GAMING MODS

A BR I E

F VI E

W ON T

H E PL A Y E R C

R E A T E D WO R L D

THE VELVET LIGHT TRAP

This is an article from a magazine from the University of Texas press, and it talks a lot about the huge community built up around the Star Craft franchised by Blizzard. It talks a little about the back history of the game as well as going into how people are still creating mod’s and revamps, even though the game came out in 1998, and he talks about how the success of the game lead to gamers within the community becoming celebrities in their own right.

LEARNING THROUGH GAME MODDING

This article is about how games can be created and manipulated so easily in todays market via engine creation tools and modification methods, and also about how they can be used to help teach students about computer science, mathematics, physics and other such core game making mechanics that may otherwise go un-noticed

IS GAME MODDING USEFUL

This is an article talking about how games modding stands up in a job standing, ie is it as credible as someone who has studied in C++ and 3ds max, or is it just a substrate of games design that is rather a hobby activity rather a serious games creation tool; just using peoples work and altering it.

WHEN THE GAME IS NOT ENOUGH: MOTIVATIONS AND PRACTICES AMONG COMPUTER GAME MODDING CULTUREThis talks about how the culture started, how modding was first popularised

and how people go about modding, such as programmes and methods without going into too much detail

REPURPOSING A RECREATIONAL GAME AS A SERIOUS SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION

This article is about the effects of using a very typical, recreational game such as Super Mario Bros. and changing the language to use it as a language teaching tool, and whether it would be an effective learning tool or would it not work.

SOURCES

1. Derek Johnson, StarCraft Fan Craft: Game Mods, Ownership, and Totally Incomplete Conversions (http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/vlt/summary/v064/64.johnson.html)

2. Mage Seif El-Nasr and Brain K. Smith, Learning through game modding (http://dl.acm.org.lcproxy.shu.ac.uk/citation.cfm?doid=1111293.1111301)

3. Alisair Wallis, Is Modding Useful? (http://www.lexisnexis.com.lcproxy.shu.ac.uk/uk/nexis/auth/bridge.do?rand=0.867961124796526)

4. Olli Sotamaa, When the Game Is Not Enough: Motivations and Practices Among Computer Game Modding Culture (http://gac.sagepub.com/content/5/3/239.short)

5. Yolanda A. Rankin and Marcus W. Shute, Re-purposing a recreational video game as a serious game for second language acquisition (http://www.igi-global.com/viewtitlesample.aspx?id=41073)