Radiotelecomando » Gaming

Community of Million Gamers – Online Gaming Communities

admin — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 18:22:54 +0000

Are online gaming communities the new members’ clubs or will the next generation of online gamers will be lacking any social skill who cannot recognize a three dimensional object even if it falls on his head? Looking at some of today’s online games shows that despite all the gloomy prophecies, virtual games create a new, bigger, world-wider form of communities based on human interaction.

One of the most ancient and common claims against online gaming was directed towards its anti social nature. Internet opponents saw online gaming as the community enemy, which causes people to prefer the solitary act of playing internet games over taking part in more traditional types of social activities such as playing sports games, visiting the local bingo hall, etc.

However, the growth and the development of online games, made this claim a little bit irrelevant. About ten years of broadband internet access proves the opposite: online gaming is a social activity by nature. From classic card, board, puzzle, and sports games to massive multi player online games (Second life, World of Warcraft, etc), online games are nothing but isolated and/or antisocial.

Let’s take online backgammon for example. Backgammon, the ancient board game, was traditionally played in backgammon clubs as a one-and-one game or a tournament. Backgammon rules used to be spread around in the old fashioned viral marketing – by word of mouth.

But what would do a small town backgammon player who has no backgammon clubs nearby? Online gaming solved this dilemma. The largest online backgammon rooms host hundreds of thousands of players who can practice backgammon games against each other, chat with one another, discuss game tactics and strategy, share information, gossip and do whatever members of community do when gather together.

Another game that proves the importance of the social aspect in today’s online games is Second Life. The relatively new game has become a phenomenon. Although defined as a game, Second Life had shed all traditional characteristics of a game: it has no rules, no strategy and no actual competition or goal.

Instead, Second Life players, excuse me, residents, can keep themselves occupied in various social activities including buying and selling stuff, throwing parties or being invited to ones, exhibiting art objects or visiting art exhibits and involve in other life like behaviors. At the same time they can make new friends and/or foes and experience the entire scope of human emotions towards one another.

These were only two extreme examples â the classic board game turns virtual and the embodiment of the cyberpunk authors’ visions. However, online gaming communities are far richer. Online gaming communities can be based on a shared interest in a certain game or on the abstract idea of interaction. Either way, the basic need in human communication did not pass from the world with 3D web technologies.

Saul Rivers is a new media expert who covers the online gaming industry and related topics. Rivers contributes articles to various skill gaming websites including online billiard, chess and backgammon sites such as http://www.play65.com, for example.

Classic Gaming

admin — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:23:05 +0000

PC gaming is doomed. No, really, it’s going to I cop it any day now. In fact, it may even have expired by the time you read this introduction. After all, people have been predicting its demise for 20 years now – it’s all piracy this, expensive hardware that, niche appeal this, compatibility problems that… Oh, shuddup. PC gaming isn’t going anywhere.

The platform’s infinitely adaptable, it’s hand-in-hand with the rise of casual, ad-supported and subscription-based games, and it’s got a back catalogue several hundred orders of magnitude huger than any other gaming system. In terms of that incredible back catalogue, the PC’s currently undergoing two very important changes that may rescue it from the impotence of dusty floppy disks and pop-up-infected abandonware sites.

First, PC gamers’ values are changing – the audience is moving away from graphics-hungry teenagers and into a breed that’s more prepared to judge a game on its less superficial merits. In short, a game consisting of 320×240 pixels, each the size of a baby’s fist, no longer causes quite so many people to scoff dismissively at it. Secondly, digital distribution services – notably Valve’s Steam and the great-in-the-States-but-crap-over-here Gametap – are gradually adding classic games to their online stores – legal, free from floppy disks, and dirt-cheap. A slight spot of whimsy and a few dollars is all it takes to enjoy yesterday’s finest.

While it’s early days for this, things can only get better. On Steam alone, the last few months have seen the rediscovery of ancient treasures such as the earliest Wolfenstein, Unreal, Doom and GTA games. The past is indeed another country – but, when it comes to old PC games, lately we’re talking more Isle of Man than North Korea.

Until these electro-stores are fully stocked, plenty of options remain to locate your desired fragment of yesterday – eBay, second-hand stores, free fan remakes and (mumble) bittorrent (mumble) abandonware (mumble), for instance. Somewhat sadly, old PC games don’t seem to retain much value, even for mint-condition boxes. I’d be lucky to get a hundred bucks for one of my proudest possessions, my still-sealed copy of Dungeon Keeper.

Still, that’s great news for buyers. But where to start? Over 20 years of PC gaming is an impossibly large subject, so how we’re going to approach it is by breaking it into key genres (albeit composited ones) and looking at the games which defined them, or alternatively took it to interesting places that have been sadly left unexplored since. The obvious names – yer Dooms and C&Cs – will go unspoken in favor of games you’re less likely to have played. For the sake of argument, history began in 1987 – a year that saw, among other epochal events, the dawn of VGA and its wondrous 640×480, 256-color pixels, LucasArts defined point’n'click adventure games with Manioc Mansion and the first real-time 3D RPG, Dungeon Master.

To start at the most obvious – but, in some ways, least interesting – point, let’s talk action games. The earliest first-person-shooter was 1973’s Maze War, but it was id software’s 1991 fantasy shooter Catacomb 3D that really birthed the form as we know it. Until then, we didn’t even get an onscreen hand reinforcing the sense that the player was the game’s character. From that came Wolfenstein 3D and Doom and – well, you know the rest. Its the point between then and now that contains lost wonders.

Hidden Treasure

1994’s Marathon is a fine example. One of the earliest games by future Halo creator Bungle, though this didn’t prove a runaway success on PC, it was one of the first post-Doom FPS games to introduce elements beyond repeatedly shooting monsters in the face. Friendly Al characters, alternate fire modes, co-op play, swimming and, particularly, a strong layered plot (which was a major inspiration for System Shock and Halo, among others) made it an altogether more grown-up affair than other Doom-a-likes. Though its superior sequel Durandol was the only Marathon game to see an official Windows release, Bungee now offers free versions of all three instalments’ Mac versions, which fans duly ported to PC. Download links and a setup guide lurk at www.calormen.com/mwd.htm.

Skip ahead to the second half of the 1990s and 3D-accelerated gaming is in full swing. There were a great many ways to kill pretend things – including expertly-adapted licensed fare such as 1999’s Aliens versus Predator and 1997’s Star Wars: Jedi Knight 1998’s Thief The Dark Project, from the dearly-missed Looking Glass Studios (the key members of which went on to form Ion Storm, the developer behind Deus Ex), was a revelation in such violent climes. Essentially, the design document for the subsequent decade of stealth games – count Splinter Cell, Hitman and Assassin’s Creed among its followers – murder took a distinct backseat to using the environment to create your own non-linear path through the game.

Playing a character poorly suited to direct combat, using shadow and sound to avoid beef cake enemies, and emphasizing the need for patience and attentiveness over reflex gives Thief a pounding tension few games have touched. On top of that, it’s about unified design and atmosphere to create a sense of place and menace, whereas so many of its peers contented themselves with a jumble-sale muddle of second-hand sci-fi ideas. If you’re spitting like a bucktoothed viper at the idea of 1998 polgyons, direct your ocular organs to modetwo.net/darkmod/, where there’s an ongoing project to remake Thief in the shadowtastic Doom 3 engine – they released a demo version not long ago. One of the most interesting areas of PC gaming is the crossover point from FPS into other genres. System Shock 2 and Deus Ex are the best-known examples of introducing roleplaying elements – tailoring the character to your own tastes, managing inventories, handing choice of action and path to the player – into a real-time action environment, but point your mind earlier than that. Another Looking Glass effort, the 1992’s Ultima Underworld, offered a genuine 3D world (an early build of which was id’s ‘inspiration’ for Wolfenstein 3D) and first-person-perspective monster-stabbing augmented by RPG trappings and non-linear exploration.

Most recently, the likes of Oblivion and S.T.A.L.K.E.R owe a great debt to UU and its sole sequel, but fans feel it’s never been done better. Make your own mind up with one of the various remakes at tinyurl.com/3yzvz8.

Genre Splicing

Two years later, the first System Shock was doing things with environmental interaction – stacking boxes to form a ladder to higher places, for instance – that most games don’t offer even now. While you’ll need to have your own moral dilemma about whether or not you should download the so-called ‘abandonware’ version of Shock, it is worth mentioning that there’s a near-complete fan project that makes it run happily under modern Windowses and with improved graphics at tinyurl.com/2sc5n9. Or, if you want an absurdly violent, foul-mouthed alternative to these more cerebral FPS+ wonders, 1999’s Quake 2-powered Kingpin: Life Of Crime sported branching dialogue, the buying and selling of weapons and recruitable NPC companions alongside its granny-baiting blood ‘n’ maiming.

For RPGs themselves, well, there’s a wealth. No platform has ever done roleplaying as well as the PC. With Fallout3 due later this year from the makers of Oblivion, now’s the time to play the first two post-apocalyptic open-worlders. They’re turn-based, which makes combat a tactical matter of how you’ve developed your character’s abilities and the best way to approach a situation, rather than how fast you can click fire. Most of all, it offers choice – how your character behaves, who his allies and enemies are, and the reputation he has with the game’s populace. It’s also vicious, funny and still the aesthetic benchmark for any game set on a scorched Earth.

More traditional fantasy roleplaying is best served by Ultima VII, the best of the long-running series that earned Richard Garriot his name, and one with which Looking Glass/Ion Storm big fish Warren Spector was heavily involved. As with the Fallout games, there’s little need to stick to the straight and narrow here – this is roleplaying that encompasses morality, not simply whether you fight with a sword or a bow. It’s also a world in which you can interact with almost anything in the game – whether it’s to craft your own food or weapons, or just strumming away on an unclaimed lute. The presentation may be crude, but modern RPGs generally lag far behind it in most other respects. It’s another game whose fans are battling to keep it alive – while you’ll need to track down the original game files yourself, the Exult engine (exult.sourceforge.net) will make ‘em run tickety-boo on your new-fangled modern operating system.

Another semi-free-form RPG milestone is 1993’s Betrayal at Krone/or (whose creators later went on to create the Tribes series), which blends first-person exploration with third-person fighting – and handily it’s available for free from www.alt-tab.net.While it doesn’t offer the freedom of a Fallout or Ultimo VII, arguably the aged RPG to play if you haven’t is 1999’s Planescape: Torment. A beautifully-written tale of guilt, identity and atonement that’ll tear your heart out, stamp on it repeatedly then roughly shove it back inside your shattered ribcage, this is a game about words more than deeds. Around 800,000 of ‘em. There’s nothing else quite like Planescape, and it’s the staple of any discussion about gaming narrative.

Stepping sideways into strategy, again you’ve got Battlezone combining FPS, RTS and military sim, or the absolutely, awe-inspiringly unique Sacrifice (example spell:’bovine intervention’) boldly mixing action, roleplaying, comedy and a thousand new ideas-a-minute in alongside more familiar real-time strategy tropes. Both threw down experimental gauntlets no-one else dared to pick up. On the more tactical side of the coin is Syndicate, from gone-but-not-forgotten British uber-developer Bullfrog – a still gloriously immoral real-time squad tactics game that makes GTA look like Theme Park.

Peter Molyneux’s been muttering about reviving Syndicate’s satirical dystopia of corporate oppression and violence, but until (if ever) that happens, there’s a fan remake in the works, which the first level now complete, at freesynd.sourceforge.net.

Strat Attack

More conventional RTS nostalgia is perhaps best served by Starcraft – still the template for ultra-balanced multiplayer strategizing with distinct playable races, not just differently-colored clones of each other – and Dune 2, the father of commanding and conquering, and even today surprisingly way ahead in terms of offering a convincing narrative explanation for resource-collection and perma-war. There’s an impressive free remake of the latter at d2tm.duneii.com. Another one to look up is 2000’s Ground Control, one of very few RTS games to ditch resource management in favor of using your cunning to blow up tanks with a fixed retinue. Its sequel was miserably generic, but did have one thing going for it – the original game was released for free to promote it. Grab it from tinyurl.com/38wt7.

It would be remiss of us to mention turn-based strategy without bringing up Sid Meier, but frankly the recent Civilization 4’s good enough, or you can dabble with FreeCiv (freeciv.wikia.com), for a less accessible but simpler game more in keeping with the original Civ. But what you should really do is play 1994’s Colonization, a Civ sequel that centers solely on conquest of the New World. While Civ tries to encompass everything, and logic is gradually eroded over time even as complexity snowballs, Colonization is utterly focused. You’ve a single goal – win independence from your mother nation, and the journey to that is a fascinating arc of scrabbling out a few pennies from trade or conquest, building up to self-sufficiency and finally to all-out war. Why Sid hasn’t revisited Colonization is a mystery.

The curious no-man’s land between strategy and management gaming is occupied by Dungeon Keeper, another Bullfrog game. The central gimmick-you play the bad guy, an unseen lord of the underworld raising a bestial army to fend off do-gooder heroes – is a little too panto to pay off, but what it’s really got going for it is that you’re trying to impose order onto chaos. Your monsters either don’t want or are too stupid to be managed, underground cave systems aren’t suited to logical architecture, and your most powerful unit, the Horned Reaper, will just as happily slay your own troops as he will the enemy’s. It’s a juggling act, only the balls are on fire, someone keeps throwing rocks at you and you’ve only got one hand.

A thousand dusty treats go unmentioned. For adventure gaming, eschew the more obvious Monkey Island/Sam 6- Max fare and nose at the branching options of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, the heartstring-tugging of The Longest Journey, the fiendish puzzles and oh-so-French wit of Gobliins 2, or the artful grimness and wealth of choices of Blade Runner. Less earthly pursuits, meanwhile, are best exemplified by TIE Fighter’s coolly wicked space simming, Privateer’s open-universe exploring ‘n’ fighting VT trading or Stunt Island’s fusion of set piece dare devilling and proto-movie-editing.

If there’s one undisputed must-play from the annals of PC gaming though, X-COM is it. First game UFO: Enemy Unknown remains the best of the series, but sterling sequel Terror From The Deep can be had for a few dollars from Steam. Famed for its artful juggling of global strategizing (building and upgrading bases to track alien invasions, and research new weapons to defeat ‘em), astoundingly tense turn-based squad combat and gentle roleplaying, nothing’s come close to X-COM, though many have tried.

It’s the nexus of all PC gaming, a super-smart meeting point of action, strategy, RPG, management that promised a future of constant creativity, but instead we saw one that splintered into feature-creep variations on each of those single themes. Only now, with the new surge of indie gaming exploring places big-budget studios fear to tread, are we seeing a return to the inventiveness of early 1990s PC gaming. Go remind yourself quite how incredible a time it was.

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Machinima – Gaming And Flimmaking Converge

admin — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:26:52 +0000

This word is a combination of the terms ‘machine’ and ‘cinema’ and it was created to describe an intriguing artistic form developed by computer gamers that also happen to be a new form of “modder”. For years, modders have been adapting the structure of computer games – usually a first person “shooters” – to build new “levels.” Most of these games are broken into sequences; what modders have been doing is devising their own level or “maps” that are, in essence, additional game content, presenting the player with new obstacles and new interactions with the villains.
With machinima, these technicians have taken the process several steps further. They have dismantled the game’s apparatus completely and utilized it to build movies, TV shows and other creative video presentations. The video material is driven by the game’s 3D engines and, of necessity, features many of the characters within it. These characters, however, can be provided with a voice overdub and manipulated in their on-screen movements so that their game persona is completely altered.
Endless Possibility
One machinima created from the Interplanetary shoot-out Halo has been converted into a talk show with weekly segments. The special effects are harnessed to create new actions for the characters and their personalities are defined by the voice-over, as provided by the amateur film maker who has assembled the pieces of this video art. Action sequences can be created that are completely different from anything in the game; it’s the characters, the backgrounds, and the inventory of potential movements that remain the same.
To a perverse, creative mind the possibilities are endless. Rather than creating a small bolt-on addition to the game, they have utilized the game’s artwork and technology for completely original productions. The product can then be edited to videotape for a conventional film or, more commonly, distributed digitally. The practice eliminates the need for expensive animation machines and studios for potential movie makers. You can be a backyard film maker and simply upload your completed project for tens of thousands of viewers. If it’s well done, the recognition will be quick and meaningful. To those who remember the early days of the web when it was ruled by anarchists, this practice must be a touch of nostalgia.
Machinima: Find It!
The art form has progressed to the point where there is an annual festival that shows films created with the technology. Emmy winning animators are experimenting with the technology and producing products worthy of presentation- and awards – at film festivals. Others have produced music videos using game characters instead of musicians for the video sequences.
Describing Machinima can be difficult, and seeing it for yourself is the best way to understand it. There is a website dedicated to the format at machinima.com which has many of the better and well known productions available for download. There is also a lot of commentary on the state of the art, so to speak, along with production promotions. There is an entire set of “game channels,” consisting of machinima productions originating from a single game. In recognition of machinima as a legitimate emerging art form, there are also two national advertisers on the home page. Ads for voice actors and announcement of film premiers – it has all the trappings of a rapidly maturing niche in the film industry.

Madison Lockwood is a customer relations associate, specializing in small business development, for Apollo Hosting. Apollo Hosting provides website hosting, ecommerce hosting, vps hosting, and web design services to a wide range of customers.

Will Physics be the Next Big Thing in Pc Gaming?

admin — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:42:52 +0000

Realism has been a driving force behind gaming, but games themselves are nothing without the hardware they run on. Without graphics cards we would not be able to experience the immersive virtual worlds we have been spoiled with. There is however a problem with realism; its very resource intensive.

The more game developers try to create more realistic worlds the more current technology is pushed to its limit. If you ask average Joe what realism in gaming is all about they would probably tell you about the graphics, but any gamer knows graphics are nothing if the world they render is skin deep. This is where physics comes into play. Physics have been present in games in some form since the start. Take Pong for example; two paddles on each side of the screen bounce a ball between them, if the ball lands at a certain angle with the paddle going at a certain speed then the resulting bounce will be relative to those variables.

Physics is actually a lot simpler than any explanation can make it, the simplest way to describe how game physics should work is by looking at the real world. This is what game developers have been doing for years; trying to bring real world to the virtual.

Cry Havok

There are two elements to game physics; namely the hardware and the engine. There are two main physics engines at present, these are Havok and PhysX. Havok’s physics engine is unsurprisingly designed by Havok, it was first released back in 2000 and is currently on its 6th version which was released in August 2008. Havok has been used in over 200 game titles; these include Company of Heroes, Soul Calibur IV, and the upcoming StarCraft II and Diablo III. Havok is released to developers (after they pay a license fee of course) as a Software Development Kit also known as an SDK. This SDK allows developers to use the engine in all aspects of their game that require physics. Havok physics is in fact such a successful engine that it has been integrated into the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP Nintendo Wii, and the Xbox 360.

Havok’s success has been due to its easy implementation not only by game designers but also by movie studios. Havok proudly lists on its site a few on the movies that the Havok physic SDK has been used on, this list includes 10.000BC, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Troy. Havok also quotes on their site the numerous compliments that its engines have received from some of the major development studios. These studios include LucasArts, Bungie Studios, Bethesda Studios, Midway, and Irrational Games.

The competition to Havok is PhysX. PhysX was the start of all the physics commotion. Ageia burst onto the scene touting their new hardware and engine as the greatest thing since sliced bread, unfortunately some people believed them. Not long after the launch of the Ageia PhysX card and the accompanying SDK in 2006 game developers quickly started incorporating the engine into their games.

One of the most notable games at the time was Tom Clancy’s Advanced Warfighter. Ironically Havok claimed that Warfighter used the Havok engine. While Havok was not hardware dependent and therefore could run on any system configuration, PhysX was proprietary and therefore coded to run on specific hardware, namely the Ageia PhysX card. In the beginning the hardware was the Ageia PhysX card but since Nvidia’s buy out of Ageia all CUDA enabled Nvidia graphics cards are capable of utilizing the PhysX SDK. A few gentlemen on the internet have however hacked drivers and have gotten PhysX to run on a couple of HD4870’s.

PhysX has an impressive list of titles under its belt but before the take-over by Nvidia there was very little reason to warrant the purchase of an expensive Physics Processing Unit (PPU). The frame rate hit in the beginning was a shock to some, but after a few tweaks there was new hope for the foundling tech. Unfortunately in the long run, a frame rate boost was too little too late and hardly the point of the PPU, namely to provide more interaction in the virtual world without any performance degradation.

Since the acquisition of Ageia by Nvidia there has been hope for those who wanted a PPU and were unable to afford one. Nvidia released CUDA, which takes advantage of the unified architecture of the 8-series and all subsequent series GPUs and allows the system to use the processing capabilities of the GPU in a more general application such as physics. This approach turns the GPU into a GPGPU (GenerahPurpose processing on Graphics Processing Unit). What this basically means is that if you have a few clock cycles to spare then why not throw some more calculations at the GPU and score a more realistic environment because of it. That would be the Utopian idea, however the facts are that if you want PhysX to work on your Nvidia GPU then you best have at least two of them.

AMD, the swing vote…

With the acquisition of Ageia by Nvidia and Havok by Intel, AMD was left to decide which side it wanted to fight on and in this case they chose the devil they knew. It seems that AMD prefer Havok even though Nvidia made PhysX an open standard in March 2008. While AMD has its own SDK available this is more for its own FireStream cards which are not targeted at the consumer market but rather high performance computing sectors such as medical and finance.

AMD and Intel have been working on improved implementations of Havok on the hardware level; this alone should be a statement of epic proportions. Does Nvidia’s PhysX really stand a chance if both of the largest microprocessor manufacturers are supporting the competition? AMD’s decision to stick with Havok is probably due to Havok’s maturity as an engine, and that it was more ‘open’ than PhysX, which kept in line with AMD’s market strategy. AMD has said that it sees no reason to switch to PhysX at this point but as true to form they didn’t deny the future potential.

Newton’s four horsemen

The simulation of real world Newtonian physics is a partnership between hardware and software. While the SDKs and APIs can pass the information onto the hardware, the hardware itself must be capable of handling the immense calculations required to provide this realism factor. In the world of physics hardware there are four options; namely: Ageia, Nvidia, AMD, and Intel. Ageia is now redundant thanks to Nvidia, who AMD are copying while Intel is reinventing the wheel.

An interesting state of affairs when considering that Havok is for now limited to CPUs. Fear not though for as you read this, very smart people are punching away at their keyboards, hammering out code that will move current Havok calculations from the CPU to the GPU changing the landscape once again and justifying AMD working so closely with the Havok team.

So where does Intel fall into the picture? Well the answer is two-fold. Firstly as owners of Havok they benefit from AMD’s interest and support, having a major GPU player supporting your software is just the kind of support that a company needs when their competition is in a similar situation. AMD GPUs are present in two of the three major gaming consoles. It is this pressure that might see developers adopt Havok instead of PhysX.

Larrabee all that you can be

Intel’s upcoming GPU, Larrabee is rumored to be the next big thing in GPU design. Intel has designed Larrabee from the ground up to be a GPU based on the x86 instruction set. What this means is instead of simplistic stream processors found in current GPUs, Larrabee will be hypothetically 8, 16 or 32 CPU cores speculatively based on the new Core 17 fab process. These CPU cores are all based on the old Pentium design and even though they have been updated to support x86-64 are unable to achieve out-of-order execution. Since these are CPU cores they would require an entirely new approach to graphics meaning that while GPUs are trying to be CPUs, the opposite is also taking place. Larrabee is based on x86 CPUs. This will make the transition for Havok a lot smoother as it currently works on the same platform. Intel has hinted that Larrabee will be capable of the absurdly illusive art of real-time Ray Tracing amongst others, something GPUs have never been powerful enough to achieve. Details are still sketchy but the graphics world is holding its breath to see if a multi-core CPU can be a GPU and if so, what API it would use.

Long story short, if they get it right, Intel will have the hardware capable of doing physics calculations and thanks to their acquisition of Havok they will be laughing all the way to the bank if Larrabee is launched capable of GPU and PPU tasks.

How will the Apple Fall?

Things are not as cut and dry as they appear. Information is sketchy regarding some deals but it seems that AMD could have also adopted PhysX. The challenge that developers face is whether they should code for Havok or PhysX; this little choice could spell disaster for both. Some speculate that developers could start calling for Microsoft to write a physics API into DirectX because supporting a single universal API is easier than supporting two. An API war could see one side, or even both, making their API fully open in an attempt to lure developers and make it a standard.

This sort of competition is good for consumers in the long run but unfortunately will leave early adopters cursing if it doesn’t go in their favor. Whichever way you slice it, physics is still young, and like graphics of old, requires time to mature. Hopefully in a year or two the future of physics will be a clear path and consumers can spend their hard earned money on technology that they can actually use.

Scavenger Hunt Gaming and Corporate Team Building in Philadelphia

admin — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:49:57 +0000

Scavenger Hunting is catching on with how some corporate execs think would help their staff bond, work together and find each other’s strengths in the city of brotherly love. A private treasure hunt for an afternoon outing involves some legwork, riddle solving and the combination of unique skills and brain power.
Scavenger hunting within the city of Philadelphia can hinge on a variety of unique themes. For instance a hunt to-do question list can bring hunters wandering the old neighborhood of Philly, touching on such landmarks like the Liberty Bell, and from there walking on to Carpenter’s Hall (the meeting place for the first Continental Congress).
Any hunt can be done either inside or out, on foot or in a vehicle (hunting via Limo is not unheard of).
Scavenger Hunting and how it Foster’s Team Building
The scavenger hunt is more than just a game; it involves the interaction of the group as a whole. The Hunt questions do not center on a specific task where one person may be better. For instance, someone who is good at history of Philadelphia will not necessarily have an advantage or scene steal from the rest. The questions are varied enough to touch on many different skill sets. One could be trivia based, another could include a hidden anagram or a word may allude to a dual meaning that unlocks to reveal the answer, something tongue and cheek so to speak.
Team building in Philadelphia with a scavenger hunt provides great fodder for game questions and also helps the corporate team learn some things about themselves and other. The corporation and workers reap social rewards such as:
- How to be more relaxed, and laugh care free
- Build teamwork and not feel forced
- Build history between each other to look back with fondness and something to talk about in the future
- Know more about the city and surroundings of Philadelphia
- Have a great excuse to meet up afterward for drinks and lively chat
Some Big Names in Industry Used Scavenger Hunts
Corporations across the nation are using team building: Philadelphia to LA some CEOs have raved about the experience. CEO of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos was quoted saying “I can’t think of a better way to bring people together and have fun.”
There are names like Microsoft, BASF and Apple that have also been known to use this as a get away for their teams.
It is important that the emcees get it right during when they organize and explain the hunt. For a good hunt the emcee needs to psyche them up while informing. If you are looking for an organization that will help with your team building in Philadelphia effort, check their background to see what past experiences they’ve had.

Art Gib writes for Watson Adventures (http://www.watsonadventures.com/philadelphia.html) who organize and arrange scavenger hunts both public and private. They have specific private hunts such as team building in Philadelphia hunts that tour renowned city districts and museums.

ARG Gaming: Reality Entertainment Guest Starring You

admin — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:16:13 +0000

ARG gaming, or Alternate Reality Gaming, has been around for some time but has not reached much fanfare until recently. ARGs interact with the player directly and usually involves an array of entertainment mediums. The game is an interactive narrative that uses both virtual and real world interaction to play.
During play you are searching for clues with many other group members. The story planner, called the “Puppetmaster,” will plant the clues for players to find. By example, one could be on the computer searching a website then stumble upon a clue, such as a phone number, that is out of place or peculiar on the site.
Calling the phone number could result in a live person on the other end, who is an NPC (non-playing character), who can give them a narrative with a riddle or another clue to follow that might lead them to search newspaper advertisements or other websites for answers to start another clue search, and so on a so forth. Players often help each other in an online forum, pooling their thoughts to solve each enigma or riddle.
The other two terms that should be known by the player is “the Curtain” and “TINAG” (This Is Not A Game). The Curtain is simply a metaphorical term referring to the separation of the players from the Puppetmaster (a little allusion to OZ working the controls behind the curtain while scaring Dorothy and her friends). TINAG is simply an attitude that many players want to adhere to, an attitude that the game is “real” so maintain that seriousness.
ARG Becomes Big Business
The sheer spirit of the game, although popular, has not found a direct means of gaining revenue. There have been a few launchings of pay-to-play ARG games, but they haven’t really caught on with this traditional style of marketing.
However, by clever means of promotion television has caught on to the ARG experience and intertwined this with advertisers. Just as clues can lead you to view different locations, site pages, newspapers and other media, they can also lead to product placement and online traffic.
A good example of this was the recent “The Fallen Alternate Reality Game” conceived by Matt Wolf. This game coincided with ABC Family’s show “The Fallen” as a means to promote the TV movie series. The game brings players through sites that include clues to help players solve the game, while at the same time dropping brand names and links to vendor pages. These vendors pay add revenue for placement, while the game players, who number in the thousands, gave them plenty of traffic.
The Fallen game was a landmark achievement that won an Emmy for Matt Wolf and his team in 2007. In his Emmy Speech, Matt Wolf describes during the proposal with ABC Family how, after his “mad scientist” story board explanation of the ARG design, most studios would have walked away from the idea, but they instead stayed with it. This may mark a shift in creative direction for TVs future after an Emmy success with a large production group achieving a hit.

Art Gib writes for D20 (http://www.d20.com/matt-wolf.html) creators of interactive entertainment and content for a variety of platforms. Matt Wolf, former executive director at Sega Entertainment, founded D20 to break new gaming ideals using multi-platform interactive media.