https://docs.google.com/document/d/11DCsxxfnt3heRoIleYFqzzy6L1KwX9QN-G6LLhh5CX8/edit?usp=sharing
AAAustralia
On 16 April 2015, the last AAA studio in Australia is closing down. AAA is a term used for a game with a very high budget and developed by a large studio. We have seen many Australian studios closing down in the past few years. Some notable closure were Pandemic Studios, creator of many popular games such as Star Wars: Battlefront ll which were closed down in 2009; Team Bondi creator of LA Noire in 2011 and recently, 2K Australia, creator of many great games such as BioShock. One of the reasons why 2K Australia is closing down is because of the operating cost.
However, there are many other reasons why many studios in Australia were shut down. According to Christian McCrea the reasons why many studios in Australia were shut down is because of the work-for-hire model and many other reasons such as the high cost of participant, poor management and disorganized. The work-for-hire model seem to be one of the most important reasons because the work-for-hire system lead to the lack of original intellectual property and that resulted in ‘expericed developers-especially artists and designers-were moving overseas to further their careers, leaving local production bereft of talent or creative assets’. (McCrea, C 2013, p204)
Even though we are now see the fall of AAA or big gaming studios in Australia, we are also seeing a rise of indie games and independent, small gaming studios and mobile gaming. One of the most famous game developed by an Australian is Fruit Ninja. By 2014, Fruit Ninja had been downloaded over 500 million times. Another successful game by an Australian is Crossy Road.
ParKKing
I have finished making 4 different dices this week and Bernard also finishes making a card. What we have to do now is to wait for a dice to be printed, finish a board, think about what we should use as a figure on the board and start making a coin.
Reference
McCrea, C 2013, ‘Australian Video Games: The Collapse and Reconstruction of an Industry’, in Gaming Globally: Production, Play and Place, Palgrave Macmillan, United States, pp203-207.
The Battle for Middle Earth mod
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth is a real time strategy game that was released in 2004. The sequel, The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earthll was released in 2006 with an expansion call The Rise of the Witch-king. The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earthll andit expansion, The Rise of the Witch-king is possibly my most favorite game ever because I really like playing real time strategy game and I love J. R. R. Tolkien novel. Even though, the game was released in 2006, I’m still playing it. I played it from time to time when I have nothing to do but I play it more often recently because of the mod that was released by a team call The Edian Mod. They created a mod for The Rise of the Witch-king and last month, they just released a long awaited new version of their mod in English (before this version, all of their mod is in German). The mod improves the gameplay by adding more faction, unit and it also change the whole gameplay system and change it back to the first installment style of building and gameplay. Their aimed is ‘to take you deeper into Middle-Earth than ever before and turn the Battle for Middle-Earth II into a game worthy of Tolkien’s books and Peter Jackson’s movies. In our quest for lore accuracy, visual quality and deeper gameplay, we overhauled every aspect of the original game to craft a new and immersive Lord of the Rings experience.’
It’s very interesting to see that a game that almost ten years old are still being modded and play by so many players. These mod that makes modifications to a game and improve its gameplay by changing and adding many new things really do prolonged the life of a game title. I’m very happy with this mod because it adds many new things and it takes players deeper into the story than the base game. The current version 4.1 has been downloaded over 11,000 times even though it is still on a demo.
ParKKing
This week I made four different dice for my game project ParKKing. It was very difficult at first, but when I get to play with it more and watch some video tutorials on how to create a 3d model, it’s become easier to make and now I can make a basic 3d model.
Reference
Postigo, H 2007, ‘Of Mods and Modders: Chasing Down the Value of Fan-Based Digital Game Modifications’, Games and Culture, vol.2, no.4, pp300-313.
B-Sieged: Sons of the Abyss
B-Sieged: Sons of the Abyss is a cooperative castle defense board game. The main goals of the game is to endure the siege of the abyssal troops and protecting the Messenger until the Messenger return with an ancient magic artifact that will break the enemy forces. Each player takes control of the number of heroes and they can use it to collect resources, attack enemies from the wall or use the catapult at the center of the Citadel. The players will win the game as a team if the Messenger leave the board and return to the citadel before the end of round 12 and there have to be at least one hero alive at the end of the round the Messenger returns.
In my opinion, this is a very interesting game that I would like to play, but I also feel that it is a little bit too complicated. I really like the setting of the game and the idea behind it. I love to play a defensive, strategy game and I also like the fantasy type of game. Therefore, I think that this is a game that really interesting because it is a combination of what I like, a fantasy castle defense game. This board game also has a very nice artwork and miniatures that will attract a lot of people. On the other hand, I think that this game is quite complicated to play as there are so many things to do and there will be so many things on the board at one time. The player will have to move their hero, spawn/move enemies, move the Messenger.
Overall, this should be a very good game and I would support the project because it is a beautiful board game with very impressive artwork and the concept, theme and setting is something that I like. It is a little bit complicated, but I think that when I get to play it and understand the gameplay more, it will be a lot of fun.
FPS is good for you
Does first-person shooter and many other ‘violent games’ make players more violent? From what we usually see and heard in the media, yes, violent games have an effect on the players and make them more violent. However, the research also found that playing fast moving game such as Halo or Call of Duty can improve players’ attention, mental control and visual skills. Researcher at University of Toronto had conducted on the effect of video games, one of the researchers stated that ‘After playing the shooter game, the changes in electrical activity were consistent with brain process that enhance visual attention and suppress distracting information.’
Even though media usually cover a story about violent game and try to prove that there is a linked between violent gaming and player’s violent behavior, a question that came up is that, should media look at games before look at other factors? One example that makes me think of this question is The Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. Media report that many violent shooter video games can be found at the gunman’s house and it seems that the media try to show that gunman’s violent behavior is an effect of playing many violent video games and that is one of the problems with the effect model, they tackle the problem backward. They start by looking at the media and blame it before looking at other social factor that can contribute to violent behavior such as social background, abusive family, school, poverty, depression and many others. These social factors such as abusive family and depression is usually the cause behind violent, while exposure to media violence only has a little effect.
In my opinion, violent games do have an effect on players’ behavior, but I think media blame and focus the game too much. There are many other factors and situation that can make people even more violent than playing violent games, driving for example.
Designed to last… for a while
Since, we have the ability to mass produce something in great number and in only a short time, businessmen face an issue about overproduction and how to avoid it. However, their answer to this issue is not by reducing production, but by selling more and, that, is the beginning of planned obsolescence. Planned obsolescence is the practice of limiting the durability of manufactured goods in order to necessitate more frequent replacement and stimulate repetitive consumption. It is a tool that used by manufacturers to gain more profit by selling more.
There are many methods and term that refer to different type of planned obsolescence, such as…
- Functional obsolescence
- Systemic obsolescence
- Perceived obsolescence
There are a few more, but I think that these three is the most important and used the most. Functional obsolescence is a term that refers to a product that stops working after a period of time, a company can do this by creating a product with poorer components. Another example is when companies stop supporting and making parts to fix the dysfunctional products or increase the price of the parts so that people will more likely buy new one instead of fixing it, such as a classic or old car. Systemic obsolescence is referring to the way that companies obsolete a product by changing the system in which it operates. An example of this can usually be seen in computer softwares. Lastly, perceived obsolescence or style obsolescence. Perceived obsolescence makes a product obsolete by releasing a new product with a new look and style. This makes it so that the owner of older product would feel out of date and this might urge them to change to a new version.
From all of these three, the driving force for premature replacement are more often fashion than function. People usually replace their old product with new product because of fashion and the new look, but not because the old one became unusable. How many people have changed to a new iPhone while your old iPhone is still good? How many stops wearing their old clothes because it’s already out of trend, even though it still wearable?
This created a constant demand for the product and that result in many problems such as a rush to find certain materials that resulted in conflict and many environmental problems in many countries, extra hours of work for a worker in a factory, in order to meet a demand and more e-waste from old functional products that was replaced by newer products.
Reference
Chan, A 2013, PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE, accessed 25/04/2014, http://thurj.org/feature/2013/05/4362/
Slade, G 2006, Made to Break: Technology Obsolescence in America, Harvard University Press, USA.
Board Game Presentation
PARKKING
This week, I spend a lot of time thinking about my board game, getting to class. Thinking what I can do to improve this game and make this game more fun and challenging. The first thing I did is thinking of the new name and I came up with a new name, ParKKing. I also have to think about how to balance the game. How many slots this game should have. How many slots while driving and how many after parking. How many traps and items that would slow players down and how many traps and items that will help players. Below is what ParKKing going to be like. Its only a draft, still need to play test and see if the slot is enough and this draft still don’t have any trap on board. A play test will have to be done after I decide where to put a trap and make a card and see what to improve afterward. Here is my game document.
http://prezi.com/gnftn0idk01g/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share
Some improvements to gameplay
- After player arrived at the first parking (free parking), that player will be in no card zone. When players are in no card zone, they can’t draw any card from both coins and items deck and cannot use any card. This makes it so that they have to decide whether to park at the parking where he/she have enough coins for, park at the free parking and take a long walk, stop and use ask for coin card before enter no card zone or test their luck and try to go for lost wallet.
- Even though, players cannot draw coin card while in no card zone, there are a few lost wallets in no card zone that players can try and go for instead of stop and using ask for coin card. If players are in a hurry and can’t stop and use ask for coin, they can try and go for lost wallet on the board. However, players cannot turn back. Therefore, if players still don’t have enough coins they would have to go to the end of the board and turn back there and try go for lost wallets again on the way back. But, if a player still doesn’t have enough coins after passing C2 on the way back, he/she will have to use the free parking (cannot turn around).
Free(dom of) Information
I would like to go back and look at freedom of information again. As I said in my last BCM310 post that freedom of information is one of the biggest problem in global media. It sure is a problem when the media or government, can control an information and choose what we, viewers, listeners, consumers should see and what shouldn’t be reported. As a result of this problem, there are many campaigns or initiative that tries to make it so that information is really free and should be accessible by the public, one of the initiatives that I would like to talk about is Wikileaks.
Wikileaks is an international not-for-profit media organization that aimed to bring important news and information to the public. It is an organization that leaked information to the public by letting people from around the world to submit the information into their electronic drop box or other methods such as hacking. According to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Wikileaks goal is justice and the strategies that they use to get to that goal is transparency. However, Wikilwaks also raised a question of what information should be free, which information should public be able to access?
One of the information that’s released by Wikileaks that shows that our personal message can be intercepted is the 9/11 Pager data. By looking at these data, we can see many personal messages that sender only wants certain person to receive but now it can be seen by almost anyone. Nowadays, it is even easier for others to get our personal information. An application on our phone or a website that we use can possibly feed off our information without our knowledge. As David Barnard stated that many companies such as Google and Facebook trade in information – ‘the more detailed and personalized the information, the more valuable’. They then can sell this information to an advertising company so that they would know what we interested in. We can be monitored or surveillance at anytime and anywhere.
The notion that we can be surveillance at any time and anywhere makes me think of the term Internet of things, or IoT when our phone or gadgets send out our information over a network without the need of human interference. One example of this issue is a digital public bin case in London. What happened is that there were many public bins on the street of London that track pedestrians smartphone and use a information from smartphone and advertise something that they might like according to a information that it get from a smartphone. . 
Reference
Chen, B X 2011, Always on: How the iPhone Unlocked the Anything-Anytime-Anywhere Future and Locked Us In, Da Capo Press
Pilger, J 2011, Julian Assange in conversation with John Pilger, accessed 31/03/2015, http://johnpilger.com/videos/julian-assange-in-conversation-with-john-pilger
Sifry, M 2011, WikiLeaks and the Age of Transparency, Scribe, Australia, pp15
What’s in store for DIGC310??
This is one of the subjects that is quite challenging because I don’t have much knowledge on gaming but I still love playing games. I think that this subject is a lot of fun and interesting. I’m aiming for distinction at first, but now I think that I would be very happy if I can get credit.
I really do have a lot of fun when thinking and writing about my idea for a game. For now, I call this game ‘Getting To Class’. I already have a good idea of what it will look like, how to play it and how to make it. So for the beta game pitches in week 6, I will make a Prezi that describes what my game is about and how to play it. I’m also thinking of making it from a paper and let others try it in week 6.
What I think I can contribute to the gaming groups and final group presentation are Prezi, making a game and perhaps helping with 3D printing and 3D modelling. I can actually pretty much do anything if someone wanted me to do. I’m learning about how to create a 3D model right now. My skill is mostly with Makers and Modellers group. I can help writing a blog or filming for Media group, but I’m not good when it comes to recording me playing a video game or record my voice.
For the project dossier, I’m still really not sure what I should include in this assignment, but I’m sure that as the time goes on and I know more about it, I would have a lot of things that I will want to put in it. Up until now, I have only written a blog post about what is required me to write, but I haven’t added anything from the reading into it yet and I sure will add what I found interesting and relevant from the reading into my blog.
My Blog 