Media Magazine Article Summary

Playing the Future – The Rise and Rise of Online Gaming
Seb Emina
February 2003


This article focuses on how far technology has come, especially the Internet.

The Internet has come a long way and is used in more than computers now days. And technology is still changing and evolving, updating constantly with new products and services available and new applications for the Internet to be used with.

But, as far as the owners of that Internet café are concerned, my ‘traditional’ Internet usage habits mean I am already becoming part of an old-fashioned minority. Using the Internet for reading? How 2001! Floppy disks? How 1997! In fact, most of the computers in this and every other Australian Internet café I seem to visit have already been dedicated to something else entirely: the playing of video games...

Brand new technology can be out dated in a matter of years, with a bigger and better replacement. For example in the passage above, floppy disks have been replaced with any from CDs and DVDs to memory sticks and external hard drives.

The Internet is not just for research and reading articles, it has numerous other uses including gaming. Online gaming is a booming community with hundreds of games available to be played online with or against friends. One of the excitements of playing online, the writer of the article claimed, was that you don't know who you are actually playing against,

Imagine! When I take down an enemy sniper, it could be being controlled by Britney Spears. Or Prince Harry. You’d never know…

But even broadband now days will not be fast enough to carry the vast amounts of data needed to be playing games in 10s of maybe even several years time. And the two top of game gaming companies Sony and Microsoft will have to compete hard to be promoting products and making profits. They will have to offer more services and better features to keep attracting customers to their products over their rivals.

6. The Future

The future of gaming at the moment looks bright but necessarily orange. Obvious things we know will be able in the future will be faster internet connections enabling multiplayer games to consist of many more users than is possible to today. Bigger storage devices and more advanced GPUs (Graphics processing units) means better graphics and more objects being able to interact with each other adding a new definition to the realism. However some things being developed are more surprising but equally as exciting.

For example, the piece of kit called Neurosky. What’s that I hear you ask? Well give me a moment and I’ll explain. Anyway, Neurosky is a “super-futuristic” piece of kit, which on completion I am so getting. Below is a video outlining what the Neurosky headset is, what it does and shows it in action.



This is basically how it works:


You concentrate hard on lifting an object in the game; the chip in the headset reads this info via the brainwaves and sends a signal to the algorithms of the headset. They translate it to something the game can understand and your action happens in game. Pretty amazing if you ask me! As stated in the video this can be used for more than just gaming. Another practical use is to help NASA with experiments in space and helping the elderly with mind controlled wheelchairs. This will benefit everyone and I think is extremely impressive. The only issue is, how much is something like that going to cost? Or more importantly how many years will have to wait before I can avoid one?

As I’ve stated graphics are getting better and recently with games like Crysis, the graphics are almost photorealistic. This really adds more realism to the game and turns it into a new experience for gaming. I should know, I have Crysis, and it’s awesome!

Here are some screenshots I’ve taken myself:

Click to enlarge them.










This is a screenshot from a downloadable tech demo released by the Nvidia Corporation, who makes graphics cards. This human head is completely computer graphics, but looks almost real! Click the picture to enlarge.



Here also is an interesting article about Will Wright, creator of Sims, and his new game Spore. This article focuses on how customizable the game is and Will speaks about his views on the future of gaming. Click here to view it.

Case study feedback #2

Well done Sam - this is focus and well informed research. I like the approach of separating it out into the 5 key areas for research. Once you have done those, I strongly suggest you look out for more articles on current debates - PS3, Blueray, Second Life and other online gaming issues. Also - think about how although the gaming experience for players is improving in terms of functionality and graphics, what about the cost? A digital divide? The current console 'war' has created winners and losers in terms of HD DVD and Blueray too... Think aobut the moral panics...

Keep it up!
CF

4. Counter-Argument and 5. Issues

There is however a more sinister side to all this joy gaming seems to bring. I have mentioned Second Life a few times now, for various good reasons. I have also mentioned it’s a growing community. I haven’t yet mentioned its size though. The virtual world is big, and by that I mean enormous. It’s so huge that policing the entire world would be almost impossible especially with new members joining constantly and the world expanding. So due to these difficulties issues due slip through and can go unfound for ages. An example of this is what’s called Wonderland a place for child paedophiles to “hang out” in second life. The video below goes into more detail.



Another important issue in the counter-argument is the fact that too many people are spending too much time gaming and not doing enough other activities. This can lead to body neglect, social retardation and obesity. There have been reported cases where people have played addicting games like World of Warcraft for hours on end, forgotten to feed pets, haven't moved to go to the toilet and even died from continuous playing with no breaks. Obviously with sensible playing and breaks these issues can be avoided.

Link to article about a similar death due to WoW can be found here.

Violence is another key issue in gaming. The connection between violence and gaming has always been strong in the papers. Many stories have been reported of incidents that have happened, for example people shooting people or killing themselves accidentally depicting what they saw in a video game. Several cases have gone to court and many cases though have failed to establish the link between gaming and the incident, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Games such as Mortal Kombat, Doom, Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt have been criticised for having excessive violence, crime, sexual content or drug abuse in them. Manhunt was in fact banned from several countries including the UK because,

Unrelenting focus on stalking and brutal slaying

The British Board of Film Classification said.

There is sustained and cumulative casual sadism in the way in which these killings are committed

BBFC director David Cooke.

It is also thought the game inspired a guy of 17 to murder another boy in Leeds in 2004.

More information can be found here and here.

3. Audience

Audiences are being able to become less passive and be more interactive with the games they consume. Gaming is becoming a more personal experience with the ability to customize in game characters, or avatars, design and constructing objects for the game, making tracks, the list goes on. Games like Second Life for example are encouraging the audience to become more creative in their approach to the 3d virtual world. This in turn is also forcing the companies to be more creative with their advertising and marketing campaigns, for example guerrilla/viral marketing as seen in the previous post.

This interactivity with games has lead to many different things. For example, machinima, which are movies filmed inside a video game. An example called Combine Nation made using Valve’s Half Life 2 can be seen below. A comedy about patrol officers in city 17.



Here are some statistics about who is actually playing games:

Click any of the pictures below to enlarge them.

• 75% of heads of households play video games
• Average age of a gamer is 30

• With 19% still playing when over 50
• 55% of gamers are males
• The average number of years adult gamers have been playing is 12
• 53% of gamers expect to be playing video games 10 years from now



• 47% of most frequent gamers play computer and video games with friends.

However game players do spend time doing other activities too:

• 79% of game players of all ages report exercising or playing sports an average of 20 hours a month.
• 93% of game players report reading books or daily newspapers on a regular basis, while 62% consistently attend cultural events, such as concerts, museums, or the theatre.

2. Institutions

One method EA games has adapted to increase profit from games is to include dynamic advertisements in game. This basically means on billboards placed throughout the levels there are adverts for products from different companies. EA gets paid to host these adverts in the game thus increasing their profit from the game. An example of what this looks like in game can be seen below:


Sony, makers of the PSP, tried a viral market campaign to advertise their product. However it raised issues among the public and people at whom this advert was targeted. The advert consisted of kids using a PSP as several different objects including a skateboard, a paddle and an ice cream. These images were then spray painted on the side of buildings around various US cities.


People expressed their hate for them with their own graffiti on top.

Caption sprayed in this image reads,

Advertising directed at your counter-culture.

Read the whole article here.

Another article about another viral marketing scheme for the Sony’s PSP which received bad reception as well.

1. Technology

My chosen technology is gaming and the video game industry. I will be researching both consoles and PCs.

The technologies are marketed to the gaming crowd, ranging from casual gamers to hardcore gamers. The average age of a gamer is 30 years. Gamer marketing is aimed at both males and females as roughly 50% of each spend time gaming.

There are lots of companies that provide the gaming audience with games, as well as the companies that supply the games consoles. Some of the major businesses that publish games are EA, Activation, Nintendo, Ubisoft and Microsoft Game Studios, all which rank in the top 10 for publishing games. The three main companies that make games consoles (of this gen), are Microsoft who made the Xbox 360, Nintendo who made the Wii and Sony who have made the PS3. This differs with the PC as not one or more companies provide PCs, because they can be built by the user with parts from different companies.

Prices can range anywhere from £140 - £1500 depending on whether a console or PC is bought and which model/specification you decide to buy. The higher the price tag, the more extras you get. More hard drive space, wifi built in, better graphics card etc.



Gaming is a pull technology and is a cold media. This is because in many games there is a storyline to follow the player is allowed to go about it at their own pace and complete the objectives how they wish. Multiplayer games are a lot more interactive as the goals are less defined and every player is a user able to interact with the virtual world and players in the game. Games like Second Life take the cold media to the limits. The user in Second Life is literally able to do anything. Anything they can imagine they create, build and play with. Creations can be shared and even bought online. A booming community and network is being born from this game, and it is ever expanding.

Gaming is an old media and has been around since 1972 with the invention of the first games console, The Magnavox Odyssey. Few people know about the Odyssey (I didn’t till I started this research project) but it was the world’s first games console predating the more popular known Pong by 4 years. The games industry has however undergone rapid changes and transformation from 1972 to the present day. Games consoles and the games themselves are becoming more advanced, better looking but necessarily more fun to play. Some classic games are still fun too! There are now loads of different genres of gaming, a few example of these are FPS, RPG, MMORPG and RTS. With different styles of play to suit to different players.

Case Study Research - Hypothesis

Hypothesis

My issue was firstly, which is the best console on the market out of the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii or PC? All sides have many advantages and disadvantages over each other and this issue has been questioned by members of the gaming community many times. I expect to find that the Xbox 360 will be considered the best console overall as it's affordable, has a good games selection and has decent graphics. In my opinion though i think the PC is the best gaming console.

Googlezon

EPIC 2014 is a flash movie made which depicts what could possibly happen in the future. Googlezon is featured in the movie and this is a fictional company made from combining Google with Amazon. The story goes, Google invents Google Grid, “a universal platform that provides a functionally limitless amount of storage space and bandwidth to store and share media of all kinds.” and combines with Amazons “social recommendation engine” and “huge commercial infrastructure” to form Googlezon which in turn takes down Microsoft and the major news corporations like The Times, as they can’t compete. Googlezon then releases EPIC (Evolving Personalized Information Construct), a universal, personalized news submission and distribution system that is so popular it effectively puts the fourth estate out of business.


A possible insight to our future or a sensationalistic view on the future of the media?

Googlezon on Wikipedia

EPIC 2014 Animation and EPIC 2015 (an updated version)