Hello Folks,Mobile gaming has gradually become, and will continually grow as a valuable feature of mobile devices. As I have previously discussed in my first blog, “Mobile Gaming Strikes! Beware Handheld Gaming!”, is the fact that games are increasingly appealing and sold to more mobile users, and the ability for games to be played and downloaded anywhere, at any time, are essentially the dominant selling points. As Polak (2007) states “A phone is already plugged in to a distribution system that makes the delivery of content to the consumer easy for them and profitable for the companies publishing mobile phone games”. As the mobile market grows, more game-development companies emerge to target this casual-gamer market, and by doing so, we are seeing an increasing amount of “wow” innovations of mobile games that we never thought would be possible. As Polak (2007) explains “Mobile phones can now present complex 3D visuals, storing lots of game data and delivering experiences that would have been considered cutting edge a mere five years ago on "proper" games consoles”. One “cutting edge experience” which I believe is an innovation worth discussing, is that anyone can become a mobile game creator and freely distribute their games amongst online communities for others to play, provide important feedback about, and possibly use them to draw their own original and creative ideas from.
It’s true, we can all become game creators for mobile devices and fulfil are long-awaited desires, if given the adequate software and ideas, not to mention being computer savvy. There are various game-designer softwares (some free and some at a price) that provide this opportunity, one being Game Editor, the game design software allows a participant to create a 2D game with ease for a mobile device and share (or sell) it free of charge (Game Editor 2008). If the creator isn’t stingy, he or she will most likely upload the game in a shared-collaborative website based for mobile gaming. Playyoo is one example, it’s a mobile-games global community website that boasts “both mobile game players and creators are able to freely exchange mobile games they created. Everyone are able to upload, download, create, rank, comment, participate in prized contests, create play groups, exchange ideas and socialise with people around the world who share a passion for mobile gaming” (Playyoo 2008). Sony Ericsson however, doesn’t like having their games shared for exploitation. Even though users must pay a fee to download the games, they must abide to a “terms of service” where they allegedly check off that they will not modify, alter or distribute the content throughout the web (Sony Ericsson 2008).
As Flew (2007, 226) states “Copyright law is derived from the principle that neither the creator of a new work nor the general public should be able to appropriate all of the benefits that flow from the creation of a new, original work of authorship”. This basically means that there is a fine balance that copyright law aims to maintain between the access of knowledge and protection of knowledge of intellectual property. The Access of knowledge refers to the population’s rights to use existing knowledge and creativity to create original ideas and works of their own. As knowledge is shared more openly, it essentially benefits society (Bruns 2008). We can identify this concept vividly at Playyoo, the shared-collaborative environment is suitable for others to gain and construct ideas due to free distribution. On the other side of the balance is the protection of knowledge, which basically means that if the owners of knowledge profit of their own work (due to private ownership) they commit further knowledge. As Flew (2007, 232) states “The economic argument for copyright protection has revolved around the rights of content creators to receive remuneration for the expression of their ideas and concepts in so far as they are of appeal in the commercial market, and the need for such returns in order to provide incentives for future developments of ideas”. This concept can be identified in Sony Ericsson’s distribution of their games. The corporation will surely only continue to sell their games, if they are making money due to their exclusive ownership. We can’t ignore the fact that a Sony Ericsson mobile game compared to an amateur’s creation will always succeed in terms of quality and credibility.
There you have it, one community against one corporation, both committed to distributing mobile games to the public. Due to Playyoo’s decision to not strengthen copyright laws of intellectual property, the community is built upon the minds of hundreds of participants all engaging within a shared-collaborative online environment. This means that the community and its knowledge are continually growing at a large rate, which therefore is benefiting society as a whole. Sony Ericsson, on the other hand, are only seeking economic profits and have strengthened copyright laws of their content. Their exclusive ownership of their games allows for capital gain, to which they will use to contribute more good-quality content for their customers.
Playyoo’s ability to benefit society verses Sony Ericsson’s good quality games
The question is which side do you support?
Bruns, A. 2008. Legal Frameworks for the Internet (KCB202). Podcast. http://www.slideshare.net/Snurb/legal-frameworks-for-the-internet-k... (accessed October 23, 2008).
Flew, T. 2008. New Media: An Introduction. 3rd ed. South Melbourne, Vic.: Oxford University PressGame Editor. 2008. Game Editor. http://game-editor.com (accessed October 23, 2008).
Playyoo. 2008. About us. http://www.playyoo.com/about_us.html (accessed October 23, 2008).Polak, S. 2007. The big money in mobile gaming. http://www.smh.com.au/news/biztech/the-big-money-in-mobile-gaming/2... (accessed October 23, 2008).
Sony Ericsson. 2008. Terms and Conditions. http://www.sonyericsson.com/fun/wxhtml/genereltermsandconditions?cc... (accessed October 23, 2008).
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Location-Based Gaming: A potential Global and Healthy Experience
Yo Folks,
Back in 1999, when I was the innocent age of ten years old, I used to play a hell of a lot of my Nintendo 64. I played it so much that it actually affected my health. Everyday I would spend less time moving around and more time pushing buttons. I inevitably did gain more weight, which caused my parents to believe that ‘playing video games are generally bad for children’. From then on for a couple of years, I was limited to playing a certain amount of time during a week, sometimes none at all.
It’s not suprising that even today a majority of parents (like mine) claim video games can drain a child’s past time and cause them to gain weight. Many sites such as Child Development Institute and What They Play are supporting and spreading the belief that playing video games can deteriorate health. I’m not implying that this is untrue, but parents are failing to realise that the times have changed. The year 2008 offers many technical advancements and innovations of video games that allow players to move around instead of sitting on the couch. Some examples include Wii-Fit, an exercise game that uses a Wii balance board peripheral; and eye toy, a digital camera device that allows players to use their motion to play. But a significant amount of parents are ignorant of these innovations, simply because the belief ‘video games are bad for children’ overshadows their judgement. Thus, parents will be reluctant to purchase video games for their children, even though they are beneficial to the child’s health.
Discussed by Danny Quinn (our Mobile Gaming’s news writer) in an intriguing article ‘Location Based Gaming, Reshaping the way we think about Video Games’ is one emerging form of gaming that, unlike it’s competitors (Wii-fit, eye toy), uses mobile technology that aims to encourage children to physically step outside, manoeuvre on an open field and play with other players (McAndrews 2008). This concept is known as location-based gaming, which relies on a player’s position to progress in a location-based game using GPS-enabled mobile phones. Games such as Fruit Farmer operate with a group of friends playing outside in a field or park, each player’s position is mapped on their mobile phone’s screen where they have to collect fruit as quickly as possible while avoiding killer wasps (Locomatrix 2007). Essentially, to play location-based games, players have to move and interact at a much more deeper level than wii-Fit, and this seems to be the answer for what parents are seeking: healthy and outdoor activities that appeal to their children.
On the sidetrack, location-based gaming isn’t limited to a park or open field, try visualising the whole world as your virtual playground. This concept can be identified in the location-based game, geocaching, where over 800,000 real treasures are hidden all over the world and can only be found using a GPS and the right co-ordinates via the geocaching website. Once the treasures are found, you can share your experiences in the global online community (Geocaching 2008). As this game operates with players collaborating, sharing, communicating and playing with one another using the Internet, this concept could be described as a form of globalisation of social information. As described by Flew (2008, 194), globalisation derives from the international communications flow from new media such as the Internet, and embodies of the global circulation of ideas, ideologies and digital goods (images, text, ect). Flew (2008, 10) states “new media are central to globalisation because they constitute the technological and service delivery platforms through which international flows of images, information … and all other digitally based forms are transacted”. We can also identify that concept of Geocaching utilises the circulation of user-generated content to operate (check out my previous blog), as users must both contribute their information and use information from other participants to play in the game. As Humphreys (cited in Flew 2008, 36) explains “massive multiplayer online games for instance, derive their particular dynamism as media forms from the productivity of the players themselves, and the investments they make in the evolution of the game itself. Thus, as Bruns (cited in Flew 2008, 36) states the users of the content are also contributors themselves, a term used to define this concept is ‘prod-user’.
And there you have it, location-based gaming, an activity to satisfy a growing market of parents who seek healthy fitness games that appeal to their children. It dissolves the distinctions between physical exercise and gaming, and manages to have the potential to use globalisation to share experiences with others around the world with user-led generated content. I strongly believe parents will like the idea of their children playing with location based games, if it means running around in the outside. Location-based gaming definitely has potential to expand and become more popular, however, there are still some drawbacks. One prominent challenge is that people may find it hard to find other players that have GPS technology to play with. As Dredge (2008) questions “what use is a location-based mobile game if there's nobody near you to play against? All too many of the cool GPS game ideas from developers fall down against this simple question.” That being said, I’m sure in time we will definitely be seeing more of location-based gaming in the future towards targeting children’s fitness.
Bruns, A. 2008. Global Economic Drivers (KCB202). Podcast. http://www.slideshare.net/Snurb/global-economic-drivers-kcb202-pres... (accessed October 19, 2008).
Child Development Institute. 2008. Video Games and Children.http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/health_safety/video_games_and_children.shtml (accessed October 19, 2008).
Dredge, S. 2008. Opinion: The problem with location-based mobile games. http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/feature.asp?c=9042 (accessed October 19, 2008)
Flew, T. 2008. New Media: An Introduction. 3rd ed. South Melbourne, Vic.: Oxford University Press
Geocaching. 2008. Welcome to Geocaching.http://www.geocaching.com/ (accessed October 19, 2008).Locomatrix. 2007. Fruit Farmer.http://www.locomatrix.com/index.php/locomatrix-games/3-games/14-fruit-farmer (accessed October 19, 2008).
McAndrews, B. 2008. Location-based games lure kids off the couch. http://www.springwise.com/gaming/locationbased_games_lure_kids/ (accessed October 19, 2008).
Quinn. D. 2008. Location Based Gaming, Reshaping the way we think about Video Games.http://mobile-media.ning.com/group/mobilegaming/forum/topic/show?id=2255903%3ATopic%3A1088 (accessed October 19, 2008).
What They Play. 2008. Parents more concerned about Video Games than Alchohol and Pornography.http://www.whattheyplay.com/blog/2008/08/11/parents-more-concerned-about-video-games-than-alco/ (accessed October 19, 2008).
Back in 1999, when I was the innocent age of ten years old, I used to play a hell of a lot of my Nintendo 64. I played it so much that it actually affected my health. Everyday I would spend less time moving around and more time pushing buttons. I inevitably did gain more weight, which caused my parents to believe that ‘playing video games are generally bad for children’. From then on for a couple of years, I was limited to playing a certain amount of time during a week, sometimes none at all.
It’s not suprising that even today a majority of parents (like mine) claim video games can drain a child’s past time and cause them to gain weight. Many sites such as Child Development Institute and What They Play are supporting and spreading the belief that playing video games can deteriorate health. I’m not implying that this is untrue, but parents are failing to realise that the times have changed. The year 2008 offers many technical advancements and innovations of video games that allow players to move around instead of sitting on the couch. Some examples include Wii-Fit, an exercise game that uses a Wii balance board peripheral; and eye toy, a digital camera device that allows players to use their motion to play. But a significant amount of parents are ignorant of these innovations, simply because the belief ‘video games are bad for children’ overshadows their judgement. Thus, parents will be reluctant to purchase video games for their children, even though they are beneficial to the child’s health.
Discussed by Danny Quinn (our Mobile Gaming’s news writer) in an intriguing article ‘Location Based Gaming, Reshaping the way we think about Video Games’ is one emerging form of gaming that, unlike it’s competitors (Wii-fit, eye toy), uses mobile technology that aims to encourage children to physically step outside, manoeuvre on an open field and play with other players (McAndrews 2008). This concept is known as location-based gaming, which relies on a player’s position to progress in a location-based game using GPS-enabled mobile phones. Games such as Fruit Farmer operate with a group of friends playing outside in a field or park, each player’s position is mapped on their mobile phone’s screen where they have to collect fruit as quickly as possible while avoiding killer wasps (Locomatrix 2007). Essentially, to play location-based games, players have to move and interact at a much more deeper level than wii-Fit, and this seems to be the answer for what parents are seeking: healthy and outdoor activities that appeal to their children.
On the sidetrack, location-based gaming isn’t limited to a park or open field, try visualising the whole world as your virtual playground. This concept can be identified in the location-based game, geocaching, where over 800,000 real treasures are hidden all over the world and can only be found using a GPS and the right co-ordinates via the geocaching website. Once the treasures are found, you can share your experiences in the global online community (Geocaching 2008). As this game operates with players collaborating, sharing, communicating and playing with one another using the Internet, this concept could be described as a form of globalisation of social information. As described by Flew (2008, 194), globalisation derives from the international communications flow from new media such as the Internet, and embodies of the global circulation of ideas, ideologies and digital goods (images, text, ect). Flew (2008, 10) states “new media are central to globalisation because they constitute the technological and service delivery platforms through which international flows of images, information … and all other digitally based forms are transacted”. We can also identify that concept of Geocaching utilises the circulation of user-generated content to operate (check out my previous blog), as users must both contribute their information and use information from other participants to play in the game. As Humphreys (cited in Flew 2008, 36) explains “massive multiplayer online games for instance, derive their particular dynamism as media forms from the productivity of the players themselves, and the investments they make in the evolution of the game itself. Thus, as Bruns (cited in Flew 2008, 36) states the users of the content are also contributors themselves, a term used to define this concept is ‘prod-user’.
And there you have it, location-based gaming, an activity to satisfy a growing market of parents who seek healthy fitness games that appeal to their children. It dissolves the distinctions between physical exercise and gaming, and manages to have the potential to use globalisation to share experiences with others around the world with user-led generated content. I strongly believe parents will like the idea of their children playing with location based games, if it means running around in the outside. Location-based gaming definitely has potential to expand and become more popular, however, there are still some drawbacks. One prominent challenge is that people may find it hard to find other players that have GPS technology to play with. As Dredge (2008) questions “what use is a location-based mobile game if there's nobody near you to play against? All too many of the cool GPS game ideas from developers fall down against this simple question.” That being said, I’m sure in time we will definitely be seeing more of location-based gaming in the future towards targeting children’s fitness.
Bruns, A. 2008. Global Economic Drivers (KCB202). Podcast. http://www.slideshare.net/Snurb/global-economic-drivers-kcb202-pres... (accessed October 19, 2008).
Child Development Institute. 2008. Video Games and Children.http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/health_safety/video_games_and_children.shtml (accessed October 19, 2008).
Dredge, S. 2008. Opinion: The problem with location-based mobile games. http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/feature.asp?c=9042 (accessed October 19, 2008)
Flew, T. 2008. New Media: An Introduction. 3rd ed. South Melbourne, Vic.: Oxford University Press
Geocaching. 2008. Welcome to Geocaching.http://www.geocaching.com/ (accessed October 19, 2008).Locomatrix. 2007. Fruit Farmer.http://www.locomatrix.com/index.php/locomatrix-games/3-games/14-fruit-farmer (accessed October 19, 2008).
McAndrews, B. 2008. Location-based games lure kids off the couch. http://www.springwise.com/gaming/locationbased_games_lure_kids/ (accessed October 19, 2008).
Quinn. D. 2008. Location Based Gaming, Reshaping the way we think about Video Games.http://mobile-media.ning.com/group/mobilegaming/forum/topic/show?id=2255903%3ATopic%3A1088 (accessed October 19, 2008).
What They Play. 2008. Parents more concerned about Video Games than Alchohol and Pornography.http://www.whattheyplay.com/blog/2008/08/11/parents-more-concerned-about-video-games-than-alco/ (accessed October 19, 2008).
Monday, September 22, 2008
Handheld Gaming: “I’m Better than you!”
Hello Folks,
Within the broad scope of online social environments that the Internet has to offer, millions of participants are competing amongst each other to gain the sweet social capital that they yearn to earn. To gain social capital, participants will focus much of their time towards the quality of their content, which will be contributed online to achieve their wanted superiority. Participants contribute art, written literature, open source software and much much more, and gaming content is definitely no exception.
Before you start thinking I’m about to splurge on of online multiplayer games such as World of Warcraft or Runescape, hear me out. I’m actually referring to Handheld Gaming (lightweight portable gaming consoles). That’s right, the sensational Nintendo DS and PSP have spawned many online communities for users to contribute to.
The contributions of gamers in online communities are their achieved scores. A dedicated gamer will spend many hours playing his or her portable device to attain a competitive high score to which thereby it will be listed on a community scoreboard against other player’s scores via the Internet. Cyberscore’s Mario Kart DS Scoreboard is a direct example of this concept; this website publicly showcases a list of the top players of Mario Kart DS (a Nintendo DS game), the top player of the list obviously being the best player with the highest score (Cyberscore 2008).
Bruns (2008a) has discussed that that to be an important and credible participant member of an online social community site, one must commit quality, strength and consistency throughout his or her contributions. That the visibility of one’s contributions will ultimately depend on high they are rated. As you can see from what I have discussed so far, all these theories are correct.
But it doesn’t stop there, rather than heading to the computer to contribute scores, you’re able to do so by creating a social status on the portable device itself, as you play within the online social environment that is provided by Wi-Fi technology. Wi-fi technology enables players of handheld gaming to compete with each other locally or globally around the world. As Bruns (2008, 319) states “The tools for social networking reside no longer in online communities but in mobile devices”.
Referring back to Mario Kart DS, if you play against others via the Wi-fi with your Nintendo DS, you will be able to see the opponent’s victories, losses, play time and their designed avatar as well as allowing the opponent to see your profile. However, every time you compete with other players, they are sought out randomly each time you play, despite their social status.
There is definitely more room for improvement in the area of online social networks based on hand held gaming. Certain limitations such as not being able to freely chat to random players or creating complete online social identities for all to see are definitely some prominent flaws.
What I want to be possible in the near future, is to play a highly social interactive handheld game such as World of Warcraft while sitting on the toilet. Oh the possibilities!
Bruns, A. 2008. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and beyond : from production to produsage.
New York: Peter Lang.
Bruns, A. 2008a. KCB203 Consumer Cultures: Week Podcast: Developing Social Environments. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/ (accessed September 26, 2008).
Podcast: Week 9.Cyberscore. 2008. Mario kart ds scoreboard. http://www.cyberscore.net/scoreboard-mkds.php (accessed September 25, 2008).
Within the broad scope of online social environments that the Internet has to offer, millions of participants are competing amongst each other to gain the sweet social capital that they yearn to earn. To gain social capital, participants will focus much of their time towards the quality of their content, which will be contributed online to achieve their wanted superiority. Participants contribute art, written literature, open source software and much much more, and gaming content is definitely no exception.
Before you start thinking I’m about to splurge on of online multiplayer games such as World of Warcraft or Runescape, hear me out. I’m actually referring to Handheld Gaming (lightweight portable gaming consoles). That’s right, the sensational Nintendo DS and PSP have spawned many online communities for users to contribute to.
The contributions of gamers in online communities are their achieved scores. A dedicated gamer will spend many hours playing his or her portable device to attain a competitive high score to which thereby it will be listed on a community scoreboard against other player’s scores via the Internet. Cyberscore’s Mario Kart DS Scoreboard is a direct example of this concept; this website publicly showcases a list of the top players of Mario Kart DS (a Nintendo DS game), the top player of the list obviously being the best player with the highest score (Cyberscore 2008).
Bruns (2008a) has discussed that that to be an important and credible participant member of an online social community site, one must commit quality, strength and consistency throughout his or her contributions. That the visibility of one’s contributions will ultimately depend on high they are rated. As you can see from what I have discussed so far, all these theories are correct.
But it doesn’t stop there, rather than heading to the computer to contribute scores, you’re able to do so by creating a social status on the portable device itself, as you play within the online social environment that is provided by Wi-Fi technology. Wi-fi technology enables players of handheld gaming to compete with each other locally or globally around the world. As Bruns (2008, 319) states “The tools for social networking reside no longer in online communities but in mobile devices”.
Referring back to Mario Kart DS, if you play against others via the Wi-fi with your Nintendo DS, you will be able to see the opponent’s victories, losses, play time and their designed avatar as well as allowing the opponent to see your profile. However, every time you compete with other players, they are sought out randomly each time you play, despite their social status.
There is definitely more room for improvement in the area of online social networks based on hand held gaming. Certain limitations such as not being able to freely chat to random players or creating complete online social identities for all to see are definitely some prominent flaws.
What I want to be possible in the near future, is to play a highly social interactive handheld game such as World of Warcraft while sitting on the toilet. Oh the possibilities!
Bruns, A. 2008. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and beyond : from production to produsage.
New York: Peter Lang.
Bruns, A. 2008a. KCB203 Consumer Cultures: Week Podcast: Developing Social Environments. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/ (accessed September 26, 2008).
Podcast: Week 9.Cyberscore. 2008. Mario kart ds scoreboard. http://www.cyberscore.net/scoreboard-mkds.php (accessed September 25, 2008).
Friday, September 12, 2008
Mobile Gaming Strikes! Beware Handheld Gaming!
Hello folks,
Gaming is both a fascination and my obsession. I will spend countless hours on end, shooting zombies’ heads off or frantically attempting to pull off a radical 360-backflip on a motorbike in fantasy-like virtual worlds. I own seven gaming consoles and three portable gaming devices. Simply put, gaming is my forte. My name is Adam Wright, and I will be Mobile Media Future’s blogger discussing Mobile Gaming for the next three weeks.
The global interactive games industry is large and growing, and is at the forefront of many of the most significant innovations in new media (Flew and Humphreys 2008, 127). We stand in awe of how fast gaming’s innovation and interactivity is progressively evolving; the Nintendo Wii has motion-sensoring whilst online multiplayer gaming connects players to interact with each other globally. Mobile gaming too, is developing further and making more advances in wireless communications to satisfy a significant market that has portable gaming needs.
For those who may not know, a video game for a mobile phone, smartphone, PDA or handheld computer falls under the category of mobile gaming. However this does not include portable video game systems such as PSP or Nintendo DS (Wikipedia 2008). The fact is a mobile game has evolved from being just an "extra" application on a portable device to being a valued commodity itself. To this day, it’s quite possible that games themselves are selling the mobile devices! If you don’t believe me, take a look at the N-Gage. That’s basically Nokia’s attempt towards selling mobile devices specifically based on their gaming capabilities (Wikipedia 2008a). As Flew and Humpherys (2008, 128) state "…the games industry itself identifies direct spin-offs for technological innovation… [such as] mobile telecommunications…"
However, mobile Gaming is infamous for its noticeable flaws. Essentially consumers will most often complain that gaming on mobile devices are often too shabby, disappointing to play and difficult to install (Apocalypso 2005). Yet gaming industries have attempted to tackle the problem by employing 3D graphics, improved multiplayer activity and better use of downloading problems via the Internet.
The current craze of Apple’s iPhone has managed to achieve all these goals, as well as becoming prominent competitive gaming devices to the Nintendo DS and PSP in the market. According to Hartley (2007), Apple’s devices main lead advantage is digital distribution of their games, meaning consumers have the pleasure of convenience of grasping any game anywhere at the push of a button (or the touch of a screen). The games are also claimed to be "sophisticated", popular titles such as Super Monkey Ball are just a click away.
I don’t know about you, but my mobile phone games aren’t exactly "sophisticated". Super Mario on the DS seems the better alternative to my phone’s "Bulky Bill". But things can change, perhaps in the time to come, Mobile devices will be superior to the beloved handheld gaming thanks to convenience and connectivity.
Apocalypso. 2005. Making it easy to enjoy rich 3D and connected gaming with Nokia smartphones. http://www.symbian-freak.com/news/0505/nextgeneration.htm
(accessed September 11, 2008)
Flew, T. and S. Humpreys. 2008. Games: technology, industry, culture. In New Media: an introduction. 3rd ed. Oxford University Press.
Hartley. M. 2008. Next on Apple's agenda: video game supremacy. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080910.RAPPLE10/TPStory/Business
(accessed September 11, 2008)
Wikipedia. 2008. Mobile Gaming. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_gaming (accessed September 11, 2008)
Wikipedia. 2008a. N-Gage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-gage (accessed September 11, 2008)
Gaming is both a fascination and my obsession. I will spend countless hours on end, shooting zombies’ heads off or frantically attempting to pull off a radical 360-backflip on a motorbike in fantasy-like virtual worlds. I own seven gaming consoles and three portable gaming devices. Simply put, gaming is my forte. My name is Adam Wright, and I will be Mobile Media Future’s blogger discussing Mobile Gaming for the next three weeks.
The global interactive games industry is large and growing, and is at the forefront of many of the most significant innovations in new media (Flew and Humphreys 2008, 127). We stand in awe of how fast gaming’s innovation and interactivity is progressively evolving; the Nintendo Wii has motion-sensoring whilst online multiplayer gaming connects players to interact with each other globally. Mobile gaming too, is developing further and making more advances in wireless communications to satisfy a significant market that has portable gaming needs.
For those who may not know, a video game for a mobile phone, smartphone, PDA or handheld computer falls under the category of mobile gaming. However this does not include portable video game systems such as PSP or Nintendo DS (Wikipedia 2008). The fact is a mobile game has evolved from being just an "extra" application on a portable device to being a valued commodity itself. To this day, it’s quite possible that games themselves are selling the mobile devices! If you don’t believe me, take a look at the N-Gage. That’s basically Nokia’s attempt towards selling mobile devices specifically based on their gaming capabilities (Wikipedia 2008a). As Flew and Humpherys (2008, 128) state "…the games industry itself identifies direct spin-offs for technological innovation… [such as] mobile telecommunications…"
However, mobile Gaming is infamous for its noticeable flaws. Essentially consumers will most often complain that gaming on mobile devices are often too shabby, disappointing to play and difficult to install (Apocalypso 2005). Yet gaming industries have attempted to tackle the problem by employing 3D graphics, improved multiplayer activity and better use of downloading problems via the Internet.
The current craze of Apple’s iPhone has managed to achieve all these goals, as well as becoming prominent competitive gaming devices to the Nintendo DS and PSP in the market. According to Hartley (2007), Apple’s devices main lead advantage is digital distribution of their games, meaning consumers have the pleasure of convenience of grasping any game anywhere at the push of a button (or the touch of a screen). The games are also claimed to be "sophisticated", popular titles such as Super Monkey Ball are just a click away.
I don’t know about you, but my mobile phone games aren’t exactly "sophisticated". Super Mario on the DS seems the better alternative to my phone’s "Bulky Bill". But things can change, perhaps in the time to come, Mobile devices will be superior to the beloved handheld gaming thanks to convenience and connectivity.
Apocalypso. 2005. Making it easy to enjoy rich 3D and connected gaming with Nokia smartphones. http://www.symbian-freak.com/news/0505/nextgeneration.htm
(accessed September 11, 2008)
Flew, T. and S. Humpreys. 2008. Games: technology, industry, culture. In New Media: an introduction. 3rd ed. Oxford University Press.
Hartley. M. 2008. Next on Apple's agenda: video game supremacy. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080910.RAPPLE10/TPStory/Business
(accessed September 11, 2008)
Wikipedia. 2008. Mobile Gaming. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_gaming (accessed September 11, 2008)
Wikipedia. 2008a. N-Gage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-gage (accessed September 11, 2008)
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Comment #6: Produsage-based Citizen Journalism
My last comment goes to Elyse's Produsage-based Citizen Journalism!
and here is my comment:
Hey Elsye, I had a great time reading your blog as how you briefly described what Citizen Journalism is and its connection to open source software. Incidentally, I have been curious as to what exercises popularity for participatory users of the Produsage age (basically because I am quite unpopular with my blogs myself), and it seems you have suggested an idea that members that engage within a shared-collaborative environment must gain their social capital by ‘creating an idea that interests them and that will interest their peers which starts to develop, which soon leads to a wider community then evaluating and adding more information and views). So what you are basically stating is that users must distribute content that is relevant or of interest to a wide community – I definitely agree to what you propose. I also would like to draw out from There’s no money in the long tail of the Blogosphere, that basically a vast majority of blogs have zero views, meaning that as user-led contributors, we must focus more on the relevance, quality, usability of our user-led content (phew!).
and here is my comment:
Hey Elsye, I had a great time reading your blog as how you briefly described what Citizen Journalism is and its connection to open source software. Incidentally, I have been curious as to what exercises popularity for participatory users of the Produsage age (basically because I am quite unpopular with my blogs myself), and it seems you have suggested an idea that members that engage within a shared-collaborative environment must gain their social capital by ‘creating an idea that interests them and that will interest their peers which starts to develop, which soon leads to a wider community then evaluating and adding more information and views). So what you are basically stating is that users must distribute content that is relevant or of interest to a wide community – I definitely agree to what you propose. I also would like to draw out from There’s no money in the long tail of the Blogosphere, that basically a vast majority of blogs have zero views, meaning that as user-led contributors, we must focus more on the relevance, quality, usability of our user-led content (phew!).
The Measure of Renown for a Produsage Participatory User
In regards to the previous five blogs I have written, I couldn’t help but notice that no one has actually commented on my blogs. Keep in mind that I am not completely depressed or anything, but I am curious and perhaps doubtful that my user-led content is not good enough. I questioned as to how can I become important (like Axel Bruns maybe?) by distributing my own content. After all, blogging is based on the Produsage concept; and I would like to provide my personal assumptions as how to become a well-renowned Produsage participatory user.
Let me just lightly address that in my prior blogs I have explained that Produsage ranges in various key domains including social networking, citizen journalism, knowledge bases and my personal favourite, online gaming.
So how come I have not been commented on? I would like to point out that in my previous blogs, only a couple have been carefully tagged. In order for my blogs to be ‘googled’, they must be tagged to be locatable in an online environment. Secondly, I as well generally believe that Produsage isn’t entirely well-known to a large amount of people just yet, it will be eventually, but it adds to the odds in which people will read and locate my blogs. Therefore, two goals must be achieved for content to be more excessively engaged with participatory users, firstly, they must be carefully tagged and that the subject must appeal to a significant amount of users. Written in a article I read earlier concerning long tail material is There’s no money in the long tail of the Blogosphere which explains a vast amount of blogs have few readers with no traffic at all.. Another point I would like to address draws from Brun’s book “Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage” in which he states (2008, 75) that given a sufficiently large and diverse group of contributors within the online community, only then will user-led content be actively engaged continually.
Another valid point I would like to address in regards to become renowned of your user-led content is to primarily focus on the quality you provide. How relevant and useable could it be for other people? Drawn once again from another of Brun’s in Produsage: Key Principles is the underlying fact that in order to gain social capital, it depends primarily on the freely accessible content you distribute.
Truth be told, there are various other ways to have your own content become actively engaged with a large amount of users. Social networking websites such as myspace or facebook gain popularity on profiles by the possible amount of friends you may have, or by how good looking you are in your personal photos (quality of user-led content). What ever the reason, please be aware that it is a possibility for anyone to become a ‘celebrity’ or ‘expert’, just keep trying and use my teachings wisely.
Let me just lightly address that in my prior blogs I have explained that Produsage ranges in various key domains including social networking, citizen journalism, knowledge bases and my personal favourite, online gaming.
So how come I have not been commented on? I would like to point out that in my previous blogs, only a couple have been carefully tagged. In order for my blogs to be ‘googled’, they must be tagged to be locatable in an online environment. Secondly, I as well generally believe that Produsage isn’t entirely well-known to a large amount of people just yet, it will be eventually, but it adds to the odds in which people will read and locate my blogs. Therefore, two goals must be achieved for content to be more excessively engaged with participatory users, firstly, they must be carefully tagged and that the subject must appeal to a significant amount of users. Written in a article I read earlier concerning long tail material is There’s no money in the long tail of the Blogosphere which explains a vast amount of blogs have few readers with no traffic at all.. Another point I would like to address draws from Brun’s book “Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage” in which he states (2008, 75) that given a sufficiently large and diverse group of contributors within the online community, only then will user-led content be actively engaged continually.
Another valid point I would like to address in regards to become renowned of your user-led content is to primarily focus on the quality you provide. How relevant and useable could it be for other people? Drawn once again from another of Brun’s in Produsage: Key Principles is the underlying fact that in order to gain social capital, it depends primarily on the freely accessible content you distribute.
Truth be told, there are various other ways to have your own content become actively engaged with a large amount of users. Social networking websites such as myspace or facebook gain popularity on profiles by the possible amount of friends you may have, or by how good looking you are in your personal photos (quality of user-led content). What ever the reason, please be aware that it is a possibility for anyone to become a ‘celebrity’ or ‘expert’, just keep trying and use my teachings wisely.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Comment #5: Aligning Citizen Journalism and Traditional Journalism
This is my comment to Aligning Citizen Journalism and Traditional Journalism,
and here is my comment:
Hey iZiviso, I was highly interested towards your summary on citizen journalism; how it is beneficial towards bringing a larger range of diverse opinions and that it is a completely different turn towards how journalism now operates. There is one statement that I do want to focus in your blog, which you implied that news content that is generated through citizen journalism has eroded in terms of credibility and truth due to the lack of filtering of accuracy. Know that you are right as to what you have explained; only be aware that citizen journalism is one of the key domains of produsage. Meaning, that all news articles are freely accessible in shared-collaborative environments which are able to edited, commented, reviewed and critiqued by a high potential of participatory users. Therefore, no matter how unpredictable or pointless the participatory user-led content is, please acknowledge that users all around the world are able to manipulate the content for the good of the online communities.
and here is my comment:
Hey iZiviso, I was highly interested towards your summary on citizen journalism; how it is beneficial towards bringing a larger range of diverse opinions and that it is a completely different turn towards how journalism now operates. There is one statement that I do want to focus in your blog, which you implied that news content that is generated through citizen journalism has eroded in terms of credibility and truth due to the lack of filtering of accuracy. Know that you are right as to what you have explained; only be aware that citizen journalism is one of the key domains of produsage. Meaning, that all news articles are freely accessible in shared-collaborative environments which are able to edited, commented, reviewed and critiqued by a high potential of participatory users. Therefore, no matter how unpredictable or pointless the participatory user-led content is, please acknowledge that users all around the world are able to manipulate the content for the good of the online communities.
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