Digital Games can be Social Experiences

Professor Mark Durkin from the University of Ulster suggested:

“For customers, the constant and often simultaneous use of laptop, MP3 player, smart phone and TV, especially by our young people, has serious implications in terms of attention and focus, he says.
“Of note is the fact that such stimulating multi-tasking makes the necessary recovery time needed by the brain for consolidating daily thoughts increasingly absent.
“Time once available for reflection, thought and consideration is being eroded by the constant noise of electronic devices demanding our attention.

“In actuality, society has become enslaved by what we still view to be liberating technology.
“What needs to be realised is that the technological capability that purports to enable the ‘social’ in ‘social networking’ simply creates a sleepy virtual environment populated by discrete interactions that are often narcissistic, superficial and ephemeral.
“As a society we are actually connected only in our collective belief that the Internet ‘connects’ us socially”.

In the 1950s, this would have been about rock and roll music.

The article is mainly about how businesses cannot interact using internet-based social marketing in a half-hearted way. And I think h’s inferring that this alone is where the enslavement appears. By the same token we are enslaved by the television (it forces us to turn it on and watch it if we want to see our favoured shows), we are enslaved by the kettle (we are forced to turn it on and wait for it to boil if we want a cup of tea) and we’re enslaved by the very air around us (which we are forced to breathe or else we die). As Professor Durkin is a Professor of Marketing at the University of Ulster and professionals in marketing education are reeling from the effects of the Internet, technology and social networking, it’s not entirely surprising to see this reaction. It’s not possible to just teach the 4 Ps “Marketing Mix” and hope that’s enough to educate tomorrows marketing experts. It fails to take into account the social effects (unless you count individual and mass communications under Promotion).

Personally I find that technology is liberating. Yes, we become complacent about it and maybe dependent to a degree but we can re-learn if the technology is not available. But technology is liberating, it is social and it can cause interactions which were not present before. For example, check this video out.

From single user devices, we find that multi-user devices are better at enabling interactions. Especially at 0:07 when Jacob ditches the Nintendo DS.

Are either of these individuals enslaved or has the technology advanced to the point where they can share an experience.

Reunited

Today I moved about 150 kgs of my gaming collection to my house from my parents house. Keen-eyed geeks will be able to easily identify some of the game books here and some of you will even be upset at my organisation of the collection which, at the moment, is very coarse and will be improved as more of the collection is moved here. There’s easily another 150 kgs over there.

My bookshelf

You should be able to spot Traveller, Godlike, Star Trek, Blue Planet, Rolemaster, Middle Earth Roleplaying, Doctor Who, James Bond, Ars Magica, Call of Cthulhu maybe more.

I posted this pic on my Tech blog but when I think about it, it’s just as appropriate here.

MURDERDROME: iPhone comic reader BANNED!

Wednesday afternoon I popped round to Paul’s house for a quick chat (and a couple of headache tablets) and I saw a demo of MurderDrome, the first iteration of a new comic application for the iPhone.

There have been a few comic reader apps for the iPhone/iPod touch out there, most notably ClickWheel Comic Reader which gives access to a lot of content produced for 2000AD.

The Murderdrome iPhone comic demoed to me that day had a few very startling and fresh ideas.
The content was perfectly sized for the high res (160 dpi) screen of the iPod touch and iPhone. The side-side swipe of the finger moved from page to page but the UP-DOWN swipe of a finger took you through the content on that page. It removed colour, then inking, then brought the images down to the base wireframe. You could see the process on how it was made. You can, at a touch, remove or re-add speech bubbles and there are other settings (greyscale etc) which I didn’t have time to play with.

Paul (art, letters, colour) and Al (writer) have collaborated to make Murderdrome specially for the iPhone/iPod touch screen. The code was written by Philip Orr who you’ll also recognise as one of the names behind infurious. Watch Phil’s Blue Pilot for some very interesting developments soon.

See the Youtube video for more

The business model is simple. Aiming for a $1.99 price for a standard comic (equivalent to 22 pages in a standard American size comic), Apple take 30% of the money as their commission. InfuriousComics take 10% and the remaining 60% goes to the creators. Seem harsh? Not so much when you hear tales of how much comic creators get when their comics are sold – sometimes they have to sell in excess of 9000 copies just to break even – even if carried by a major publisher. This new model would mean creators get paid for every book they produce. If you sell 200 copes, you get 60% of cover. If you sell 3000 copies you get 60% of cover. That’s a lot better than the rates offered in print.

BUT….

MURDERDROME has been banned from the App Store for breaking rules about content. Please view the video and show some support for content being made available on the App Store by commenting on the article here.

You’ll also find links to other coverage of this cool new application.

Why is this relevant to LateGaming?

Apart from my association with Paul and Philip and subsequent involvement in InfuriousComics, there has been discussion about using their cool reader technology to build ‘decision tree books’ or as we used to call them ‘Choose your path’ style books. That has interest to me!