I'm Sorry What? (project 1)

          I honestly had no idea where to take this project and I still feel a little off about the route I have taken, but I feel like this aspect of gaming really bothers me. It is nearly impossible to communicate with someone about anything if they are playing a game. At what point does the player get so far into a game that they are no longer communicating with anyone out side of the game? Does the game the player is playing change how quickly the person is consumed and lost from conversation?

I am working on a collection of dialogs. While one person plays the game another person, either on the phone or in person, tries to hold a normal conversation with the player. While trying to have a conversation with the player, the non-player is constantly typing up everything the gamer is saying, whether it be in response to the game or to the non-player. The gamer will be asked to explain things through out their playing time. The response, no matter how long it may take to say or how many times it is repeated, will be recorded as close to the actual as possible. In the beginning experiments the non-player has trouble recording because of their laughter. Below are a few recordings:

Day 1:

Player- I just got the new xbox360 kinect, this thing is awesome!

Non-player- really? That’s cool, what you been up to today?

Player- its got voice cammand, and its better than they play it off to be on the      commercials, commercials are terrible, they have no idea how to show how cool this thing is on tv! What you been up to today?

Non-player- (because the player is so into what is going on with the new console anything that the non player is saying is completely ignored and answered with a uh huh, yeah. At this point in the gaming the non player is not important and stupid for not participating in this joyous discovery)

            Player- It is like you are standing here doing your hand motions and you doing all the hand motions and it is like . . . Luke I am your father !

-Whoo !    Nooo !

-Trying to catch funnel cakes and eat funnel cakes and if you don’t hit it right and you knock off another funnel cake then you loose both of the points and it sucks !

-No one would ever have a game like this at a carnival. I mean seriously who would have this at a carnival. I would never eat one because I do not know what they really are best thing that I guess is that it is basically just eating powdered sugar.

-Nope nope (long pause) dangit ! nope. Damnit ! ahhhh ! they are all going to fall haha.

-Yesss ! haha I got 12 . . . 12 that is 162 points but I need 180 damnit ! so close with funnel cakes and it really is like a carnival you can’t win. You keep trying and you can’t win. What gets me is that you are not wasting money. Damnit. You cannot win!

Day 2:

Player-30 I have 30 tickets ! it is like gambling aka an addiction :p.

-Ahhhh ! 37 tickets whoo ho we are improving !

-What happens if I land on a skull.

-I think if you land on a skull you loose it all like it explodes whooo hooo . . . I should really go to bed . . .

-I got 100 tickets omg I got 100 tickets it doesn’t get any better I got 100 tickets !

-Haha this is ridiculous but so exciting . . . why is this so exciting. Again and again I landed on a 1

-ah man I am so screwed ah man

-what the heck I fell through a trap door. Oh ho wait a min if you loose you fall through a trap door and die this is ridiculous.

-Lucky spin . . . oh dear this monkey looks creepy.

-This really is a demented game if you loose you die let us put that in the paper damnit I just died . . . again.

-you still there?

In this on going study of player and non-player interaction I have so far concluded that the game takes over. Multitasking becomes difficult shortly after the game is started.  When a goal is in site and focus is required then communication with anything outside of the game is less likely to happen. I plan on continuing with this study to find out if the dialog with players and non-players changes when players become more familiar with the games.

In continuation with this I am going to start timing how long it takes to loose the player. What part of the game allows the player to return to conversation and slip away from conversation?

How long will the non-player hang around before becoming so frustrated that they give up on the conversation and either join in playing the game or leave the conversation completely (being it hanging up the phone or walking out of the room). I find this topic interesting and worth looking into further, also the dialog from the conversations is interesting to read over. It almost looks like two entirely different conversations that have no relation to one another at all.

Interesting things I have questioned about being related to such a topic would be:

Texting while driving, or being on a cell phone/ computer while conversing with someone. Also watching television when someone is talking to you, or playing with baby animals (puppies, kittens, or just babies) while someone is trying to be serious with you.

(would this be worth looking into to relate to the research?)