I recently read a blog post about intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. I’ve come across and heard a lot of talk following a similar thought pattern to this blog post, the common theme being that extrinsic rewards can be counter productive with a suggestion that we could learn from video games intrinsic reward system.

But increasingly video games have both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. How many hours did you spend trying to get the gnome to the end of left 4 dead 2 so you could wear your virtual Depeche Mode tshirt on xbox live. How many of us put our gamerscore or trophies on our forum post? Games are getting increasingly tied into the social networks that surround content delivery systems and as a result many video game rewards are not impacting on the game itself but give a little something extra to show off in these networks.

I can’t say I’m the world biggest fan of Achievements/PSN trophy system/Steam achievements etc but this blog post by Vince Curley at Microsoft is a fantastic behind the scenes look at Achievements work and the thought process behind them

Some pretty cool homeostatic demos.

Paul Pangaro has done a nice diagram on how artificial Intelligence contrasts with cybernetics which I am still getting my head around..

(c) Paul Pangaro 1990

I have recently been reading an excellent book by Andrew Pickering entitled ‘the cybernetic brain’. The first half of the book gives an incredibly rich and fascinating history of early British cybernetics and although I have not yet finished the book I am really enjoying the stories behind early cybernetic thinkers and the extraordinary range of backgrounds from which they come from. From the history in the book and by recognising the common themes between the approaches to different fields I have come to understand cybernetics takes a ‘steering’ approach to achieve its goals; presumed knowledge takes a backseat while understanding and reacting to a unpredictable and complex changing environment moves to the front.

I have started to think back to some of the work I have done previously and how I might have approached it. In University a big interest of mine was network security and I had spent plenty of time on assignments using products such as Snort and writing code to detect predetermined malicious patterns in network packets. These tools would detect malicious activity based on rule sets. The tool would spot something defined within the rules and report it back to the user.

The methods I used required the system to have an indefinite amount of knowledge to constitute as intelligence. To create the rules we must already have an understanding of what is going to happen within our environment, which we do not and will not have. Would an approach derived from shared agreement on what network activity is eventually teach itself to be secure? How would we move from a rule-based system to a self steering one.

I think I am starting to understand why the early cybernetic thinker came from such a wide array of areas…. and also why they were all mad!

If you are a ArchiMate newcomer interested or interested in just playing around with it you might be interested to know CETIS has developed a free ArchiMate modeling tool. Really worth checking out:

http://archi.cetis.ac.uk

Demon’s Souls is currently my favorite game and although I have not progressed very far in the game I have poured many hours in to the first few zones. I have created many different characters setups, explored early dungeons extensively, studied enemy locations and pinpointed their weaknesses.

Typically I am the sort of player who quickly plays through a story never to touch the game again, so what makes Demon’s Souls different?

When you first play Demons Souls you might be put off by the crippling difficulty. The enemies are tough and although you will die frequently the game is fair and wants you to learn. Each battle will teach you new tricks, explore the dungeon so you find shortcuts and advantage points; an ingenious online mode lets you watch how fellow warriors have fallen. Slowly you will gain insight; the level will seem slightly easier each attempt.

The true genius of Demon’s Soul’s is the shift of experience from the player character to the actual player. Grinding in Demon’s Souls is all about growth in you rather then your digital representation. Don’t expect to be pressing X for 4 hours against rats here.

I could sing the praises of Demon’s Soul’s all day but instead I suggest you buy a copy and experience it for yourself. Unfortunately the game has yet to be released in Europe but it’s quite easy to pick up an US import copy.

Increasingly television has become a social experience and my frustrations with the Wii implementation of the BBC iplayer has left me thinking that companies will be forced to allow such an experience or lose out.

Today we can get easily get our fix through devices other then our standard television sets. Devices such as phones, computers, websites and consoles all compete for a slice of the viewing figures and more importantly the cash that comes with it. So how do these devices get and keep our attention and why won’t we just stick with our standard sets?

It seems companies such as Microsoft and Sony who have their consoles sitting under our sets think that they can get a slice of the action by delivering content through their console and in turn through their social networking software.

Microsoft know that Sky is a much more fun experience when friends who lives 1000s of miles away can decide to watch the football with you over xbox live, chatting away and then replaying the match on Fifa 10 afterwards. Similarly Sony offer you the chance to watch iPlayer or use your console as a DVR (via playTV ) while plugged into their PSN network. Sony even hope you might pull out your PSP in the pub to watch last nights neighbours you’ve recorded (which it is pulling from your PS3 at home via the pubs wifi).

Console manufacturers aren’t the only ones who know that a social experience is vital to keep viewers tuned in. The popular video site Youtube not only allows users to create profiles, leave comments and discuss content but also allows users to upload their own content Doesn’t it make your regular television set look rather outdated?

So the water cooler is dead. Watching is only half the experience. We shouldn’t have to wait until tomorrow to share.

Version 0.5 of the youtube randomizer was done tonight… yes ok so it doesn’t do much yet. But we have plans!

Check it out here

Digital distribution is everywhere; applications such as iTunes provide the ability for digital products such as MP3s, movies and computer software to be delivered to audiences over the Internet instead of using physical media such as CDs, DVDs or Blu Ray. They provides easy and direct sales to a global market. With iTunes and the App Store ‘Apple’ may be the company that comes to mind when digital distribution is discussed but it shouldn’t be forgotten that plenty of video game consumers have been using these systems for years and recent announcement at this years Game Developer Conference 2009 have really shown that there are plenty more exciting developments to come.

Over the past 5 years gaming has seen a massive rise in digital distribution systems; many customers have been more then willing to make the switch from obtaining a physical copy of computer game software from a ‘bricks and mortar’ shop to downloading it through through distribution systems such as Steam, Impulse, Xbox Live Arcade and PSN. Some of the advantages distribution systems have over their convention counterpart include:

• Instant user feedback
• Anti-cheating Systems for online games
• Auto patching
• Downloading purchased-content from any location

For myself the big draw was (and still is!) the last bullet point. The idea that once I bought a game I could download it as many times as I wanted; even if I buy my product from a ‘real’ shop, the first thing I do is enter the serial code into a system as a backup, just in case it gets lost/snapped/broken.

Since I started using such systems when Steam first launched in 2003 there have always been two questions for me. The first is is how long will be before we no longer need to download the game? When can we stop buying into the expensive CPUs,GPUs and PPUs that games require and let all the processing be done server side? A recent announcement this week and ongoing work by Valve suggest it might be closer then we think.

The second was how digital distribution systems could move into different markets. In the UK most gamers will have broadband connections and a 7th generation console(or PC) since we are constantly after that new game and are a easy target for publishers; but what about markets that don’t buy into the latest consoles and games? Brazil has a massive gaming market, but one quite different from the situation in the UK with consoles such as the Master System still seeing re-releases as late as 2006. Another exciting announcement at GDC 2009 saw a console designed exactly for such markets, pushing digital distribution as its method of obtaining games sales.

Moving into the Cloud

LiveOne

This week at the Game Developer Conference 2009 it was announced that LiveOne is a game distribution system that promises to take the load away from your computer and onto the cloud; allowing epic games to play on modest hardware. It seems currently that the main bottleneck is bandwidth, with lower bandwidth users simply being met with a smaller screen resolution. This is really exciting news for gamers; does it mean it mean that digital distribution and cloud computing will kill the console/PC spec war, will we get to the 10th generation of video game consoles?

Steam Cloud

Although it would seem that Valve don’t think we are ready for such a radical shift they are still moving in a similar direction with their product ‘Steam Cloud’. Although Steam Cloud still delivors the game to the end user the idea is that variable data such as save games and settings are stored in the cloud meaning users can log on from any terminal with the game installed and carry on from where they left off.

Expanding the Market

Tectoy announced they would be attempting to push digital distribution into ‘The Next Billion’ Market by creating a console that will sell and distribute games through 3G or Edge networks using a virtual currency not unlike Microsoft or Wii Points. The seems to be no shortage of publishers wanting their games on the system; and a quick scan of the games that will be available (Crash Nitro Kart, Quake, Sonic Adventure to name a few) would make it seem that these publishers are egar to bring their old games to new markets; with digital distribution being the ideal means to do so.

Where next?

It is no secret that there is a huge amount of money in games and this is the driving force behind these incredible innovations. As always though the technology will filter down and hopefully we will see the technology in other areas. Could application processing in the cloud mean we see an end to the PC CPU/GPU spec wars with focus moving to other areas, such as accessibility? Will it mean that high-end programs will be able to run on your mobile phone with a small client purchase simply being made over 3G/Wimax etc?