Making Arcade-Only Indie Games for a Withdrawn World - Nikita Mikros | grokludo 23

Game Economics, Player Interdependence, & the Oxytocin Opportunity - Ramin Shokrizade | grokludo 27

Over 20 years ago, CCP Games released EVE Online, a massively multiplayer space game, promising huge fleet battles, and an open, player-controlled economy. But within months, that economy was headed for disaster. This week's guest is Ramin Shokrizade, who later wrote about recommending an economic intervention that saved EVE Online. That story was later picked up by evangelists for Georgist economic theory, these are the writings of Henry George, who mainly talked about land tax, and held up as an example of proof that Georgist theory is correct. This has become almost a piece of internet lore, where certain communities quote Ramin's recommendations as a success for Georgism. What I had never seen before, is Ramin's take on that.  We'll get that take today, and talk the open economies games used to have, before they were controlled by publishers. Ramin has also written about the benefits of oxytocin, and dangers of excessive dopamine targetting, and I've actually been looking for someone to speak on this, especially because of some recent research which we'll get into later. Enjoy!

Playing Empire Games With Descendants of the Colonised - Mary Flanagan | grokludo 26

What do we talk about when we talk about 4X? We think about abstract systems, resource management, efficiency, growth... But what about all the invisible things that go along with eXploitation, and eXtermination? Mary Flanagan is a game designer, and academic, and the author of Playing Oppression: The Legacy of Conquest and Empire in Colonialist Board Games. The book looks at the history of board games and how they encoded the values of the time and place they were in. From ancient games, through to the explosion of complex strategy systems and 4X. For those unfamiliar, 4X is a subgenre that typically involves large colonial empires. The 4 Xs are Explore, Expand, Exploit, and Exterminate. In the fantasy of the game, we play the decider, not just moving resources around for efficiency, but also deciding the fate of those crushed under the boot of empire.  To better understand the other side of the story part of Mary's research involved sitting down and playing these games with descendants of the people who've been exploited and exterminated.  4X games are fun, I love them, they scratch that efficiency and optimisation part of my brain. This isn't about saying they're bad, or that players are incapable of separating games from life. It's just good to take a step back sometimes and analyse the underlying assumptions of things. And, a large part of our Western civilisation, and indeed its values, are built on the flawed concepts of terra nullius, might makes right, and always being ashamed of the last colonial project, while denying the current one. Mary joins us to talk about how these values are encoded in our games. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Find Mary's book, Playing Oppression, here: https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5547/Playing-OppressionThe-Legacy-of-Conquest-and Find Mary's games, including Monarch, here: https://resonym.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- Get grokludo in your inbox at grokludo.com, or catch it on the big podcast platforms! I always write a bit more on the grokludo website: https://grokludo.com/ YouTube Playlist: youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3cxb6pzUE9Z7PXjIVbmr5qiohoq5wTdo Follow on X: https://x.com/TheJunglist Follow on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/thejunglist.bsky.social Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6GMbpa2aTZi8dBa0VVbsU1 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/grokludo/id1736667050

The Strategy to Stop Killing Games in the EU - Ross Scott | grokludo 25

Ross Scott is the face of the Stop Killing Games movement, which seeks to ensure games don't completely die when a developer or publisher ends support, but rather, there's an end of life plan in place that makes it reasonably playable -- after which, a compliant gamemaker has no more liability.  Following a massive petition campaign in the EU, Ross recently spoke at an EU parliament hearing, in which many in the room were positive about the movement. It's possible that policy around not killing games will be included in the EU's upcoming Digital Fairness Act, expected to be formally proposed later this year. After that point, the EU parliament and Council can make amendments, and there's sure to be some industry lobbying. Ross Scott joins us this week to talk about the strategies of navigating EU politics, the discourse around the movement, and some of the more technical concerns, such as games that rely on middleware and 3rd party services, each with their own distribution licences. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Get grokludo in your inbox at grokludo.com, or catch it on the big podcast platforms! I always write a bit more on the grokludo website: https://grokludo.com/ YouTube Playlist: youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3cxb6pzUE9Z7PXjIVbmr5qiohoq5wTdo Follow on X: https://x.com/TheJunglist Follow on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/thejunglist.bsky.social Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6GMbpa2aTZi8dBa0VVbsU1 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/grokludo/id1736667050

ADHD, Dopamine, and Rats Pushing Levers - Clinton White | grokludo 24

There's no doubt that the modern world is very different to the one we evolved to thrive in. But that mismatch might be more pronounced for the neurodivergent mind. Dr Clinton White has an upcoming book, Fast Mind, Slow World, which expands on the theory that at the group level, it was evolutionarily advantageous to have a small proportion of the group as neurodivergent. Whether that be ADHD, level 1 autistic, or whatever. But modern life has different demands. How do those with abnormal attention fare in the attention economy? That includes games and loot boxes, but also social media, and everything else. Clinton joins us today to talk about the ADHD brain, dopamine seeking, and more. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Get grokludo in your inbox at grokludo.com, or catch it on the big podcast platforms! I always write a bit more on the grokludo website: https://grokludo.com/ YouTube: youtube.com/@TheJunglist YouTube Playlist: youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3cxb6pzUE9Z7PXjIVbmr5qiohoq5wTdo Follow on X: https://x.com/TheJunglist Follow on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/thejunglist.bsky.social Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6GMbpa2aTZi8dBa0VVbsU1 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/grokludo/id1736667050

Making Arcade-Only Indie Games for a Withdrawn World - Nikita Mikros | grokludo 23

Nikita Mikros is an indie developer that decided to focus on arcade games. And I don't mean arcade-style games on PC and console -- I mean physical arcade cabinets. His most famous game is undoubtedly Killer Queen, a 5-on-5 arcade cabinet with retro pixel art graphics, in which your bees have three win conditions to defeat the other team's bees.  Killer Queen is a sensation, and it's been called the revival of arcade... It's only two dollars for all ten people to play at once, which has built a strong culture of people bringing in others. It's easy to shout a whole group. And it's spawned a dedicated esports scene as well. Nikita joins grokludo to talk about Killer Queen, game design in general, and some of the new projects he's working on.