discusses Pokemon within a Capitalist Viewpoint; but the only problem that I have had was that there was no details of the author on the paper and I could not find anything about her until today.

My tutor Tamara said that I should type her name into Google Scholar and it turned out that she has wrote a few essays about Pokemon and Japanese Culture in General and this webpage details her work and what she is doing in more detail.

The URL for the page is:

http://fds.duke.edu/db/aas/CA/faculty/anne.allison

So I am going to list these details down on my research bar so that I can give credit to the essay and use it further in my research.

Stardust Speedway 043 - Reading List (Game On - The History and Culture of Video Games by Various Authors)

Recently I have been looking more at the culture of videogames and I have found a few good books on the subject which I found on Ebay for not much money. The first book is called Game On: The History and Culture of Video Games and is more a collection of individual book/journal entrys about various aspects of video games and has been a good read so far.

Some journal entrys which have been highlighted for this project was one about Pokemon wrote by Masuyama (First name not given) but I am note sure if it will become a valid contribution yet so will put it on here for now anywhey.

Stardust Speedway 042 - DIGRA and IDGA Research Sites

Well; I have been looking on the internet over the last few days as well as being sent a few links which I will be researching over the next few days.

The links are DiGRA (Digital Games Research Association) and IGDA (International Games Development Association).

The one problem that I have had during my research was that there was not enough official journals/websites in which I could back up my research/writing with so I hope this will be the first step into finding some good infomation for my dissertation.

Stardust Speedway 041 - More games for the pile (Red Faction)

Well; I have been looking for a second video game title which I can add to my research which can examine possible Communist themes within Video Games which will be used as a flipside argument to the Capitalist based games I have been researching such as Sonic the Hedgehog and the Pokemon franchise.

So the next title within my research series is going to be Red Faction on the Play Station 2. I have been looking at these titles for a long time and I think I have found enough examples for it to be a valid contribution to my research.

I have also found some documentation on red Fraction and will be adding this to the research table on the side of the blog later today; the only problem I have now is to find a copy for the Playstation 2 which will work. Fingers Crossed.

Stardust Speedway 040 - Quick Heads Up for Tomorrow

I just wanted to give a quick heads up about what changes I am going to do for my research this afternoon when I get back from Uni. As my second meeting is tomorrow and I want to show Tamara the changes I have done within my Research So far. I am going to be trimming the fat so to speak and get rid of anything that I will not need for my dissertation within the foreseeable future.

Also I am going to write my new plan of study which has changed a bit from the original so I will post that on here for people to read also.

I hope people will like the changes I will do this afternoon and see where this project goes next.

Stardust Speedway 039 - Advanced Research Lecture and New Research Items

Well; it has been a long time since I have wrote a proper update on the blog, so I wanted to tell people how the research is going at the moment.

Well today, I went to the Advanced Research Skills session in the Adelphi Library and was very informative. They showed me how to access not only Athens which I was already using but other services and also the fact that as the Manchester Univeristys are part of NWEL I could go into any number of different university Librarys and look at their material as well which can be a real advantage to us doing this research.

I have also been reading a lot of The Gamer's Quarter at the moment and I have found a lot of useful supplements within them, which I will be updating to the blog over the next few days, so hope you can read my opinions of them.

So there will be more posts within the next few days to update my research and I will be altering the layout of the blog a bit more as well to make it easier to read so I hope you will enjoy that too.

Stardust Speedway 038 - I Choose You, Pokemon Blue

I have been thinking about this for a long time and when researching other Dissertations within the Library; I have found out something.

There are no Dissertation projects within the Uni Library that feature a singe game series as their subject; if the author wanted to cover one subject they would look at several examples from their research and look at the examples from them; so from now on I am not going to look exclusively at Sonic the Hedgehog titles, but it would be the main call for video game based research as I have the most research for this series.

But for the latest entry; I have decided to go back to my gaming roots and replay one of my favourite game ever; Pokemon Blue. This is a classic example of Video Game capitalism and should be a good example to use within the project.

Stardust Speedway 037 - Researching More Video Game Titles

While I have been looking at other possible research titles for the project; I have found 2 that I am going to notedown on the blog that I think would be a good example of capitalist themes within other video games.

So here are the 2 that I have thought of so far:-

The Final Fantasy Series - Now I have been thinking of this for a while while playing a few of the older games in the series; but the idea of this does come back Everytime I play my current title (Final Fantasy 9), but the whole Idea of this game is to go through an adventure and gather items along your quest which would help you reach your goal.

Now if I use Final Fantasy 8 for an example; the main characters in the players party can pay to have their weapons fixed and upgraded via the use of the scrapyard feature which is gained when you collect the guardian Force (Summon in other FF games) Doomtrain which negates the point of the game as you can pay the game to upgrade your characters for you so the player does not have to go through the usual grind of levelling up your character.

Also the player can steal items and even additional GF summons (including the most powerful EDEN) from other characters and enemy characters as well to use for their own purpose and to create more victorys which in turn would create more GIL for them to spend.

Katamari Series - Now I am not going to highlight one title imparticular because they are all basically the same and have the same mechanics; but it is a worthy note to make.

The aim of the game is to create new planets/stars/islands for the king of the cosmos by using a small ball and rolling items into it and making it slowly bigger as you collect more and slightly larger items within the particular level; you would have a small target to reach within the time limit and the more you roll, the more items you will get at the end of the level.

The more points; you get the more items you unlock within the game itself. So the more items you take within the level and turn into a planet/star/island for the king; the more you would get back in return.

I have found a few essays to back up this argument already; so they will be followed on the blog soon; but I will play these titles again over the weekend and see if their a valid contribution to the project.

Stardust Speedway 036 - Wave 2 Research: Journals and Other Odditys

Well; I have done some initial Wave 2 research over the last few days which started with me doing a small Brainstorm within my notebook and has now developed into a small list of research documents which is a good start for the project.

Now it would have taken too long to do a seperate blog entry for each item like I have been doing as normal; so I am going to accumulate all this research in this single entry. So I hope you enjoy and look at these as well:-

Journals - One thing that my tutor Tamara said would be good to look at would be some more journals which would look at the current world of the subjects I am looking at for this project; so I have found four which could be interesting including Game Studies, Loading, Game Culture and Eludamos. But I am also going to look at The Gamer's Quarter as well; which I have been reading since Year 2.

Blogs - Now I have been using blogs for under a year and I find them to be a great source of personal views for all of the different subjects that I will cover; so I am going to look at blogs in my research as well. This will be including the Guardian's own Game Culture Blog which I didn't know existed until half an hour ago of writing this entry so its more of a bonus.

Documentary's and More Films - When looking at films and some potential documentarys that I could be using; I found one about Capitalism that is being created by Michael Moore which will be great to watch if released over here. Might have to watch it online. I have also considered including more films in the research including the excellent King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters which is about two Donkey Kong players trying to out play each other and achieve the highest score possible; which could be good research to contribute to the writing.

So that is what I have found so far; and I am going to research it all now and see if there is anything that I can use

Stardust Speedway 035 - Reading List (The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels)

Well; due to advice by my Tutor Tamara; I have been looking at both the culture surrounding the subjects my Dissertation is based on and also looking at the flipsides of the arguments as well.

So the next entry in the Reading list and the start of Wave 2 of my research is by reading the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Now this document was the birth of the entire Communism party when it was first written and published in 1848 so is the most ideal document to read when looking at the flipside/counter argument to Capitalism.

So I am going to sit back and read this now while doing some more research

Stardust Speedway 034 - Dissertation Meeting Feedback and Wave 2 Incoming

Well; this morning was the first Dissertation meeting this morning with my Dissertation tutor, Tamara and overall everything went well.

I showed her my current version of my research plan, which is at Version 1.1 and she liked the look of it so far; but needs a bit of re-arranging about and further research like looking at more broader topics within the gaming and real world. She also suggested looking at more Journals as well.

So from this post onward; the first wave of research has been completed and I am going to move onto Wave 2.

I have had a few ideas on the way home from Uni this afternoon ranging from sub-researching Communism to provide a contrast the capitalism which would include looking at further figureheads such as Karl Marx and his inclusion of the Communist Manifesto and looking at gaming journals such as The Gamer's Quarter (Where is Issue 9?) to look at the culture of videogames as well.

So here we go again and prepare for a large change to the blog and lets see where we go within the Research world this time

Stardust Speedway 033 - Plan of Study (Version 1.0)

Well; this has been tinkered with a lot over the course of the day; but I am finally happy with the document and decided to share it with readers of the Blog.

This is the proposed Plan of Study and will be changed during the course of the project's development; but it is a start anywhey.

The file can be found at the following URL:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/mljfoxmjfvz/Stardust Speedway - Plan Of Study (Version 1.0).pdf