Archive for the ‘casual games’ Category

Earlier today, my friend Richard Yum posted a Tweet saying that Starcraft 2 sold 3 million copies last month and that he “bet like 90% of those were sold in Korea.”

Its a smart bet for Richard if history is anything to go by. According to the infographic below, 50% of copies of the first Starcraft were sold to South Koreans, but that was ten-years ago. Since then, interest in the franchise has exploded:

I’ve never played Starcraft – how good is it?

-Parker

“Button” is a nice example of how games can be used to mentally stimulate people in order to keep them engaged in their mundane jobs.

The game is as simple as it gets: there is a button on the screen and when it lights you push it.

Explains Techcrunch:

Blank Software will choose random times to light the button up, and it will light up for every user around the world. And occasionally, they will randomly select one of the Button players and replace their regular button with a prize button. If they see and hit it, they’ll get the prize.

At first, there will be things like $20 gift cards, but eventually they may include larger prizes.

When the makers were testing the game out:

they began to notice feedback from testers mentioning that playing the game helped them with their normally mundane tasks at their jobs. The thought is that the effort required to open up and play Button on the iPhone was just enough brain stimulation to keep people engaged in whatever boring tasks they may be doing. Also, knowing a reward was possibly coming for pushing the button made it interesting to users.

Could this be the beginning of a trend of gaming at the workplace?

A game like Button would certainly enliven some dull cubicle jobs, especially if you connected it to something meaningful—not necessarily to the winning of prizes. But if you turned this game or something based on an equally simple premise into a contest between different parties within the same company you could spice things up a little.

Say playing is about keeping the company afloat or the game is tied to some fictional empire and by your actions you determine its future—against the guys from accounting or some branch office. I’m sure the distraction would be appreciated.

A company would just have to handle it in a way that doesn’t result in the whole thing getting too distracting. Keeping it as simple as possible is certainly a good idea in this regard—something Button surely excels in…

What do you think? Will games be used one day to enhance people’s engagement in their work?

-Jens

CNW Group "Newsmakers" Celebrate Winning the TMX Cup

Every year, CNW Group and a number of “top corporations from Bay Street’s financial, legal, technology and accounting sectors” competed in a Scrabble competition for a chance to win the TMX Cup. The competition is in support of Frontier College, an organization with the goal of helping people improve their literacy skills.

I was pleased to hear that on Wednesday, March 11th, the “Newsmakers,” a team representing my employer CNW Group, won the TMX Cup. I was pleased about this news, but not surprised. I’ve seen some of the CNW team play Scrabble before, and they’re pretty good. Reportedly one of the members on the team played the word “Footage” on a triple-word score for 98 points.

Great work, Newsmakers.

And congratulations to the other winners, as well as TMX Group and Frontier College for organizing another successful Scrabble contest.

In related news, Futility Closet reports that if you combine all 100 scrabble tiles you can spell:

COUNTRYMEN, I AM TO BURY, NOT EULOGIZE, CAESAR; IF EVIL LIVES ON, BEQUEATHING INJURY, GOOD OFT EXPIRES: A PALSIED, AWKWARD DEATH!

Right now, everyone’s attention is focused mainly on music piracy. That’s because people have figured out how to get music for free (or download it easily for a small price) for a long time. This is due to the fact that the average size of a song is only a few MBs, and an album is generally less than 100MB. Downloads are quick, and “piracy” so easy that it has become commonplace.

The reason that downloading isn’t as widespread for movies and television shows is because the files are so much bigger, and often greater knowledge of which media player to use is needed. Pretty much every audio track you are likely to download will play on your mp3 player, as well as on your computer somehow. It seems that few video files will play on a basic install of Quicktime or Windows Media Player, and that often additional plugins are needed (and yes, I’m sure that if you are reading this blog you know how to download and play movies easily on your computer – you aren’t the people I’m talking about).

However, I think that this will rapidly change. People will quickly realize how much media they can get via the computers and lawsuits like those initiated against file sharers by the major music labels might be directed at those sharing movies and television shows.

And that is why it is so refreshing to see the stance that some indie game developers are taking. Like the independent musicians before them that have managed to be successful while giving away their music for free, these developers can do the same.

“We’re all here because we love making games first and foremost,” said independent games developer Steve Swink, echoing similar statements from independent musicians that just want people to hear their music.

The quote is from an article on Techradar called Is Free Really The Future of Gaming? that looks at these issues from both the perspective of the smaller, independent developers like Wink as well as larger studios like Sony and EA.

The article also raises the question about whether or not advertising is really the solution to creating free medium. This applies to media besides games, and I’m inclined to think that advertising isn’t really the solution.

Rather, I think that companies will work more in tandem with game developers. The obvious example is of a car company working with a game company to create the virtual experience of driving the car. To move beyond this will be more difficult, but nobody said that business is easy. Similarly, I’ve been seeing more and more examples of corporations teaming up with musicians to essentially sponsor a song or album, and offer downloads of it for free as a way of promoting their product.

Games have also been using the add-on content model, in which the initial game experience is free but you can buy upgrades or customization for a price. With this model, they once again have something in common with musicians that have discovered they can give their basic music away for free and charge for scarcer goods like vinyl LPs or t-shirts. The game developers will just have to create demand for in-game goods in a similar way.

-Parker

A new $2-million citizen surveillance system installed along the Tex-Mex border has everything one can ask for: CCTV cameras, the internet, people sitting at home and catching Mexicans. That’s right, Virtual Stakeout’s webcams can be viewed online by anyone, turning alert viewers into “Virtual Deputies”.

As Kotaku rightfully points out, this project indeed sounds like a game. There’re rules – don’t let them get across – and there’s the artificial conflict: Mexicans vs the border, vs the wellfare state vs drug laws vs…

As they put it:

You sit there, you can the horizon, and if you spot someone trying to make a run across the border, you notify the authorities. So it’s like Pokemon Snap, then, only without the Pokemon. Mexican Snap, if you will.

They go on to explain:

It’s a joint operation between the Texas Border Sheriff’s Coalition and BlueServo, BlueServo being a budding …social networking site, who are helping foot the bill in exchange for the publicity.

Connecting people by having them chase others, what an awesome idea! What’s next? Ning groups getting created for the purpose of hunting Taliban? Xbox user collecting achievements by helping to catch gang members? The possibilities are endless!

-Jens

Parker directed my attention towards this short yet insightful post by Jenni Mac about how videogames appeal more and more to a female demographic:

[W]atching the report it was clear that this involvement is actually because of two very different reasons. Men enjoy the activity, the skill, and the challenge. Although some women do enjoy these aspects as well, by listening to the interviews and examining the information it is evident women are interested in video games for the same reason they are interested in many other activities, the social aspect. Women quoted enjoying talking about it, getting together with friends for parties to do it and talking to people through the video games. Therefore although women are getting involved it seems to reinforce the true nature of the differences between the genders instead of providing evidence to how they are becoming more “similar” as the report seemed to detail.

Jenni makes a very good point here – one that’s also proven by sales records: The Sims, a game whose development team consists of an equal mix of male and female staffers and whose parent company Maxis has a female general manager, sold more than 100 million copies in all its different instalments with almost 60% of its players being females. What is the game all about? Basically: Being social.

This could also explain why the non-casual genre that has the biggest percentage of female players is the MMO with self reported numbers of between 20-25% female audience. As a study by the Nottingham Trent University states:

MMORPGs were found to be highly socially interactive environments providing the opportunity to create strong friendships and emotional relationships. The study demonstrated that the social interactions in online gaming form a considerable element in the enjoyment of playing. The study showed MMORPGs can be extremely social games, with high percentages of gamers making life-long friends and partners. It was concluded that virtual gaming may allow players to express themselves in ways they may not feel comfortable doing in real life because of their appearance, gender, sexuality, and/or age.

And then of course there’s the Wii which more than any other console encouraged social play: There’re no entry barriers, enough content to appeal to a female demographic and sheer fun of getting together with a couple of friends in front of the TV (probably also one of the reasons why Nintendo neglects its online business). The result: Even after two years after the Wii’s release Nintendo still has trouble meeting demand.

Of course men also like to be connected, but this mostly happens within a very competitive framework; Halo or Call of Duty being a case in point (probably also one of the reasons why Microsoft looks so much after its online business).

Then there’s the uncanny hate/ disinterest for Nintendo’s “albino waggle box“ on the part of the traditional male hardcore crowd (“I haven’t touched my Wii in ages!“) not to mention the shame when buying casual games – apparently all these things offend male sensitivities and the traditional (male) technicity of the industry. But hey, what can we do? It’s all in our brains.

Allan Reiss, MD, and his colleagues have a pretty good idea why your husband or boyfriend can’t put down the Halo 3. In a first-of-its-kind imaging study, the Stanford University School of Medicine researchers have shown that the part of the brain that generates rewarding feelings is more activated in men than women during video-game play. (…)
The findings indicate, the researchers said, that successfully acquiring territory in a computer game format is more rewarding for men than for women. And Reiss, for one, isn’t surprised. “I think it’s fair to say that males tend to be more intrinsically territorial,” he said. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who historically are the conquerors and tyrants of our species-they’re the males.”

What about you? If you’re a female gamer, what games do you play and why?

-Jens

If you had a look at the Japanese sales charts lately you could get the impression that hardcore gaming is coming to an end in the land of the rising sun. Nintendo rules with an iron fist and it seems that it can only be a matter of months until the whole country owns a DS and/ or a Wii. Meanwhile, Xbox 360 sales are still a total disaster which when you think of the games for it, combined with some Americanised corporate ignorance, isn’t really much of a surprise. Also Europe doesn’t seem too impressed with Microsoft’s game culture. Actually the only market the 360 really appeals to is the action-obsessed US with its competitive culture. And even though Sony would like you to believe that if Jesus was a console he would be a Playstation 3, the great unwashed masses don’t seem to have gotten the message yet – sales just pretty much suck everywhere.
So what can be made of this?
It’s great to see that Nintendo is tapping a new audience with its approach and finally brings videogames to the mainstream. Which was about damn time considering that the industry had about 30 years for that. Male fantasies of bikini girls with machine guns are complimented with content (ed. note: What’s wrong with bikini girls and machine guns?). Also your girlfriend can enjoy the system, as the innovative Wii control scheme allows for intuitive and interesting concepts that don’t force you too learn the layout of a 16 button joypad by heart; cheaper development costs (potentially) mean more innovative and daring games. Sounds good, doesn’t it?
There are issues though. Will people stay interested in the casual games Nintendo offers? Is the five, ten minute distraction compelling enough to keep players coming back for more? Also: Can these games really innovate the medium? Maybe in being different when it comes to certain forms of content and in their control scheme. But it takes more to create something completely epic and new. Innovation is also always linked to new, more powerful technologies. More powerful graphics can make for a better narrative architecture, i.e. a powerful narrative with the help of an immersive environment. Superior calculating power can help to create a better A.I., an area that definitely needs improvement, holds huge promises and could potentially compel games to a new level.
Casual gaming is a step in the right direction and a necessary completion. It would a shame though if hardcore gaming completely disappeared or just played a minor rule because this would severely diminish chances of future epic masterpieces. So let’s hope Sony and Microsoft get their act together – you might not always like them (for very good reasons I might add!) but without them the future would be bleak.