Tuesday, 22 February 2011
Can You Log on so You Can Come Out And Play?
As humans we are playful by nature. Everyone used to play when they were children and use make believe to create new games. With digital games we can see many of these actions replicated. We have games that simulate physical activities like running and jumping such as in Sonic the Hedgehog or Doritos Crash Course. Then we have games in which we can do whatever we want. Things we could not do in real life like steal a car and shoot people. All these games are fun and challenging in their own ways, they instill feelings of elation and panic just like playing a real sport. Multiplayer games where you can play with your friends do increase the feeling of unity, however for me personally once the X Box is switched off there isn't this feeling of unity doesn't linger like it does after a football match.
The most important thing in a game for me is the narrative and how the game flows. If I get stuck on one level for too long I will lose interest. That might just be because I have short attention span. Also I think the game has to have strong characters and in games where you can build your own character I feel more involved; it’s more interactive. I have no issues walking away from a game however, but I do know someone, who refers to himself as the dungeon troll, who can happily sit in front of a game for more than six hours at a time. I knew a new game had come out when I saw him appear from the basement (his dungeon) and come back for a while with a whole case of red bull. He had planned to try complete the game all in one go. Impressive? Or has he become addicted to the rewards gaming gives him? It’s not my place to say, but as long as someone is enjoying themselves that’s all that matters. Life is a game. You can choose how you want to play.
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
I Have a Library Card but I Still Love the Internet
I was on the bus going to work one dark winter morning and the guy sitting in front of me was reading from a Kindle. I have to admit I started reading over his shoulder. I have read criticisms over the battery life and the screen being quiet difficult to see in the sunlight, but it seemed to be working just fine to me and would take up much less space in my backpack then the book I was reading at the time. I decided I'd look into buying one.
Imagining myself back where I used to live, Malta, on the beach with a kindle didn't really seem right. What if it got wet or got sand in it? I was put off by the price and also the odd fact that Amazon can take your book back if the publication is withdrawn for some reason. If I buy a gadget then it belongs to me and I think I should be able to do what I want with it (including modifying it if I want to).
However the internet has given us some interesting new ideas on books. They no longer need to be read in just one way and have one ending.
Literary Hypertext books change with your decisions. The ending can change and the main body of the book can be completely different when reading it another time. I have tried to read one such book and to be frank I found it really confusing, but I was impressed by the potential. I think I had issues following the narrative; which lead to my confusion.
All in all though I'm on team hypermedia. One of the reasons I love reading online is that you can always follow a link to get more information, or see a video relating to what you have just read about. It may be perhaps because I'm the kind of person who is either completely interested and therefore wants as much information on the subject as possible, or I'm completely uninterested and will be happy just to know the basics on that particular subject.
Imagining myself back where I used to live, Malta, on the beach with a kindle didn't really seem right. What if it got wet or got sand in it? I was put off by the price and also the odd fact that Amazon can take your book back if the publication is withdrawn for some reason. If I buy a gadget then it belongs to me and I think I should be able to do what I want with it (including modifying it if I want to).
However the internet has given us some interesting new ideas on books. They no longer need to be read in just one way and have one ending.
Literary Hypertext books change with your decisions. The ending can change and the main body of the book can be completely different when reading it another time. I have tried to read one such book and to be frank I found it really confusing, but I was impressed by the potential. I think I had issues following the narrative; which lead to my confusion.
All in all though I'm on team hypermedia. One of the reasons I love reading online is that you can always follow a link to get more information, or see a video relating to what you have just read about. It may be perhaps because I'm the kind of person who is either completely interested and therefore wants as much information on the subject as possible, or I'm completely uninterested and will be happy just to know the basics on that particular subject.
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
Constantly Catagorizing New Catagories
As humans we love to organize things and people into lovely little categories. We call some people alpha people (a nice way to say slightly bossy) and others beta people (don't mind doing what the bossy person says). Its part of our psychology and helps us organize and store information in our minds. It's also probably why we all just love google so much.
Google organizes information in accordance with what we are searching for. Google looks at web pages Meta data (how the page describes the information that it displays) and then categorizes it with similar pages. It’s all very impressive but considering how much information is on the internet does that mean that the whole internet is just an infinitely large database? To be honest half the stuff I read online if for entertainment and therefore not very important, so is there a reason to archive all this information? Who decides what can stay and what has to go?
Tagging is also a new way to organize information, but it does come with its own issues. How one person chooses to label something might be at odds with another person. The internet has also given rise to 'crowd sourcing' wherein companies outsource tasks or jobs like developing new technology (like iPhone apps created by iPhone users). Isn't this just free labour? A lazy way to make money off other peoples ideas? I think it is and I think the same for forum moderators. Volunteering is free labour at the end of the day and it doesn't matter what kind of volunteer work it is. As someone who has worked though high school and now university I see volunteering as a great thing to do if you want to, but at the end of the day I still need my paycheck.
Google organizes information in accordance with what we are searching for. Google looks at web pages Meta data (how the page describes the information that it displays) and then categorizes it with similar pages. It’s all very impressive but considering how much information is on the internet does that mean that the whole internet is just an infinitely large database? To be honest half the stuff I read online if for entertainment and therefore not very important, so is there a reason to archive all this information? Who decides what can stay and what has to go?
Tagging is also a new way to organize information, but it does come with its own issues. How one person chooses to label something might be at odds with another person. The internet has also given rise to 'crowd sourcing' wherein companies outsource tasks or jobs like developing new technology (like iPhone apps created by iPhone users). Isn't this just free labour? A lazy way to make money off other peoples ideas? I think it is and I think the same for forum moderators. Volunteering is free labour at the end of the day and it doesn't matter what kind of volunteer work it is. As someone who has worked though high school and now university I see volunteering as a great thing to do if you want to, but at the end of the day I still need my paycheck.
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