As in a real, live, location. A building, if you will.
What is this about? Click here and ask yourself which god(s) of stupidity made me forget to cross-post that CitizenSE post here. But hey, everything happens for a reason, etc. etc. Instead of a cross-post, I have something much, much better.
Video from the Virtual Goods Summit 2007 at Stanford University. Watch it all. I haven't--yet--but Sloucho has.
Sloucho, you'll recall, is the guy too busy to blog here about some of the material we never quite got around to doing together as a ground-breaking video games studies book back in the early aughts--mostly due to mutual slackerdom. Well, since then he's straightened up and appears to be flying right. His Fantasy Football writing gig has been supplemented by a third job toiling away in Everquest 2's platinum mines. His first job? Oh, he was just named Professor of the Year there. I'm totally serious. Things are going his way. And coming. Watch the video and try to figure out how he's making more per month on his third job than I am on my first.
So my point in mentioning all this is that we don't just have a site but also potential sponsors and a stellar line-up for the video game studies summer camp idea you all were too lazy to click and read about up there in my first link. Go do it now, so you'll appreciate what I'm about to do next.
Site: Cameron University's Center for Emerging Technology and Entrepreneurial Studies.
Sponsors: Click on the link, for starters. Feel free to suggest more (or self-nominate) in comments.
Line-Up (other professor-coach types than Sloucho and me): Dave Lester. Rob MacDougall. Timothy Burke. Kathleen Fitzpatrick.
OK, so they haven't officially confirmed. Heck, some of them don't even know yet that they're being recruited, or are doing a damn good impression of it. Only others we let in are close personal friends or those whose friend(s) already in can wangle a majority vote among those already in for them.
Seriously, this is going to be big. I can't believe no one has done this already. How do you patent this? Or is that trademark? Yeesh, maybe we can bring somebody in who knows something about intellectual property. Between the 2 of us, we ought to know someone.
Yeah, I said Lawton, OK, in summer 2009. You got a problem with that? Sloucho has to take advantage of his summers to do most of the heavy lifting directing an Honors Program there, so no travelling road show until we finish beta testing it on his home turf.
OK, anyone else who wants in can leave a comment or drop me a line at my super-secret bloggy email address (or any of my others--impress me with your fab research skills)....
Please excuse my tone. When I was talking about all this with the Full Metal Archivist yesterday evening, onechan came over, listened in for awhile, and interjected, "why are you laughing like a monster from Pretty Cure, daddy?" No, my laugh had nothing to do with the Powerpuff Girls CD playing rather loudly in the background. It's the possibility of never having to teach a summer course again and still being able to send both my girls to any college they want.
Curious?
[Update 3/26/08: Bill Benzon shares an article on the social networking pros of video game play. Thanks, Bill!]
2 comments:
Sounds like a fun idea. It might be neat to think about partnering with a boys and girls club or a rec center or something. Then you get a set of kids and space to run the program. I would also hazard to guess that companies would be more likely to donate systems and games if there is a clear social mission and a partnership with an existing kids outreach organization. It would also give a quicker route to scaling up.
Trevor Owens (I work with Dave at CHNM)
Hmm, I was thinking of the selling out route myself: in exchange for use of equipment, games in beta, and developers, the companies would get focus group feedback, relatively inexpensive advertising, and other kinds of direct benefits to their bottom line.
Basketball camps are a moneymaking venture, a way for poorly-paid assistant coaches to stay in the business while the famous coach who runs it supplements his salary and reputation. That's my original model.
However, I guess we could consider, for tax purposes and of course because it's the right thing to do, doing a non-capitalist version. And it might even be a better way of starting off, like you suggest. That would have to be something we'd discuss.... Whoever "we" turn out to be!
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