If you played video games growing up, or play them now, you might want to check out this fantastic infographic detailing a family tree of video game controllers.
It's interesting to see how the dial-based controllers of the early days evolved into joysticks, and that these then fell from favor until the N64 had that little, but rarely-used joystick on the centre hull. It also seems like controllers from way back when called for more asymmetrical hand positioning.
I also feel that Sony has really nailed it with the PS3 controller. All the buttons are perfectly placed, and it just feels right in your hands.
To an extent Jens Schroeder, Campus Academic Coordinator at Qantm, sympathises with both.
“I think you’ll always get this contrast in any institution and admittedly I can sort of see where some of the students are coming from,” he says.
“During orientation I’m always trying to make clear to students that this is a pathway. Parents come in for open days and they ask, ‘will our children find a job?’ It’s a fair question. The spiel I give them is probably yes — if they work really hard, show the right attitude and entertain possibilities outside of the more hardcore side of things. You have to think outside the box — games for health, games that rehabilitate old people through dance mats! You know?
“A lot of the students still find it difficult to get used to the idea that they might not be working on the nextCall of Duty.”
You get the sense that Jens struggles with the naïveté of some students, the sense of entitlement.
“No one is waiting to recognise their inherent genius,” laughs Jens, “which is what I think a lot of students believe. One of the things I’m really trying to encourage is to get students to attend networking events — like the IGDA stuff. You ask them to attend, and you go there and it’s the same five people! I’m like really? Those are some of the basic skills you have to learn. That can be a little disheartening.
“Maybe it’s an age thing — some of them come directly out of high school. They just want to make games, they don’t realise the effort needed to succeed.”
A few weeks ago I was listening to a RadioLab podcast about Games. In this episode, hosts Robert Krulwich and Jad Abamrod spoke to Brian Christian, an author who recounted the story of the checkers craze of the 60s that culminated in the World Checkers Championship in 1963. Apparently. this championship was a series of 40 games between the world's two top players.
All 40 games ended in a draw. 21 of those 40 games were the exact same.
"Checkers had gotten to the point where there was a perfect game of checkers," Brian said as he discussed how the top players memorized previous games and knew the ideal countermove for the other player's moves. "This was rock bottom for the checkers community."
The name for this knowing of all the games, all the moves, is The Book.
Brian continues on the podcast to say that the same thing happens in chess, and that there is an equivalent book (actually a computer program called "Fritz" these ays) of every chess game played by grandmasters for the past few hundred years. Although there are way, way more variations, there are occasions where two grandmasters will play the exact same game that has been played years before. Nowadays, the first 20 moves or so in major chess games are totally by The Book: the two players playing moves that they've memorized, just like their checkers predecessors.
To chess enthusiasts, the most exciting part (and true brilliance) is when players go off The Book: that moment when they make a move that hasn't been done before in the history of recorded chess.
When I first started my career 5 years ago, there were no best practices for social media. There were no case studies. Everything was new. Everything we did was off the book.
Now it seems that everyone is staying on the book. Facebook brand pages are almost cookie-cutter copies of each other. Pitch emails to bloggers feel about as personal and special as a Hallmark card.
I still think there is a ton of opportunity to go off the book. I just worry that we're too concerned with playing that perfect game.
If you played video games growing up, or play them now, you might want to check out this fantastic infographic detailing a family tree of video game controllers.
