Video Game DiaryMany months ago I came across a book called,
"A Theory of Fun for Game Design", by Raph Koster. Koster, a game designer, provides some great philosophical insight as to why we play games and how developers have catered to these needs. At one point he describes how video games satisfy emotional and entertainment desires on four different levels, and this struck me personally by making me think about the games that I own and why I enjoy (or don't enjoy) playing them.
I came up with a list of all of the games I have owned over the years (with some margin of error, since I tried to include games that I no longer physically have in my possession because I either lost them or traded them in). This gave birth to a data visualization project where I assigned each game one or more of Koster's traits and, in doing so, personally rationalized why I chose to play each game. With the big picture in place, my aim was to hopefully convey, visually, the idea of changing trends in my taste in video games, and the kinds of games that were popular at the time. Each game is represented by a pixelated shape with a number of squares that corresponds with the number of traits it has. Over time, two- and three-squared shapes would come to dominate over single squares as games generally became more complex.
Right now it is really nothing more than a laundry list of titles. I want to eventually create a personal encyclopedia out of it, recording notes about each game and possibly including sounds from each of these games to add another level of progress through time. I would also like to figure out a way to allow users to rearrange the squares according to a variety of variables, such as chronological order or worldwide sales, which would produce interesting results in the shape of this data map. Ultimately, it becomes one gamer's personal experience that can be shared with other gamers across the world.
It would be great to get feedback on this on all levels, theoretical, technical, or visual. It is definitely something that can be expanded upon almost indefinitely, and something that I will continue to work on until I grow too old to play video games. The day I die, that is.