Recorded on May 21, 2013 with Brian Fife, James Fingal and Thomas Westberg. Brian, Jim, and Tom discuss their plans to put the show on hold for a while. Jim is taking a road trip (follow that here) and Brian’s got a new baby in the house. W

Game Theory 19: Streamlining

May 22nd, 2013 53m 52s

Recorded on May 21, 2013 with Brian Fife, James Fingal and Thomas Westberg. Streamlining - the way the sequels of a game, or games in a genre are re-worked to be simpler, easier - sometimes even with a dramatically transformed core mechanic -

Game Theory 18: Marketing

Mar 27th, 2013 59m 46s

Recorded on March 26th, 2013 with Brian Fife, James Fingal and Thomas Westberg. Now that video games are big business - perhaps bigger than movies - they have advertising and promotional budgets to match. It is common to see video games promo

Game Theory 17: (Anti) Social

Mar 12th, 2013 51m 54s

Recorded on March 11, 2013 with Brian Fife, James Fingal and Thomas Westberg. Online games purportedly exist to bring us together and create memorable communal experiences. Few mainstream games actively cultivate positive interactions among t

Game Theory 16: Sex and Violence

Feb 21st, 2013 1h 4m

Recorded on February 20th, 2013 with Brian Fife, James Fingal and Thomas Westberg.Examples of sex and violence in video games are often trotted out as the root cause of many of society’s ills. Stepping away from the drama, are video games mat

Game Theory 15: Design Innovation

Feb 12th, 2013 1h

Recorded on February 11th with Brian Fife, James Fingal and Thomas Westberg. This is not the oft-promised indie episode - it is something much better! When thinking about what he liked about indie games, Jim realized the aspect that he wanted

Game Theory 14: Distribution

Jan 22nd, 2013 1h 2m

Recorded on January 21st, 2013 with Brian Fife, James Fingal and Thomas Westberg.Tom runs through a brief history of video game distribution, starting with arcade consoles and ending with digital distribution stores. A number of trends are id

Game Theory 13: Game of the Year

Jan 8th, 2013 45m 20s

Recorded on January 7th, 2013 with Brian Fife, James Fingal, and Thomas Westberg. Jim, Brian and Tom start the new year with new audio equipment, a stack of new games to play and a summary of the top/memorable games of 2012. When forced to

Game Theory 12: Museum Piece

Dec 11th, 2012 1h 2m

Recorded on December 10th, 2012 with Brian Fife, James Fingal and Thomas Westberg. Recently, MoMA announced their plans to show a collection of video games in 2013. The challenges of collecting and showing video games are discussed, and Jim

Game Theory 11: Wikification

Nov 22nd, 2012 51m 45s

Recorded on November 21st, 2012 with Brian Fife, James Fingal and Thomas Westberg.We’ve seen a dramatic shift in the way games are supported on the internet. Early on, gaming guides and magazines, as well as the occasional online FAQ or spoil

Game Theory 10: Hardware

Nov 8th, 2012 1h 3m

Recorded on November 7th, 2012 with Brian Fife, James Fingal and Thomas Westberg.Incremental improvements in game hardware (faster processing speed, more colors/pixels, etc.) are inevitable each generation, but generally don’t enable new game

Game Theory 9: Loot

Oct 12th, 2012 34m 59s

Recorded on October 11, 2012 with Brian Fife, James Fingal and Thomas Westberg.Many games treat loot as another facet of levelling with different mechanics. Jim, Brian and Tom all have issues with the way that loot mechanics appear to be evol

Game Theory 8: Levels

Sep 21st, 2012 1h 11m

Recorded on September 29, 2012 with Brian Fife, James Fingal and Thomas Westberg.In the post MMO-RPG world, we tend to make a lot of assumptions about what leveling is and how characters develop as they level, but there’s a lot of diversity i

Game Theory 7: Fairness

Sep 13th, 2012 1h 1m

Recorded on September 12, 2012 with Brian Fife, James Fingal and Thomas Westberg.Fairness is slippery and it can be hard to find a definition that most players in a game share. Brian, Tom and Jim all agree that the perception of unfairness do

Game Theory 6: Free to Play

Aug 29th, 2012 1h 9m

Recorded on August 28, 2012 with Brian Fife, James Fingal and Thomas Westberg.The group tries to avoid talking about Farmville-type games unsuccessfully, and eventually pulls the focus around to the new wave of F2P games, converted MMOs like

Game Theory 5: Grind

Aug 9th, 2012 44m 11s

Recorded on August 8th with Brian Fife, James Fingal, Thomas Westberg and the crickets in Brian’s basement. Brian, Jim and Tom talk about grind. Grind is eventually defined as time or effort that isn’t enjoyable, that must be spent in a game

Game Theory 4: Early Arcade Games

Jul 26th, 2012 56m 13s

Recorded on July 25th with Brian Fife, James Fingal and Thomas Westberg. Tom talks about early arcade games, starting with Spacewar! and ending with Donkey Kong. Jim describes his present-day arcade experiences.Brian asks the group about ga

Game Theory 3: Quality and Value

Jul 17th, 2012 46m 1s

Recorded on July 16th, 2012 with Brian Fife, James Fingal, and Thomas Westberg. Tom, Brian and Jim talk about the Steam Summer Sale and how the Hunger games is similar to Special Ops: The Line.Jim drove the main topic for discussion - Quali

Game Theory 2: Suspension of Disbelief

Jul 6th, 2012 1h 4m

Recorded on July 5th, 2012 with Brian Fife, James Fingal, and Thomas Westberg.Story-driven games and degrees of freedom in games are covered. Is a choose your own adventure interactive story really a “game”? How about puzzle games that are he

Game Theory 1: Introductions

Jun 27th, 2012 1h 26m

Recorded on June 26th, 2012 with Brian Fife, James Fingal, and Thomas Westberg.Brian, Jim and Tom talk about beloved games and give some general background on their goals and interests regarding games. They each provide the following backgrou

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