Game Over for GameStop and Video Game Retailers?
Before it even launched, Diablo III had sold 2 million copies, making it the biggest game release of the year by far. The same week, though, video game retailer GameStop announced a worse-than-expected quarter of falling revenues led by plummeting in-store sales. Together, those two facts signal a massive re-alignment of how games are sold.
Mind-Controlled Videogames Become Reality
Picture this: You put on a headset and relax your mind. Soon you begin controlling an object with your thoughts.
This mind-power trick may seem far-fetched, like something from a late-night science fiction movie or the back of an old comic book. But several companies are bringing this technology to life with affordable headsets that determine a person’s state of mind.
The gadgets translate brain waves into digital information and beam it wirelessly to computers or other devices.
So far the headsets are confined to mostly digital interfaces—videogames and movies whose plots can be altered with the mind—although in some cases real-world objects have been used, like a pair of catlike ears that move depending on a person’s mood. The technology, still in its infancy, has the potential to not only entertain but to possibly improve education and strengthen mental health, some doctors say.
Online Gaming, Mobile Entertainment And The Land Of Opportunity In Video Game Design
Of the seventy-two percent of American households playing computer or video games, fifty-five percent choose to play them on their phones or handheld devices.
Why the Leap Is the Best Gesture-Control System We’ve Ever Tested
Headline says it all. Did I mention gesture is what comes after touch, for interfaces? 🙂
YoYo Games intros GameMaker: Studio for cross-platform game development
The tool promises output in native code for iOS, Android, HTML 5, PC and Mac
YoYo Games launches GameMaker: Studio today, a fast and easy to use 2D games development tool that provides for cross-platform output. GameMaker: Studio allows developers to create games in a single code base and then export and run them natively on multiple formats including HTML5, Facebook, Android, iOS, Symbian, Windows and OSX. The software has a drag-and-drop integrated development environment with a built-in games-oriented scripting language that considerably increases games development productivity.
Must-See Video: Gesture Control Accuracy Takes a Huge “Leap” Forward
Dude! Yeah, it’s must-see. This is the next interface after touch.
It’s more accurate than a mouse, as reliable as a keyboard and more sensitive than a touchscreen…. This isn’t a game system that roughly maps your hand movements. The Leap technology is 200 times more accurate than anything else on the market — at any price point. Just about the size of a flash drive, the Leap can distinguish your individual fingers and track your movements down to a 1/100th of a millimeter.
An Educator’s Perspective for the Next 50 Years of Video Games
I highly recommend following John’s blog, and on Twitter at @EduGamRes
Neuroscientists develop video game for stroke recovery
After a stroke, it is often possible — with months of therapy and determination — for the brain to relearn how to control a weakened limb. Finding the resources (therapist, finances, time) can be the bigger hurdle.
Enter Circus Challenge, the first in a coming suite of action video games designed by Newcastle University stroke experts and the new company Limbs Alive to provide extra in-home therapy.
“Eighty percent of patients do not regain full recovery of arm and hand function and this really limits their independence and ability to return to work,” pediatric neuroscience professor Janet Eyre at Newcastle, who set up Limbs Alive to produce the games, said in a news release.
“Patients need to be able to use both their arms and hands for most everyday activities such as doing up a zip, making a bed, tying shoe laces, unscrewing a jar. With our video game, people get engrossed in the competition and action of the circus characters and forget that the purpose of the game is therapy.”
Research: Active Play Video Games May Benefit Children with Cerebral Palsy
Children with cerebral palsy (CP) can greatly benefit from playing “active play” video games – as opposed to the kind that don’t require any kind of physical activity. According to researchers from Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital and the University of Toronto.
Children with CP that play traditional games face an even greater risk of being overweight or developing health issues such as diabetes or musculoskeletal disorders than other children. But researchers say that video games such as those found on Nintendo’s Wii can provide an opportunity to promote light to moderate physical activity in children with CP, and may even have a role to play in rehabilitation therapy. Their research was published online today in the Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.
“Active video games (AVG) provide a low-cost, commercially available system that can be strategically selected to address specific therapeutic goals,” says lead investigator Elaine Biddiss, PhD, of Toronto’s Bloorview Research Institute at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, and the University of Toronto, Canada. “While our results did not show that AVG game play can be regarded as a replacement for more vigorous physical activity or muscle strengthening, we found that some games may provide targeted therapy focused on specific joints or movements.”
Got Schwartz? 