March 25, 2004
Video Gamers Race On Times Square Billboard
Video Gamers Race On Times Square Billboard
MARCH 23RD, 2004
The bright lights of Times Square tend to draw the eyes of drivers and passers-by, but a new billboard is a whole new kind of distraction. High above Times Square, there is now a gigantic video car racing game that anyone with a cellphone can play. Of course, you need to be nearby to see the screen, at 43rd and Broadway. How do you stand perfectly still in the middle of Times Square while dodging traffic in a race car? NY1 Tech Beat Reporter Adam Balkin explains in the following report.
Count them - there are more than a dozen, maybe two dozen television-like billboards in Times Square, but one may be of particular interest to you. That's because you can control it, as long as you have a mobile phone. The ad, by Yahoo! Autos, is actually a racing game anyone can play.
“The game works by dialing an 800 number. You find out if you're in the queue line to play the game, and when you're next in line it'll tell you which car you are - the right or the left - and you use the ‘2’ button or the ‘8’ button to make it go faster or slower,” says Jennifer Aman of Yahoo! Autos. “You just race against the computer or someone else on the street with you.” You don't need the latest, high tech, state of the art cell phone to play - you just need any old cell phone and a warm thumb. The game is kind of like those old Hot Wheels games where you set up the track and just control the speed of the car, with no steering. If you try to floor it the whole way, watch out pedestrians!
“I was a crazy driver, but it was lots of fun,” says one participant.
“It was pretty cool,” says another.
For the next month, the game will run for about 25 minutes out of every hour. The game will be up from now until April 22. And although you can play from anywhere in the world, if you're interested in winning, it’s best to be within sight of the screen.
To play, call 1-800-660-4402.
Posted by richard ting at March 25, 2004, 11:40 AM
Tony Hawk takes top prize at first ever Mobies Awards
Prince of Persia and Rayman 3 are among the winners at the first annual mobile gaming awards.
This afternoon at the CTIA trade show, attendees were treated to something new--an award ceremony devoted exclusively to mobile games. The First Annual Best of Wireless Gaming Awards, or the "Mobies," were handed out at the event in Atlanta.
Mobile game news and review site Wireless Gaming Review (WGR) organized and produced the event, whittling a field of 120 finalists down to 20 winners. Games came from almost a dozen countries, including Japan, India, Finland, France, Germany, the US, and the UK. The judging panel was a mix of games critics, industry insiders, and game design professionals.
WGR cofounder and Mobies judge Matthew Bellows said in a statement, “Mobile game programmers, artists, and producers have done amazing things with incredibly limited resources. It’s high time that their efforts were celebrated at a ceremony like this."
The full list of Mobies winners is as follows. For mobile newbies, the Lightweight categories cover games that check in at under 256K and can be downloaded from a carrier's game deck, while the Unlimited categories are for larger games targeted for running on MS Smartphone and Symbian operating systems or for the N-Gage.
Lightweight
Action: Nightmare Creatures, Gameloft
Adventure: EverQuest: Hero's Call, Sony Online Entertainment
Puzzle/Board: Bejeweled Multiplayer, JAMDAT Mobile
Platform: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Gameloft
Strategy: Lemonade Tycoon, JAMDAT Mobile
Sports: JAMDAT Bowling 2, JAMDAT Mobile
Unlimited
Action: Spy Hunter, Fathammer
Adventure: Pandemonium, Ideaworks3D
Puzzle: Slurp, JAMDAT Mobile
Platform: Rayman 3, Gameloft
Strategy: Lemonade Tycoon (Smartphone), JAMDAT Mobile
Sports: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Ideaworks3D
Best Lightweight Game
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Gameloft
Best Unlimited Game
Spy Hunter, Fathammer
Best Mobile Game of 2003
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Ideaworks3D
WGR (which is in the process of being acquired by CNET Networks) has posted additional information on the event and is also covering CTIA from the perspective of its editors, who are roaming the show floor.
By Staff -- GameSpot
Posted: 03/23/04 12:18 PM
Posted by richard ting at March 25, 2004, 11:21 AM
March 22, 2004
agoraXchange
Make the game and change the world
Tate online together with BT
agoraXchange invites visitors to Tate Online to contribute towards the creation of a new multiplayer internet game which challenges the current political system.
agoraXchange (http://www.tate.org.uk/netart/agoraxchange) is a project by net artist Natalie Bookchin and political theorist Jacqueline Stevens. The site is a forum for the exchange of ideas, where participants are encouraged to work together on the rules, design, and code which will ultimately result in the game. Participants will answer questions prompting them to make decisions about the game design and in the process explore political alternatives to the present global order by accommodating four initial decrees challenging present conventions for awarding nationality and wealth. Over the coming months, the artists will implement various incentives intended to solicit contributions. Participants may also initiate their own forums to preview related projects. Participation at agoraXchange will be facilitated through techniques successfully adopted in other large-scale online distributed collaborations, such as the open source software movement and self-regulating, peer-to-peer discussion groups.
agoraXchange will host the collaborative development of the game design in phases over the next two years. An electronic conversation conducted between David Ross and Murat Ozbank will reflect on and inspire the initial game development phase and will be posted at Tate Online. When all the phases are complete, agoraXchange will be closed for submissions, and a committee of artists, activists, and political theorists will be convened to review the submissions and conversations for the purpose of proposing three distinct game prototypes. These will be available online for further deliberation by agoraXchange participants. At the end of this process, a jury comprised of agoraXchange participants will vote on these three proposals and ultimately decide which version will then be created.
Natalie Bookchin's most recent project, Metapet (http://www.metapet.net) is an online game commissioned by Creative Time, New York in association with HAMACA, Barcelona. In 1999-2000 Bookchin organized net.net.net, a series on art, activism and the Internet at Cal Arts, MOCA in LA, and Laboratorio Cinematek in Tijuana. From 1998-2000 she was a member of the collective RTMark. She was a 2001-2002 Guggenheim Fellow. Her work is exhibited at institutions including PS1, Mass MOCA, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, KunstWerke, Berlin, the Generali Foundation, Vienna, the Walker Art Center, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Shedhale in Zurich. She is based in Los Angeles and is a faculty member at CalArts.
Jacqueline Stevens is the author of Reproducing the State (Princeton University Press, 1999). Her work has appeared in Political Theory, the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Political Philosohy, Social Text, and many other publications. She is currently working on two further manuscripts: States without Nations (the theoretical basis of agoraXchange), and The Human Being Project. In 1997-1999 she was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Scholar at Yale University. She developed the ideas for this project while at Istanbul Bilgi University (2002-2004) and is also on the faculty at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
agoraXchange is the latest net art commission at Tate Online and has received financial assistance from the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology. Previous commissions have included Shilpa Gupta (Blessed Bandwidth 2003), Susan Collins (Tate In Space 2002), Heath Bunting (BorderXing Guide 2002), Harwood@Mongrel (Uncomfortable Proximity 2001) and Simon Patterson (Le Match des Couleurs 2001). The architecture and design of the agoraXchange website are by FDTdesign. Tate Online is generously supported by BT.
For further information please contact Tate Press Office, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG
Call: 020 7887 8731 or email pressoffice@tate.org.uk
Posted by richard ting at March 22, 2004, 04:57 PM
March 19, 2004
gameLab Presents
gameLab presents
more new ways for you to play
Can you think outside the pod?
Get ready for some old-skool gaming with gameLab’s X-Pod Play Off game. Launched this spring by LEGO, X-Pods are small containers of LEGO bricks, designed to fit neatly in your pocket. X-Pod Play Off is a game that uses LEGO X-Pods as the raw materials for a 2-player strategy boardgame. Played entirely off the computer, in X-Pod Play Off, you deconstruct and reconstruct LEGO robots, creatures, flying machines, and land vehicles.
Part chess, part collectible card game, and part creative construction exercise, X-Pod Play Off brings LEGO building to a whole new level. Download everything you need to play at www.lego.com/x-pod.
What’s in your future?
Step right up and test your wits in FATE: The Carnivàle Game(TM). Based on the hit HBO(R) series Carnivàle(SM), FATE(TM) is a beautifully moody solitaire game played with Tarot cards. Choose from three bizarre carnie characters and challenge the Fortune Teller to a Tarot duel. Victory will grant you new cards that enhance your deck and reveal the dark secrets of your character's past and future. With evocative narrative
scenes, rich period graphics, and an entire deck of Tarot cards to play with, FATE: The Carnivàle Game is squarely in your future.
You can reach the game on HBO's site at www.hbo.com/carnivale, and purchase the game on Real Network's Real1Arcade, where it won 2003 Card Game of the Year.
Any more games?
Coming right up. The gameLab crew is hard at work creating new playthings for your pleasure. We are designing new games for folks like Cartoon Network, Sesame Workshop, and the nonprofit organization NetAid. Coming soon: the first gameLab-designed collectible card game, created for Genio Group, Inc and featuring characters from Mighty Beanz(TM). Plus... stay tuned for some very major plans about the future of gameLab’s original work.
Read much?
The New York Observer named gameLab co-founder Eric Zimmerman one of 50 New York “Power Punks” aged 35 and under, along with folks like Chelsea Clinton, Drew Barrymore, and Jay Z. Maybe it’s because he launched two books this fall: Rules of Play, a breakthrough game design textbook co-authored with Katie Salen and published by MIT Press, and RE:PLAY, a debate in book form on game design and game culture, co-edited with Amy Scholder and published by Eyebeam and Walter Lang.
Two essays on gameLab by Eric Zimmerman are featured in yet another new book: Design Research, a collection of writings edited by media maven Brenda Laurel. To read even more about gameLab, indie gaming, and Rules of Play, check out a feature story that appeared in the London Guardian or a piece
penned by academic all-stars Henry Jenkins and Kurt Squire about our title Arcadia in the January issue of Computer Games.
LEGO X-Pod Play Off
http://www.lego.com/x-pod
FATE: The Carnivàle Game (TM)
http://www.hbo.com/carnivale/
Cartoon Network
http://www.cartoonnetwork.com
Sesame Workshop
http://www.sesameworkshop.com
NetAid
http://www.netaid.org
Game Developers Conference
http://www.gdconf.com
IGDA
http://www.igda.org
New York Observer “50 Powerpunks” article
http://www.gmlb.com/images/observer_article.htm
London Guardian article
http://www.gmlb.com/images/guardian_article.html
Computer Games article
http://www.gmlb.com/images/arcadia_article.html
Origins Conference
http://www.originsgames.com
Reman Mythology
http://www.felaxx.com
The Kitchen
http://www.thekitchen.org
Rules of Play
http://www.rulesofplay.net
Design Research
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?sid=EE062E7E-D1ED-49F2-8CD4-88A77DDC8173&ttype=2&tid=10029
Posted by richard ting at March 19, 2004, 02:44 PM
March 18, 2004
Game Girls - Online computer gamers aren't who you think they are
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- If you envision a teenage boy when you hear the words "computer gamer," think again.
Women, particularly older women, are some of the most active game players on the Internet.
Women over 40 spend 9.1 hours a week playing online computer games, versus teen's 7.4 hours, younger women's 6.2 hours and men's 6.1 hours, according to a recent survey conducted by Digital Marketing Services for AOL Games.
Forty-one percent of women over 40 said they played every day, compared with 26 percent of men and 23 percent of younger women, according to the online survey of about 3,610 people who had played an online game in the last three months.
"It's counterintuitive to people," said Matt Bromberg, general manager of AOL Games.
"When they think of games they think of young boys. But the real truth about online gaming is mom comes home, sees the boys in the den playing on their console, tells them, 'cut that out, go upstairs,' and after she puts them to sleep, she heads to the PC and plays for 5 hours," he said.