SOSN E01 - Mark Sorrell - Actually It's About Ethics & Heuristics In Gaming

Something Old Something New

The first episode of Something Old Something New, a new podcast from Hannah Nicklin. Using the old western wedding rhyme as a formal construct off which to hang a conversation with interesting folk she knows from the realms of games, performance, criticism, writing, and the spaces in between these things. In each episode Hannah will invite the interviewee to talk about cultural phenomena/artefacts of interest/important to them: Something Old (that has been with them for a while); Something New (recently discovered); Something Borrowed (stolen or recommended to them); Something YOU are working on (what are they making right now?). This first episode features Mark Sorrell - who at the time of interview was a freelance consultant in the area of free-to-play games. Free-to-play games are often a bogey man in the world of fringe and contemporary game design, but as ever, the reality is always less clear-cut and more complicated than the consensus allows. Here, Hannah and Mark discuss some of the means by which games attempt to play with and engineer human behaviour, and what the ethics of doing so might be. It should also be said that these are the opinions of Mark Sorrell roughly 18 months ago, when this audio was recorded. Mark now works for Rovio Games (and by all accounts is doing excellent work there) and therefore the views expressed here definitely don't represent the views of an employer, who wasn't even employing when the views were expressed. Thanks to Hannah's Patreon backers for supporting the ongoing making of the podcast, plus zines and articles about games. If you'd like to join their merry band of folk, donate monthly (from $1) at http://patreon.com/hannahnicklin @hannahnicklin @sorrell Music by the peerless Daniel J Harvey of internet misanthrope extraordinaires Olympians. @onwardolympians on Twitter. Buy their music at https://olympians.bandcamp.com/