Sex In Video Games
May 27th 2008 | Posted by: Adam Martin
A short lecture by Daniel Floyd replete with cartoon voice on sex in video games.
Posted in Gaming | 
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Integrating Online Games & Social Networks
March 20th 2008 | Posted by: Adam Martin
(via Techcrunch UK reporting from Plugg)
‘Max Niederhofer of Atlas Venture gave a great presentation on how online games are already big and only going to get bigger, especially in the casual games via the browser. Gaming is a 20 billion dollar industry now and 75% of casual gamers are female. Since a 3D version of Flash will come out in 2009 there is now an opportunity for startups to build Flash-based online games, disrupt the ‘printer cartridge’ model of the console market which requires high-priced games to work. Integrating online games with social networks could be a big deal.’
(picture by Robert Carter)
Max and I have never met, if we had, I’m sure we’d have disagreed in the past on subjects such as ‘feminine hygiene’ or ‘verbal dexterity’. But I’m glad to say this time, I’m in agreement with you Max and if Stardoll is the browser’s Barbie then PMOG sounds like it just might be the browser’s Shoe collection.
Posted in Art, Gaming | No Comments »
What web designers can learn from games
February 25th 2008 | Posted by: Adam Martin
Great piece from Aleks Krotoski about how game mechanics can inform modern web design:
‘I recently ran into a web designer friend who’s developing the user experience for a new site. She’s never worked in the games industry, nor is she a particularly keen gamer, but she told me that games are a key inspiration for her work. Web designers eager to draw people into their sites are keen to understand the processes that lead to games’ phenomenal stickiness. Thankfully, they haven’t gone down the route of creating login forms that will only progress by collecting coins or solving puzzles; instead, savvy designers are deconstructing the mechanics of games and applying those lessons in ways relevant and unique to their services. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Design, Gaming | No Comments »
Passively Multiplayer Online Game
February 4th 2008 | Posted by: Adam Martin
PMOG, which stands for Passively Multiplayer Online Game, is a Firefox extension that turns web browsing into a multiplayer online game. The service is currently in private beta, so details are scarce. However, the company has posted the following description to wet our appetites…
“PMOG is an infinite game built on individual network histories, transforming our web surfing into ongoing social play. With a game head-up display in Firefox, players can bomb each other, wage war over web sites, and lead other users on web missions. Ordinary web sites become caches for items and currency. PMOG fuses an MMO into our WWW.
PMOG stands for Passively Multiplayer Online Game. Players play without playing; clicking around the internet turns into experience points and currency. Read the rest of this entry »
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Cyber Adultery
February 1st 2008 | Posted by: Adam Martin
Get thee to the BBC iPlayer and watch Wonderland: Virtual Adultery and Cyberspace Love. It seems love really is just a matter of cup size and scimitar length.
‘Lee thinks there’s something wrong in his marriage. His wife Carolyn won’t let him in the bedroom - always a bad sign, I think - and he has to sleep in the living room. He’s right, Carolyn is having an affair. And, frankly, poor Lee doesn’t stand a chance. The new guy, Eliot, is everything Lee isn’t: a tall, chiselled hunk, with a no-nonsense attitude, who wears just a pair of jeans, a sword and a couple of Uzis. Lee tells Carolyn he feels like Forrest Gump. Possibly not the best way to go about winning her back.
Carolyn and Eliot were immediately attracted to each other. She liked his muscles and weapons; he liked her skimpy outfits and enormous boobs. They hung out, went to romantic restaurants, got jiggy. Lee and the kids wait miserably for Mom to come back.’
(via Guardian)
Posted in Gaming, TFI Friday | No Comments »
Metaplace
October 29th 2007 | Posted by: Adam Martin
‘Areae’s Metaplace platform wants to revolutionize the virtual worlds space. Their platform will provide an open, easy-to-use interface which will allow users to create virtual worlds that can run anywhere. Metaplace-created virtual worlds will be robust with users being able to play games, socialize, create content and conduct commerce. ‘ (TC)
If and when we get the chance to play with this metawetdream we’ll be better able to say how brands might easily create their own virtual worlds, but for now we’ll just have to invent the spurious term, ‘brandual’ half brand, half virtual and nothing whatsoever to do with the word ‘granule’ which it sounds a bit like.
Posted in Appvertising, Gaming | No Comments »
Virtual Paris Hilton sells for $10m
October 29th 2007 | Posted by: Adam Martin
I’ve been thinking about virtual goods for sometime in parallel the emergence of the gaming industry as the most significant form of entertainment in the 21st Century.
Whether you’re a Wii bastard or a Second Lifer (no parole) you can not fail to recognise how virtual trading has become a business to be reckoned with, from sending a virtual bunch of daffs in HotorNot to hurling a pixelated spare rib in Facebook or buying a Level 60 Warlock in World of Warcraft.
Susan Wu wrote a fantastic article for Techcrunch in the summer about this trend and with 80 lengthy comments it is certainly a contentious subject. Some choice quotes from her piece:
‘People spend over $1.5 billion on virtual items every year. Pets, coins, avatars, and bling: these virtual objects are nothing more than a series of digital 1s and 0s stored on a remote database somewhere in the ether.’ Read the rest of this entry »
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They only make 3 kinds of video games these days…
October 23rd 2007 | Posted by: Adam Martin
Vice Magazine has a turbo charged review of Project Gotham Racing 4 in it’s latest offline issue. I drive in London so race simulators are lethal stimuli for me and since the episode with the Flight Simulator in Blackpool when I was 12 I’ve stayed away from them.
What caught my eye was this:
‘They only make three kinds of video games these days. There’s that one where you’re Bruce Willis shooting aliens in space and saying “HOLY SHIT!” whenever something happens or explodes. Then there’s the type where you’re a wizard or a fairy and you run around talking to other wizards and fairies, trying to work out if they’re being controlled by a sexy woman who lives somewhere EasyJet flies to so you could meet her in real life for sex (unlikely). Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Gaming | No Comments »
Google Powered Virtual World
September 24th 2007 | Posted by: Adam Martin
Techcrunch has the scoop on Google’s much rumoured move into the virtual world environment.
Google Earth as virtual world, the ability to build a virtual world on top of the real world, I better call Jeff Bridges and start humming the theme to Tron…
Posted in Gaming | No Comments »
