College of Information and Computer Science, Long Island University
Published by July 26th, 2008
in Microsoft and gaming.
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Microsoft said it’s opening up the popular console to games created by gamers using the company’s XNA Game Studio software. “We’re creating an opportunity for aspiring developers to start their careers on the world stage,” said Chris Satchell, chief technology officer at Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment unit, in a statement.
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Published by July 12th, 2008
in Facebook and gaming.
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As Facebook has blossomed into a hot Internet hangout, its users have passed countless hours playing Scrabble with friends — or at least, an unauthorized version of the word game that Scrabble’s owners have tried to shut down. Now a video game maker will try to legitimize the activity.
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Published by July 5th, 2008
in innovation, American Library Association and gaming.
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The American Library Association (ALA) will launch an innovative project to track and measure the impact of gaming on literacy skills and build a model for library gaming that can be deployed nationally. Funding for the project will be provided by a $1 million grant from the Verizon Foundation. “Gaming is a magnet that attracts library users of all types and, beyond its entertainment value, has proven to be a powerful tool for literacy and learning,” said ALA President Loriene Roy. “Through the Verizon Foundation’s gift, ALA’s gaming for learning project will provide the library community with vital information and resources that will model and help sustain effective gaming programs and services.”
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This site (originally compiled as part of the Pinball Pasture site in the mid-1990s) is “a comprehensive, searchable listing of virtually every pinball machine ever commercially made. It is an ad free, popup free, registration free resource. [The site does] not buy or sell games.” Listings include details such as the pinball machine’s manufacturer, machine type, notable features, images, and user ratings and comments. Also provides a glossary, player guide, and other supplementary material.
Internet Pinball Database website
The massive success of the Nintendo Wii proved the appeal of motion-controlled gaming. Now Softkinetic, a company based in Belgium, is working to let video-game players use a wider range of more-natural movements to control the on-screen action. Softkinetic’s software is meant to work with depth-sensing cameras, which can be used to determine a player’s body position and motions. “You don’t need a controller in your hand,” says CEO Michel Tombroff. “You don’t need to wear a special outfit. You just come in front of the camera in your living room, and you start playing by moving your entire body.”
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Published by March 23rd, 2008
in libraries, video games, library services and gaming.
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Dave Gibson writes, “A recent article in my local newspaper (Virginian-Pilot) about libraries “efforts to woo teens,” caught my eye. Apparently, the works of such luminaries as Rudyard Kipling and Mark Twain have been replaced with the Xbox and Nintendo Wii. It is little wonder that our nation’s literacy rate continues to decline. According to a 2007 Syracuse University study, 7 out of 10 U.S. public libraries now provide gaming to teens and pre-teens. Jenny Levine of the American Library association told the Virginian-Pilot: “It’s going to go from a trend to being mainstream. Kids really understand the gaming and the fact that the libraries are embracing something that is important to them, that really speaks to them.” Libraries are now offering video games and movies to children. Paula Brehm-Heeger, president of the Young Adult Library Services Association said of the new entertainment available: “Librarians are really trying to respond to teens and to keep the library relevant in their lives. Gaming programs can draw in teens that librarians don’t otherwise see.” I suppose that literary classics, poetry, geography, and great American novels are no longer “relevant” to teenagers! ”
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The experience of surfing the Internet could be improved if users were given more guidance and camaraderie, says Merci Victoria Grace, COO and cofounder of the startup GameLayers, based in San Francisco. Users surf alone, wandering through piles of data without enough chance to interact with it, or with each other. To make surfing the Web a more social and lighthearted experience, Grace and the company’s other designers are grafting a massively multiplayer online game on top of ordinary Web browsing. Players rack up points as they visit sites, devise themed missions that lead other players through sets of websites, and leave notes for one another–all of it invisible to nonplayers.
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Published by February 25th, 2008
in education and gaming.
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Brian Mayer writes: “Games engage students with authentic leisure experiences while reinforcing a variety of social, literary, and curricular skills. When an educational concept is introduced and reinforced during a game, it is internalized as part of an enjoyable experience and further utilized as one aspect of a strategy to attain success.” To prove his point, Mayer matches up specific New York State learning standards with selected games.
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Published by February 25th, 2008
in art, digital and gaming.
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Digital art takes many forms: installations; Internet art; virtual-reality projects that use devices such as headsets and data gloves to immerse participants in a virtual world; software coded by the artist; or even “locative media” art that uses mobile devices (such as cell phones) to turn public spaces like buildings or parks into a canvas. Digital photographs, films, and videos have been common in the arts since the 1990s; even paintings and sculptures are now sometimes produced with the aid of digital tools. But projects that use digital technologies as a medium in themselves–and that, like their medium, are interactive, collaborative, customizable, and variable–still occupy the margins of art institutions and find their audience mostly at new-media art festivals or on the Internet.
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Librarians at the Young Adult Library Services Association Gaming Extravaganza, held January 11 at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia, share how they’re developing gaming in their libraries and the importance of creating a “safe place” youth, while librarian/gamer/author Eli Neiburger runs a live tournament and explains the secret of getting 115 boys to come to his library on a Friday night.
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Published by January 12th, 2008
in libraries and gaming.
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As the plastic guitars are checked and the contest bracket set, Brandon Baxter, 12, is standing near the back of the room with his parents. He’s nervous, he says, explaining that he usually plays the video game “Guitar Hero” only at the level called “medium difficulty.” In front of him, library book carts usually filled with novels instead hold projectors, speakers and PlayStation 2’s. Library tables are pushed to the side, and the shades are drawn. The conference room in the Central Resource Library has been transformed into a gaming haven.
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Published by December 29th, 2007
in Facebook and gaming.
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Dear Scrabble Word Finder: We have to break up. It’s not you, it’s me. Well, FWIW (sorry, I know you hate it when I use abbreviations), it’s the way we are together. Back when I first added Scrabulous — Scrabble plus fabulous, get it? — to my Facebook page, I didn’t even know you existed. It was one of the most popular applications on Facebook, and I was just one of hundreds of thousands of people playing social-network Scrabble.
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Published by December 22nd, 2007
in education and gaming.
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A new research lab at the prestigious Parsons design school aims to develop video games with a conscience — called “serious games” — and study whether playing them can be a force for social good. The games, which aim to educate, appeal mostly to a niche market and are used to train public officials, students and professionals in various fields.
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Published by December 9th, 2007
in corporations and gaming.
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Like all companies invested in the volatile but lucrative videogame industry, Vivendi went looking for a hero. The French conglomerate, which owns a mixed bag of businesses, from Moroccan phone services to Universal Music Group, sought to add to its small but successful gaming division that includes Blizzard Entertainment’s 9.3-million subscriber “World of Warcraft.”
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