At the recent GameON Finance event I met Karen Lee Hall of Heroic Interactive. We had a brief but interesting discussion of the work both our companies were engaged in regarding kids and virtual worlds. Karen Lee's company is working in 2D FLASH while BlackCherry's direction is in the area of 3D immersive experiences.
GameON was a great event, if somewhat lacking in investor interest. One thing that did surprise me about the IO event was the general lack of discussion surrounding virtual worlds. Karen Lee tried to fill that gap with a question to one of the discussion panels titled ‘The Future is Now.' Her question was something along the lines of ‘Do you see a future where users will be able to transmit their avatars between different virtual worlds?' After some vague references to OpenID, the question was glossed over by the panel (all respected and active game industry professionals) as somewhat naive and unrealistic. This viewpoint seemed to underline again the general lack of familiarity or interest in current activities and thinking in the virtual world space.
!Xabbu was silent for a long moment. They hung side by side, twin stars floating in an empty black sky, two angels gazing down from heaven at the immensity of humankind’s commercial imagination.
Otherland: The City of the Golden Shadow, Tad Williams
For anyone not familiar with Virtual Worlds, they are massive, online environments where people can meet, interact and play. Any definition is inevitably a simplification of the actual level of development these online worlds represent. People, in virtual worlds are no longer merely playing a game, they are living out a parallel existence where they have relationships, wage epic battles, get married, have virtual children, buy and sell goods such as clothing and real-estate, go to virtual online clubs for entertainment, change their appearance, hold down jobs, create empires, kill and be killed, learn and educate. In essence, if it exists in the real world, it exists in the virtual world. Virtual world inhabitants are living a virtual life driven as much by imagination, hope, vanity, desire, ambition, and sex as is their everyday life in the real world.
Microsoft XBox Project Natal: Using new 3D motion capturing technologies, Microsoft claims it can turn your body into the new style of video game controller. Nevermind those old quickcam games where you just end up flaying your arms around while hoping to hit something. This is TOTAL body immersion. You can now drive a car with an invisible steering wheel, block hundreds of soccerballs with your body and karatekick your way through evil ninjas. VIDEO DEMO
It seems the dam that is the flow of information has completely burst and the great global conversation is raging through the neurons of all of us who choose to jack in.
I attended another social media forum yesterday (a good one by the way Zone5ive ) and decided it was time to take another look at Twitter. I looked at it a bit over a year ago and it didn't grab me but now, it seems to be a very different thing. The information seems more relevent and the tweets more thoughtful. Of course, it's me finally being ready for it rather than the other way round.
I think they must be dog years, although, really, it's all a blur. BlackCherry Digital Media Inc. turned five today. There are many natural laws in the world and it would seem, maybe even some in business. When you start everyone says, if you get to three years, you will get to five and if you get to five you will get to ten. The funny thing is, it really does appear to be true.
Lately I’ve been reading an interesting book, ‘Proust was a Neuroscientist’, by Jonah Lehrer. In the book Lehrer makes the case for artists discovering or outlining scientific concepts well in advance of scientific confirmation of these ideas. It’s a great read and the connections the author points out are really compelling insights. As I think about the premise of the book I realise there are many examples of similar cross-pollinations related to the field of new media. I thought I’d list some examples I’ve found interesting. What I find interesting about all these example is they are people re-thinking creative processes that many would consider fully evolved.
I came across an interesting company this week Foomojo, they are the makers of Foopets. Foopets are virtual pets that you can embed on your webpage, a kind of web-based Tamagochi.
I’ll give a disclaimer right now, I love pets, especially dogs. I have a flesh and blood border collie at home, but I hate these types of service toys/apps (as cute as they may be). By service toys/apps I mean you have to be constantly at their service. If mine appears to be dying or unhealthy please refer to my disclaimer above. I also think I would have found this product much more interesting if I hadn’t given my kids Nintendogs for their DS’s a year or so ago. Foopets seems to be a very similar, although somewhat less developed, version of this popular DS game. There is innovation here though, one that I’m surprised Nintendo didn’t jump on.
The power of computers will continue to double every two years or so into the foreseeable future.
There are over 1 billion Internet users worldwide — a number expected to double in the next five years.
One-third of American homes have broadband Internet access. Rates are even higher elsewhere: half of Japanese households and two-thirds of South Korean homes have broadband, at more than ten times the speed of the average U.S. connection.
There are over 75 million sites on the World Wide Web; 17.5 million new websites were created in 2005.
There are over 30 million active blogs worldwide; some 75,000 more are added each day.
In 2002, more than five exabytes of information were produced throughout the world — the equivalent of 37,000 Libraries of Congress.
There are nearly 2 billion cell-phone users worldwide, which means that almost one-third of the global population has a mobile phone.
In addition, specifically related to youth in the U.S. :
About 83 percent of young people between the ages of 8 and 18 play video games regularly.
72 percent use instant messaging.
On a typical day, more than half of U.S. teenagers use a computer and more than 40 percent play a video game.
I've been thinking about this question for some time now, 'Can a Video Game Change a Life?'
The obvious answer is, of course. There are certainly many examples cited as evidence of the negative impact of video games on the lives of teens. Recent cases of youth addiction have garnered media attention worldwide.
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There are even cases of suicide apparently linked to game play. This kind of negative press seems pretty commonplace now. Not to be left out, scientists and researchers have jumped into the fray with studies that 'conclusively' indicate violent video games desensitize us to violent acts.
So while the answer may appear moot in the minds of many, I think it's worthy of some deeper consideration. It may though, be better to rephrase the question to 'How can a Video Game Change a Life?'
With this blog I'd like to explore both the positive and negative aspects of this question. The answer, while it's unlikely to be a definite one, lies in a somewhat convoluted mix of social dynamics, psychology, learning theory and pop culture. If there is no definite answer, the process of exploring the question looks to be an interest journey.
This week, we took the leap into a whole new dimension for BlackCherry and it represents a great milestone for our company. This new direction is Trouble Inc. But what exactly is it? Is it a tv series, a game, toys, a brand? It is, or will be, all of those things and more. Put more simply though, it’s an idea. But not just any idea, it’s an idea we’ve shaped through months of thinking and re-thinking, working and re-working.
