Via Worlds in Motion, IBM and Forterra, creators of the OLIVE virtual world platform, have entered into an agreement to bring OLIVE technology in-line with Lotus applications, all for the purpose of data analysis and decision making support. I’ve been trying to convince a colleague of mine that his area of interest, data fusion, and virtual worlds are on a collision path. I think this combined area is starting to take shape with efforts like this. From the article:
Forterra will deliver plug-ins to the Lotus Sametime platform and integration to the IBM Lotus Notes calendar that allow users to access, schedule and launch meetings in the virtual world. Forterra will also embed services like presence and location information, document, whiteboard, and application sharing from the Lotus Sametime platform into the virtual world with the goal of enabling faster collaboration and information sharing.
I’m presenting tomorrow at the Drexel Online Learning Conference. The talk will focus on my experiences last semester teaching IST 110: Information, People and Technology. This post is primarily to support the talk with additional resources.
A list of all the assignments with links to the PDFs (feel free to use these assignments if you’d like, or email me for a copy of the Word document if you’d like to edit)
Or a different way of saying it, I want to GAME my music. Rhythm games are rapidly growing in popularity, but have been around for quite a long time. Konami had a studio working on games like Beatmania, Drum Mania, and eventually Dance Dance Revolution in the late 90s. In 2003 we got Donkey Konga, one of my favorite rhythm games to date. A huge batch of Karaoke-styles games have been coming out for several years, including SingStar.
Aside from Donkey Konga, I haven’t played any of the above games. I suppose a big reason is the actual music: the library of songs just don’t get me excited or motivated to play. So what have I been playing? Guitar Hero and Rock Band are the two mainstays of my musical gaming collection, but I also play Rez HD and Boom Boom Rocket, both Xbox Live Arcade games with beat heavy, electronic music tied to the gameplay.
While all these games are fun, there’s one thing missing: how do I play the music I WANT to play? If I’m a big Jimmy Buffet fan, I want my game to include Jimmy Buffet songs. Why can’t I sync my itunes library to my xbox (or a portion of it), and play the drums to my favorite Paul Simon tune? While the folks over at Harmonix are actively working on this, they face several technological and intellectual property challenges.
But all I want to do is play a game with MY favorite music! How hard can this be, right?
This game appears to only be offered via STEAM (which is a shame, it looks to be flash-driven, so there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to run it on my Mac) for a bargain $10. The game itself is hard to describe. It’s a rhythm game + a racing game + tetris + a roller coaster ride. You begin by selecting a song on your hard drive, which dynamically creates the track. Then you choose the type of racer you want to use (each racer has a different ability, which slightly adjusts the gameplay to keep things fresh). The interesting part of this is that the track, along with many of the blocks you collect, will rhythmically match the song you choose. A song that starts out slow will have you climbing up a hill at a slow pace. When the music quickens, you will start to speed up and the course will level out a bit. If the song hits a peak, the track almost becomes a roller coaster, launching you down the track at intense speeds. It’s somewhat hard to explain, here’s a video:
I highly recommend checking this one out if you’re a music fan and/or a rhythm game fan. I’ve always been a big music fan, particularly jambands, and this game allows me to game MY music. I can only hope Rock Band and future games follow this same pattern.
I’m still wrestling with my Warcraft addiction playing habits, trying to squeeze in that extra hour in the evening to play an alt or find time to run around Azeroth with a few real life friends. I know I’m not the only person in this situation, but I didn’t realize this was the case:
Warcraft is up near 12 million users now, with Runescape (second on the list) around 1 million. You can see a graph over at Bruce’s site, along with a plethora of other information regarding MMO populations and trends.
I’m not so sure Warcraft is a good thing for the industry. Data shows that most MMO players will only play ONE MMO at a time. This seem to be from a combination of subscription fees to play (usually $12+ per month) as well as the time investment required to progress in the game world. Some folks claim that “the next big thing” in MMOs MUST be different, specifically from a pricing model. Warcarft is already taking your 12 bucs a month, why would you drop another 12 bucs to play something else simultaneously? These companies can’t run these game worlds for free, they require constant support, maintenance, and expansion.
Forgetting about the actual game that might be the nextbig thing, what’s the business model going to look like to pull people out of Warcraft into this new world, and more importantly, keep them there?
I’m giving a guest lecture in Cole and Scott’s class tomorrow. This post isn’t really content heavy, just to supplement some of the things we’ll be covering over the course of the virtual worlds talk.
