Screenshot: A Weblog

It is a convenient coincidence that a number of interesting articles about different aspects of gaming and gaming culture have surfaced in time for the last week of my intersession course.

• Develop magazine recounts the stories of the ten biggest flops as games in the past decade - the reasons behind the failures are the most interesting part
• MSNBC reports that the size of certain portions of your brain predicts your ability at playing video games - an odd claim given that "video game" is a very broad category and I don't tend to think that there is a single set of skills that lead to success in all games, which is consistent with some of the details buried later in the article
• In good news for my students, learning how to create computer games can improve other student skills and can be effective in broadening interest in computing
• On the down side, they may find themselves at reduced risk for rickets if they play too much
• One game player muses on how to compute the value of a game based on a combination of cost, enjoyment and time spent playing it - seems to me there might need to be an exponential in there somewhere
• Besides describing a neat Project Natal game, 2 Finger Heroes, that is on the scrap heap, this article alludes to the problem of localization in games, in this case that gestures do not always translate across cultures
• Finally, if you think the life of a game developer seems like fun and games, take a look at this open letter from wives of Rockstar employees protesting their work situation - though be aware this is just one person's presentation of the situation; there is also an interesting implied gender to the developers at Rockstar in the letter

Posted by Amanda at 1:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

There are a lot of interesting angles to the possibility that Google is developing technology to detect billboards and other ads in Google Maps street view images and replace them with their own ads. This news is based on a patent application, so it may not even happen. But it raises the question of whether Google even wants to get into doctoring their images to such a degree. Blurring out a detail or removing an image is one thing, but if users know that what they see may not be reality, will they lose faith in the reliability of the system? Having the imposed ad integrate seamlessly with the image would probably be necessary for it to be effective, but I would personally prefer to be able to identify imposed content.

There actually seem to be a set of patent applications that the articles I have seen are talking about and merging the discussion of - one that automatically finds ads in images and one that manages auctions of advertising space. The image-processing patent (application number 20100004995) is quite long so I've only skimmed it, but I would be very interested if this were pursued on how exactly an advertisement was defined and if there was an intention to include a person in the loop to ensure that only actual advertising space was being treated as such. Near me there are giant "Welcome To Pennsylvania" (or West Virginia...) signs that could look like ads but which convey map information that ought not to be lost. Simply finding large rectangular details won't do it.

This also seems to raise the possibility that billboard advertisers will start acting like spammers, carefully crafting ads that both advertise and yet are missed by Google's algorithm. Google's online actions might end up changing the way our real-world advertising looks.

Posted by Amanda at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been playing a lot of games recently (but for work!) and I'm trying to be attentive to what makes me remember a game. Being a Tetris fan got me to check out First-Person Tetris, but I expected to find it gimmicky - when you rotate, the screen rotates around the piece instead of the other way around. But it ended up being a nice variation on the original that adds a small bit of extra complexity to a familiar game. It adds a single thing that complements the game play nicely, and executes it well. Unfortunately, after a few levels nausea can set in with the rotating screen, if you are prone to that sort of thing.

Posted by Amanda at 10:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)