The history of casual gaming and how technology convergence has changed the gaming landscape
Questions answered :
• How has the culture of casual gaming evolved?
• What are the repercussions of tech convergence relating to indie developers?
• What does the future look like for casual gaming?
• How might IPTV affect end user media consumption?
Games are an art-form but are they living up to their artistic heritage? As an indie developer I have attempted to discover what games can do to better society and how to create fun non-preachy experiences doing it.
Questions answered :
Why are games important?
Are games to blame for society’s ills?
Are games art?
Can you make a philanthropic game?
As telepresence and broadcasting technologies migrate to the cloud, we can create new types of stories, immersive experiences and alternate reality games. Content creators can engage across borders in collaborative environments in real time. In the first part of the workshop, we will demonstrate the dual platforms – telepresence and broadcasting. This hands-on workshop will enable participants to dive in and test the technology. By doing so, participants can get a sense of the technology’s potential, capabilities and limits. The second part will steer participants through the creation of a short format, such as a scene, story or game, and how to use digital tools to bring their concepts to life.
Questions Answered:
How do new telepresence and broadcasting technologies impact content creation and distribution?
“Yeah, this is a pretty good server, but there’s always these couple of players who never join a squad and, like, have a kill/death ratio of about minus a million. They make it really hard to win. I wish the admins would just kick them off.”
Wait. That’s me. I’ve somehow found a spare hour at the end of my day and I’ve decided the best use of it is to run around aimlessly in some kind of post-apocalyptic battlefield waving guns around and most often wondering where on earth somebody just came from to stab me in the back. I respawn more often than I run around, to be honest.
But there’s more to it than just the constant death-by-camper. Take a look a multiplayer gaming from my point of view, you sniveling little git, and I’ll show you a world of cognitive reflex, synaptic response and heart rate modifiers that help keep me alive. At least, in the real world.
Questions Answered:
What are the benefits of multiplayer gaming to a generation of older players?
What are the barriers to entry for older multiplayer gamers?
What’s it like to die in multiplayer games quite so much?
Every year, hundreds of archaeological excavations take place in advance of development, which generate thousands of features and finds and myriad stories about Londoner’s lives. Yet these stories are meant for the living, now, and the point of carefully recovering them is so they can be told. As an archaeological charity, we need to find the best ways in which to reach people with these stories, and which of the huge digital and physical resources we have are best placed to enable that engagement. We invite the eInnovators at Digital Shoreditch 2013 to come to us and hear more about our requirements and talk about ideas they have on this topic with a view to working with us on innovative collocations.
Questions Answered:
What is the best resource for archaeological information about the history of London?
I want to use my gaming/social media development/mobile skills to create a popular engaging application that will exploit the interest Londoners have in the home area, and the time depth that exists there, but who do I talk too about content?
Capture the Museum is a game like no other. Imagine ‘Risk’ and ‘Capture the Flag’ but on a giant scale. In a museum. Two teams battle for territory, scoring points by interacting with exhibits. It’s frantic, fast-paced, great fun and a glimpse at the future of gaming in the cultural sector.
There was a time when all museums had to do was throw open their doors. Technology has given institutions the power to communicate on a more granular level and museums must now battle for attention on a one to one basis. With the general opening-up of collections databases and the rise of technological hobbyism, passionate small-scale communities are forming with the need for physical social experiences.
This talk explores the lessons learnt from a research and development project unburdened by the fear of failure. Without the financial pressure to succeed we could explore delivering innovative, small-scale group experiences and how shared group activity verifies different modes of engagement. The software behind the game also creates a case for alternative funding models in the cultural sector.
Questions Answered:
>> How do you engage tech-savvy, opinion formers in the cultural sector?
>> How can cultural organisations develop new revenue models?
>> How do you design physical games for large groups?
