Over USD 1.85 million in grants has been assigned to nine research teams in the US in a bid to look at the possible health benefits that playing videogames can bring.
The money, from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, will examine a variety of issues across a number of existing health problems to see if a tangible link between games and health improvements can be made.
A statement released by the Foundation notes a few examples, including: "How the popular dance pad videogame Dance Dance Revolution might help Parkinson's patients reduce the risk of falling; how Wii Active might be most effectively implemented in high schools to help overweight students lose weight; how a mobile phone game with a breath interface might help smokers quit or reduce their tobacco use; or how facial recognition games might be designed to help people with autism learn to identify others' emotions."
In total the Foundation received 185 proposals and selected nine teams, each of which will be assigned between USD 100,000-300,000 to undertake one- or two-year studies.
"Digital games are interactive and experiential, and so they can engage people in powerful ways to enhance learning and health behaviour change, especially when they are designed on the basis of well-researched strategies," said Debra Lieberman PhD, communication researcher in the University of California's Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research - where Health Games Research is headquartered.
"The studies funded by Health Games Research will provide cutting-edge, evidence-based strategies that designers will be able to use in the future to make their health games more effective."
The price cuts from Sony and Microsoft for their respective platforms have ensured market momentum throughout September, THQ CEO Brian Farrell has said. But he is "concerned" about the software tie ratio for Wii.
Speaking in an investor call following his company's latest quarterly financial report, Farrell stated: "We are encouraged by the hardware price cuts. We particularly like the momentum on the PS3 and Xbox 360 platforms now.
"Wii hardware units sales were up 66 per cent but we are concerned about the software tie ratio for the platform."
He added that THQ's business restructuring had worked in the current, more fragmented market.
"The old formula of getting an IP and porting it to every platform known to man isn't working for anyone in this marketplace," he said. "That's why we re-organised around these business units which allows people to focus on each of the types of consumers rather than particular platforms or products."
Farrell predicted a "cautious" consumer and retail environment for the holiday season, adding that retail was being cautious on its early ordering but was prepared to buy subsequent stock of games that were selling well.
In response to these market conditions, THQ would focus on delivering quality games, strong brand recognition and focused marketing campaigns to consumers, he said.
The company was also investing in Natal and Sony motion tech development, he continued - incentives which he hopes will expand their respective platforms' installed bases into which it can sell product.
"From the bigger picture," he added, "what we really like is that both Sony and Microsoft are making pretty major statements that they intend for this to be a long cycle by broadening the platform's appeal by going very mass market late in the cycle."
THQ's second quarter financials showed a sales drop of 39 per cent on last year. However, operating losses were reduced and the company says it's on target to outperform last year's sales over the whole of fiscal 2010.
Studies about video games say the darnedest things. Either it is plainly obvious that being a gamer hurts your income — because you have to spend money on these games! — or there is a mathematical revelation here.
The New-Brunswick Telegraph Journal reports the findings of Economics student Ryan MacLeod, who has crunched some demographics numbers to determine that, the more men play games, the more their income drops.
He's put a number on that, the paper reports:
The effect is so notable that for every minute a video game is played, MacLeod's research suggests gamers can expect a 0.4 per cent decrease in income.
And more from MacLeod:
"My work confirms that, in general, the more income a person has, the more time they spent playing video games," MacLeod said. "But that playing video games could also have a negative effect on a person's income."
I've long wondered how much money avid gamers commit to their gaming hobby each year. When you add and subtract all your game purchases, trade-ins and whatnot, what's the tab at year's end? And, as the story notes, if your income is lower, is it because of some subtle effect playing games has on earning power? Or is it simply that you played games so much, you cost yourself time that could have been used to make more income?
Market research firm Permuto Discoveries have published a list of the top-selling Christmas gifts for kids over the past forty years. Unsurprisingly, over the past few years at least, video games have dominated.
The list provides only the single, top-selling, must-have item for the year. No room for second place here. And it shows that seven times in the past 34 years - beginning with Pong in 1975 - a video game or games console has come in at #1. Bump that number up to eight if you count 1999's Pokemon, owned by Nintendo, as a gaming product.
Gaming gear really starts to pull away in the past decade, with the PS2 topping 2001's list, followed by the DS, Wii and PS3 in 2004, 2006 and 2007 respectively. Hrm. Wait a minute. The PS3 outsold the Wii for Christmas 2007? It most certainly did not.
Makes you wonder whether Permuto got anything else on the list wrong. We hope not, though; 1993's Genesis Mortal Kombat looks just fine where it is, thanks.
A new study from the UK (via The Independent) has shown what many piracy-advocates have been saying for years. While the average person spends around £34 a year on music, people who self-identify as pirates spend an average of £77. The pirates are also the ones buying music in greater quantities. For years, piracy advocates have claimed that most users only pirate as a way to 'test' new bands and seek out more music to buy.
While no study can prove that fact 100%, this is certainly more evidence in favor of it. More importantly, this news should be a sign to the labels that, by punishing pirates, they're only hurting their biggest customers. I'm no fan of illegal downloading, but it's not something any corporation of government entity is ever going to be able to erase. Pirates will always find a way.
So, will news like this get the labels to stop suing their customers? Probably not. At this stage of the game, the companies that want to adapt already have. What we're left with are a few dinosaurs. They're big, scary, and powerful, but not very long for this world. The climate has changed too much to support them.
This morning a videogame literally forced me to say "I love you", enunciating every syllable perfectly, clearly enough for a computer program to register, before it would allow me to progress.
I don't use that word lightly. Maybe that's why I have all this money and no one to use to make it happy. I'm not going to lie: I had to close my eyes in order for the words to come out. It was that creepy. Eyes closed, lips pressed close to the microphone so as to minimize the already-minimal chance that the girl sleeping in the other bedroom sixty feet away wouldn't hear me and think I was talking to her, I said "I love you" to my Nintendo DS. (In Japanese: "a-i-shi-te-ru".) My god; I shuddered. That was the first god damn time I ever said those words to anyone, real or not. The sickening implications of this — the causes, the effects, the explanations — made me suddenly dizzy.
The girl in the DS then said, "Now say it 999,999 more times". The microphone icon displayed again. Was this a bad dream? Well, certainly, in the game I was playing — Konami Digital Entertainment's Love Plus — it was being presented as a bizarre nightmare of the main character's. I had been living out the simulated life of a high school student for 81 days — ten hours or so in the real world — and the game was just starting to recognize that I had preferred this one girl from the start. The thing is, she was finally starting to like me. The main character realized this, in much grimmer terms, minutes after I saw the figures and crunched the numbers from the comfort of my giant oak bed, here on a beautiful, crisp October morning. Hence the nightmare. The master bedroom in my current palace-like apartment doesn't have a lock. If it did, I would have done like the time the "Eyes on Me" scene came up in Final Fantasy VIII. Back then, I was a college student living in a dormitory, and there was a football game on TV. I could have been decapitated.
I told the game "I love you" one more time, finally feeling like I was doing the second worst and terriblest thing I have ever done in my life. The worst was way too terrible. I have occasion to remember it, maybe, once a week. It took maybe three years after doing the worst thing I ever did in my life to even realize how terrible it was to say such a thing to someone, so unthinkingly. With Love Plus, the guilt came immediately. We can get into that part later, if you'd like.
Thankfully, it let me off the hook at the second "I love you".
TechCrunch is running a story about the prevalence of scams and shady monetization techniques in popular social games on Facebook and MySpace. As an alternative to buying in-game currency with real money, many games make use of lead-generation offers — letting players sign up for a trial service or take a survey in exchange for the currency. The system is rife with scams, and many game developers turn a blind-eye to them, much to the detriment of the players and the legitimate advertisers — not to mention the games that rightly disallow these offers and fall behind in profits. The article asserts that Facebook and MySpace themselves are complicit in this, failing to crack down on the abuses they see because they make so much money from advertising for the most popular games.
A team with members from Microsoft, the University of Toronto, and the University of Washington have developed an interface that uses electrodes to monitor muscle signals and translate those into commands or button presses, allowing a user to bypass a physical input device and even control a game or application while their hands are full. The video demonstration shows somebody playing Guitar Hero by making strumming motions and tapping his fingers together, a jogger changing his music without having to touch the device, and a man flexing a muscle to open the trunk of his car while he carries objects in both hands. The academic paper (PDF) is available online.
The Eurogamer Expo has opened its doors in London following a sold out two day outing in Leeds.
Gamers began queuing three hours ahead of the expo's opening, keen to play upcoming games from publishers including EA, Ubisoft and Capcom.
High on their priority lists were Assassin's Creed 2, Army of Two: The 40th Day, Left 4 Dead 2 and Aliens Versus Predator, and many of the consumers queuing for entry to the event stated they own two or more consoles.
First to set foot inside the expo was student Josh Fall who'd travelled from Bristol for the event and was awarded a PSPgo for his troubles. "I'm looking forward to all of the games to be honest," he said, "but particularly Star Trek Online."
Gamer Rosemary Bridger, who travelled from Portsmouth for the event, said there were lots of games at the expo she wanted to play but especially Army of Two, Mass Effect 2 and AvP. She owns all of the games platforms, she said, including two PSPs and two Xbox 360s.
Over 4000 gamers are expected through the doors of the two day London event. As well as a long line-up of new and pre-release titles available for consumers to play, there will be developer sessions held by Chet Faliszek of Valve, Guillaume Voghel and Alex Hutchinson of EA Montreal and David Cage of Quantic Dream.
Leading internet provider criticises Lord Mandelson's new measures, claiming they are unworkable and will harm investment
Entanet has joined fellow internet service provider TalkTalk in condemning new Government plans to ban people from the internet if they persistently file share.
The legislation, announced yesterday by business secretary Peter Mandelson, will give the state the power to order ISPs to disconnect the most serious offenders, though only as a 'last resort'.
Entanet claims the new measures are unfeasible, and that eventually investment will suffer.
“Asking ISPs to police the Internet is like asking the Highways Agency to take responsibility for all of the accidents that happen on the roads," said Darren Farnden, marketing manager. "We are no more able to control how people use their connectivity than someone who builds and maintains roads can control the way in which people drive.
"All we can do is make sure that the highway is in working order, put reasonable usage policies in place and take appropriate action when it is necessary, merited and most importantly proven. There is already talk of the introduction of a broadband tax, so any added responsibility for monitoring is ultimately going to hurt ISPs’ and Internet users’ pockets. At a time when the UK needs considerable and continued investment in its network infrastructure, this is unwelcome to say the least.”
Should the Government intervene in illegal file sharing?
