ICS 60 • Summer Session II 2011 • Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences • UC Irvine
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ICS 60: Computer Games and Society
— ESSAY 1: GAMES AS PLAYED SYSTEMS —

Assignment Prompt

Write a critique of a single computer or video game, discussing how a person plays the game and how the game "holds" the player (in the sense used by Turkle). How does a player get drawn into the game? How does that game motivate the player to keep playing it?

Your essay should give a brief introduction to the game you are critiquing, including the name of the game, the publisher, and the year of release. It should then give specific examples analyzing how that game exerts holding power over a player.

Characteristics of a Good Critique

• The writing is understandable, engaging, and professional.
• The essay makes a clear argument (thesis) and uses specific examples of the relationship between the game, the concept of "holding power," and other topics of the class.
• The essay succinctly describes the game--with enough detail so it can be understood by someone who has never played before, but focused more on aspects of the game that are relevant to the argument.
• The argument answers the "so what" of particular elements of the game.
• The author writes as neither a salesperson nor a fan, but as an academic scholar.

Formatting

Your essay should be around 800 words in length. Please use a standard, business-like font, size 10 or 12 pt. At the top of the paper, include your name and UCInetID. Including a title for the essay is optional (but recommended!). You may include any images you deem necessary.

Your essay should not have footnotes or a references section. If you quote one of the readings, use the format (Turkle 1995) to cite it in text. If you refer to another work (which is not required but is welcome), cite it in text using a format similar to (Ross, J., 2011, "Secrets of citing references", Journal of Made-Up Papers).

This essay is due at 5pm on Thurs Aug 11. It should be uploaded to the "Essay 1" DropBox on EEE in .pdf format. This essay is worth 20% of the course grade.

Scoring Rubric

Forthcoming...

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Joel Ross, jwross@uci.edu
Last Modified: 2011-07-18 4:25PM
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