Long-term Study Finds No Link Between Video Game Violence and Real Violence

November 9th, 2014, 21:33 Posted By: wraggster

SternisheFan sends news that a study has been completed on the long-term effects of violence in movies and video games on violence in real life. A researcher at Stetson University found no link between the consumption of violent media and an increase in societal violence. The study was published in the Journal of Communication. From the article:"Entertainment Software Ratings Board ratings were used to estimate the violent content of the most popular video games for the years 1996-2011. These estimates of societal video game violence consumption were correlated against federal data on youth violence rates during the same years. Violent video game consumption was strongly correlated with declines in youth violence.

http://games-beta.slashdot.org/story...-real-violence

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Raspberry Pi A+ Details Leaked

November 9th, 2014, 21:32 Posted By: wraggster

Despite trying to keep it secret, a major Raspberry Pi retailer has published some details of the upcoming model A+ Raspberry Pi thanks to a product page that went live early. The board layout looks different and is much smaller than the model A or B+. Judging from the photograph, the A+ board encompasses the four standard mounting holes, which makes it approximately 56x65mm — the model B+ is 56x85mm.

http://hardware-beta.slashdot.org/st...details-leaked

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Deck the Halls with a Raspberry Pi Controlled Christmas Tree

November 9th, 2014, 21:17 Posted By: wraggster


You know the holiday season is getting close when the Christmas light projects start rolling in! [Osprey22] is getting a jump on his holiday decorations with his Christmas Tree light show controlled by a Raspberry Pi. Yes, we know he could have done it with an Arduino, or a 555, but the Raspi makes for a convenient platform. With a WiFi module, code changes can be made remotely. The Raspberry Pi’s built-in audio interface also makes it easy to sync music to flashing lights, though we’d probably drop in a higher quality USB audio interface.
[Osprey22's] Raspberry Pi is running his own custom python sequencer software. It takes an mp3 file and a sequence file as inputs, then runs the entire show. When the music isn’t playing, the Pi loops through a set of pre-defined scenes, changing once per minute.
The hardware itself is pretty straightforward. The Raspberry Pi controls 8 solid state relays through its GPIO interface. 8 strings of lights are more than enough for the average tree. [Osprey22] topped the tree off with a star made of wood and illuminated by a string of 25 WS2801 RGB LED pixels.

http://hackaday.com/2014/11/09/deck-...hristmas-tree/

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Report: Just 6% of US mobile gamers provide 51% of revenue

November 9th, 2014, 20:27 Posted By: wraggster

EEDAR study also says core gamers shouldn't be target demographic
[h=3]EEDAR[/h]

Just six per cent of North American mobile gamers are contributing 51 per cent of the platform's revenues in the territory, says a report from analytics firm EEDAR.
The new study, available to download for free here, has re-emphasised the incredible importance of the so-called whales, which it defines as players spending at least $10 a month. Those heavy spenders, it estimates, are contributing around $293.70 a year each - totalling a phenomenal $2.35 billion. They're also more likely to be male, older than the average player and using both a smartphone and a tablet. 71 per cent of North America's mobile whales are male, EEDAR believes.
Curiously, despite every other category of player increasing the time they spent playing mobile games year-on-year, the whale finds him or herself playing less in 2014 than they did in 2013, enjoying a still-significant 9.9 hours a week rather than last year's 11.8. That's still a lot more than moderate ($1-$9.99 per month) players, who average 6 hours a week, or non-payers, who still play 4 hours of mobile games a week.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ent-of-revenue

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3D-printed Raspberry Pi-powered eNcade retro game console launches

November 6th, 2014, 22:41 Posted By: wraggster

A Raspberry Pi 'gaming tablet' has launched on Kickstarter, which aims to add online multi-player to retro games.
The eNcade is a 3D-printed Gameboy-esque portable console packed with a fully assembled Pi. The creators, Nzen Mods, said they noticed a huge community for retro console gamers who they thought could benefit from something with online multiplayer support.
“Our multiplayer delivery service will allow players to find and connect with each other through unique usernames, instead of clunky friend codes,” said Nzen Mods.
“The software has support for sending and receiving game invites as well as voice chat that is currently under development.”
Running on Raspbian means that the gadget can switch to the desktop at any time and be used like any other Linux computer. The SD card can be used to change to any other OS compatible with the Raspberry Pi if desired.
“The eNcade's software has been in the works for a while and has been tested online with NES, SNES, and Genesis emulators and we are currently working on bringing more consoles to the list. However the eNcade also has offline support for the previous list in addition to 2600, N64, GB, PS1 and much, much more,” reads the developer’s Kickstarter page.
The eNcade comes with a USB Wi-Fi adapter, USB charging cable, HDMI out port, USB port, TFT touchscreen, and is hoping to receive $6,500 in backing on its Kickstarter page.

http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/read/...starter/035023

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Borderlands, Metro and Sunset Overdrive debut on Japanese chart

November 6th, 2014, 00:21 Posted By: wraggster

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate continued to lead the Japanese software chart during the week ended November 2, surpassing two million sales in the process.
A number of western developed releases made top 20 debuts; the PS3 version of Borderlands The Pre-Sequel entered at No.7, the PS4 edition of Metro Redux at No.11, and Xbox One exclusive Sunset Overdrive atNo.16.
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Raspberry Pi Brings New Life to Some Old Dinosaurs

November 6th, 2014, 00:10 Posted By: wraggster


Reprogramming the behaviors of a person-sized animatronic dinosaur would have to be among the coolest opportunities to be presented with… This is exactly what [Dr. Lucy Rogers] and a group of fellow techies were tasked to accomplish for the Blackgang Chine park located on the Isle of Wight in the UK.
Before the group arrived, the native dinos didn’t do much else than run a preprogrammed routine when triggered by someone’s presence… which needless to say, lacks the appropriate prehistoric dynamism. Seeing that their dated wag, wiggle, and roar response could use a fresh breath of flair, the park’s technical projects coordinator [Mark Butler] began adapting one of the dinosaur’s control boxes to work with a Raspberry Pi. This is when [Lucy] and her group were called upon for a two-day long excursion of play and development. With help and guidance from Raspberry Pi expert, [Neil Ford], the group learned how to use a ‘drag and build’ programing environment called node-RED in order to choreograph new movement sequences for two of the smaller dinosaurs provided for use. The visual nature of node-RED helped those of the Blackgang staff with little programming experience understand the code at work, which aided in their training. Now they can reprogram the dinosaurs with new actions on the fly if needed.
The Pi in the end turned out to be a cost-effective solution which will give the robot dinosaurs a longer, more fulfilling lifespan to roar and frolic on their island home. Check out this video by [Debbie Davies] to see more…
Thanks Ed, for spotting this one!


http://hackaday.com/2014/10/31/raspb...old-dinosaurs/

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A Full IP Webcam With a Raspberry Pi

November 6th, 2014, 00:05 Posted By: wraggster


A Dropcam will run you about $150. Price out a Raspberry Pi, camera sensor, and a CCTV camera housing found on eBay, and it starts to look like there may be a cheaper replacement for a Dropcam sitting around on workbenches, if only someone can figure out the software. [Antoine] did just that, giving any Raspberry Pi the ability to stream H.264 video over a network.
[Antoine]‘s software is based on the raspivid tool distributed from the foundation, but that only takes care of capturing and encoding H.264 video from the camera sensor. To add IP camera support, the Live555 RTSP library was mixed in and combined to stream video over the Raspi’s network connection.
With a camera dome enclosure from the usual outlets, [Antoine]‘s project really starts to look professional. The specs are respectable, too: it can output a 1080 stream, and with a small modification to an Ethernet cord, this webcam has PoE. Future updates include the ability to record videos based on a trigger and possibly a webserver on the Pi for configuration. [Antoine] says he really isn’t up to speed with Javascript, so any help would be appreciated.

http://hackaday.com/2014/11/03/a-ful...-raspberry-pi/

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Stereo Vision and Depth Mapping with Two Raspi Camera Modules

November 6th, 2014, 00:00 Posted By: wraggster


The Raspberry Pi has a port for a camera connector, allowing it to capture 1080p video and stream it to a network without having to deal with the craziness of webcams and the improbability of capturing 1080p video over USB. The Raspberry Pi compute module is a little more advanced; it breaks out two camera connectors, theoretically giving the Raspberry Pi stereo vision and depth mapping. [David Barker] put a compute module and two cameras together making this build a reality.
The use of stereo vision for computer vision and robotics research has been around much longer than other methods of depth mapping like a repurposed Kinect, but so far the hardware to do this has been a little hard to come by. You need two cameras, obviously, but the software techniques are well understood in the relevant literature.
[David] connected two cameras to a Pi compute module and implemented three different versions of the software techniques: one in Python and NumPy, running on an 3GHz x86 box, a version in C, running on x86 and the Pi’s ARM core, and another in assembler for the VideoCore on the Pi. Assembly is the way to go here – on the x86 platform, Python could do the parallax computations in 63 seconds, and C could manage it in 56 milliseconds. On the Pi, C took 1 second, and the VideoCore took 90 milliseconds. This translates to a frame rate of about 12FPS on the Pi, more than enough for some very, very interesting robotics work.
There are some better pictures of what this setup can do over on the Raspi blog. We couldn’t find a link to the software that made this possible, so if anyone has a link, drop it in the comments.

http://hackaday.com/2014/11/03/stere...amera-modules/

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Oculus CEO: Consumer VR headset 'months, not years away'

November 5th, 2014, 02:33 Posted By: wraggster

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Sunset Overdrive's strong start not enough to topple FIFA

November 5th, 2014, 02:25 Posted By: wraggster

EA still top of the UK retail chart as Xbox One exclusive takes second
FIFA 15 extends its run at the UK's number one to six weeks today, holding off a challenge from Xbox One exclusive Sunset Overdrive in second. The football sim also retains its record of 2014's longest serving UK chart topper.
Making room for Sunset are Minecraft's PlayStation edition and the Evil Within, both dropping a place each. Just below those, at five, sits another new entry: wrestling title WWE 2K15. The rest of last week's top ten is reshuffled to make up the remainder of the leading pack, keeping Lords of the Fallen just outside at number 11.
Two of last week's single platform new entries, Bayonetta 2 and Civilization: Beyond Earth, disappear from the top 40 entirely.
All charts courtesy of UKIE and Chart-Track.

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Why Licensed Games Are Finally Hot

November 5th, 2014, 02:24 Posted By: wraggster

Licensed titles are no longer synonymous with poor quality and they can be quite lucrative
For decades in the game industry, there was one sure way to spot a game that had almost no chance of becoming a critical and commercial success: Games based on a license (aside from sports licenses) were almost never a top performer. Some of them were among the very worst games (Superman 64, anyone?) you could find. A license was the hallmark of low quality gaming.
Why would licenses mean poor quality? There were many reasons, but the most important one was time. Most of the licenses you'd see were movie licenses, tied to a big-budget film that game publishers expected would have a huge audience. Work would begin on a game, but usually the movie would be coming out in two years or less. This was less than the 2-3 years a top-quality game would often take to develop... so something would have to give. Either the game would be rushed to meet the movie release, or the game would be released well after the movie had been in theaters and left. Either way, sales wouldn't be great.
A short digression here: Sports licenses have been, and continue to be, an exception when it comes to licensed games. Sure, there have been poor sports games built around licenses, but in general sports games have been much better performers than other licenses. The major reasons are that licensed sports games are created to model actual game play, so at least you're starting with a game that you know works as a game. When you start with a movie or a book, you have to figure out how to make a game out of it, which is often a very difficult task in itself. Second, licensed sports games are based on something that happens every year, so whether it takes one year or three to build your game, the license it's based on is still going strong and is a great marketing opportunity every year.
Fast-forward to the modern era of game design. Yes, AAA console or PC titles still take many years to develop, but those aren't being built around movie licenses any more. (If anything, it's going the other way, as the Warcraft and Assassin's Creed movies demonstrate.) Now, though, mobile and social games can be created in months rather than years, and thus top-quality games can be constructed on a timetable to take advantage of a major movie marketing campaign. The result is that licensed games have become both much better games, and much more profitable for the companies that publish them.
"we've seen Kim Kardashian: Hollywood rake in $50 million in its first month, and it looks like it will be worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Glu Mobile"

Look no further than a company like Kabam to see where licenses have been an effective, money-making tool. Kabam has its own IP like Kingdoms of Camelot that has done very well, but its licensed games like The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle Earth and Fast & Furious 6: The Game have been real moneymakers. More than that, the games have helped Kabam find new audiences for its other games.
Other game companies can show similar success with licenses, like Telltale Games. The company has been doing licensed titles for years, and finally had a breakout hit with The Walking Dead. With the success of that game, the company was able to land the license for Game of Thrones, which is very likely going to be another major hit. DeNA has been busy licensing Transformers and Marvel. Zynga has licensed Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes, as well as Tiger Woods and the NFL, as part of its new strategy to expand its audience.
Most recently, we've seen Kim Kardashian: Hollywood rake in $50 million in its first month, and it looks like it will be worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Glu Mobile. There's an example of a great way to work with the right license. Glu Mobile took an existing game, Stardom: Hollywood, that they knew worked well, and found a license that fit the game's play style very well. The game has strong appeal to Kim Kardashian's millions of fans, letting them feel like they have a closer association with Kardashian. The game's style matches the desire of the fan base, and by having a proven game and a proven license Glu Mobile minimized its risk.
How do you find and take best advantage of a license? Here are some key things to remember:
Find a licensor you can work with
Licensors can make your life a living hell, or they can be a terrific help. Choose wisely. Ask around, find out if you know other people who have dealt with a particular company on a license. Hopefully you'll hear good things, but don't be surprised if you hear some horror stories. There are licensors where approvals can take months, or endless changes can be requested, or the materials you need to proceed with your game development take weeks to show up. There are many, many ways that a licensor can make things difficult or easy. Find a licensor who will be responsive, flexible, creative, and willing to help, if you can.
Pick the right license
Kim Kardashian: Hollywood may make people look for celebrity licenses with similar social presence, but that's a shallow analysis. Other companies will no doubt be looking for similar licensing coups, but it's not as easy as just finding a celebrity with a large Twitter following. The nature of the celebrity's following has to be considered, and then that profile must be matched up with the right game. It's also true that not every celebrity will cooperate willingly in the promotion of a licensed product, even though they may benefit substantially from the success of the product. Ms. Kardashian has been promoting her game in appearances on TV and elsewhere, especially on social media, and her efforts have certainly been a large part of the game's success.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...re-finally-hot

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Raspberry Pi Brings New Life to Some Old Dinosaurs

November 1st, 2014, 01:14 Posted By: wraggster


Reprogramming the behaviors of a person-sized animatronic dinosaur would have to be among the coolest opportunities to be presented with… This is exactly what [Dr. Lucy Rogers] and a group of fellow techies were tasked to accomplish for the Blackgang Chine park located on the Isle of Wight in the UK.
Before the group arrived, the native dinos didn’t do much else than run a preprogrammed routine when triggered by someone’s presence… which needless to say, lacks the appropriate prehistoric dynamism. Seeing that their dated wag, wiggle, and roar response could use a fresh breath of flair, the park’s technical projects coordinator [Mark Butler] began adapting one of the dinosaur’s control boxes to work with a Raspberry Pi. This is when [Lucy] and her group were called upon for a two-day long excursion of play and development. With help and guidance from Raspberry Pi expert, [Neil Ford], the group learned how to use a ‘drag and build’ programing environment called node-RED in order to choreograph new movement sequences for two of the smaller dinosaurs provided for use. The visual nature of node-RED helped those of the Blackgang staff with little programming experience understand the code at work, which aided in their training. Now they can reprogram the dinosaurs with new actions on the fly if needed.
The Pi in the end turned out to be a cost-effective solution which will give the robot dinosaurs a longer, more fulfilling lifespan to roar and frolic on their island home. Check out this video by [Debbie Davies] to see more…
Thanks Ed, for spotting this one!

http://hackaday.com/2014/10/31/raspb...old-dinosaurs/

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National Videogame Arcade will be UK's first cultural games centre

October 30th, 2014, 23:40 Posted By: wraggster

A £2.5m national video game centre is to open in Nottingham in March next year on Carlton Street.
The National Videogame Arcade will include over 12,000 objects on display across five floors, exhibition space, educational facilities, as well as acting as a research and learning hub.
The centre will be run by GameCity, and has backing from Nottingham City Council, Nottingham Trent University and the Nottingham Technology Grant Fund.
“For the first time ever, a civic, cultural and academic space will be dedicated to the public’s relationship with videogames," GameCity director Iain Simons said.
"GameCity is a place for people to play together; to discover and create games regardless of age, gender or background. We believe that games should be played by everyone, and that games should be made by everyone. Our accessible city-centre location is a crucial expression of that aspiration.”

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/natio...centre/0140594

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Facebook's Zuckerberg offers his long view on Oculus VR

October 30th, 2014, 23:15 Posted By: wraggster

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Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate still Japanese #1

October 30th, 2014, 23:05 Posted By: wraggster

Bethesda horror The Evil Within enters at 3 and 4
In a top five packed with new entries Capcom's Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate still managed to hold its own at the top of the Japanese charts. Lifetime sales for the product are now closing in on the two million mark.
The other four new entries on the top five were all PlayStation titles, with Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2014 on PlayStation 3 at two and The Evil Within on PlayStation 3 at three.

1. [3DS] Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate - 172,348 (Lifetime sales - 1,945,850)
2. [PS3] Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2014 - 81,981 (New entry)
3. [PS3] The Evil Within - 59,388 (New entry)
4. [PS4] The Evil Within - 59,204 (New entry)
5. [PSV] Jikkyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2014 - 50,836 (New entry)

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James Cameron thinks current VR technology is 'a yawn'

October 30th, 2014, 22:51 Posted By: wraggster

Coming from the man who created Terminator and Avatar, two of the most highly recognized sci-fi franchises, you'd think James Cameron would be excited about the rise of virtual reality in the past couple of years. But not so fast. Yesterday, during an interview at the WSJD Live conference, Cameron expressed that he isn't really impressed by the current stage of VR technology. "There seems to be a lot of excitement around something that, to me, is a yawn, frankly," said Cameron when the topic of virtual reality was brought up. "What will the level of interactivity with the user be other than just 'I can stand and look around'? If you want to move through a virtual reality, it's called a video game. It's been around forever."

http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/30/j...rtual-reality/

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Walmart begins used game sales

October 28th, 2014, 22:57 Posted By: wraggster

Retailer launches pre-owned business in more than one-third of US stores; GameStop president says it will only help
[h=3]Walmart[/h]

Walmart today began selling used games in 1,700 of its 4,800 stores, according to a Bloomberg report. The company has been buying back games from customers since March in preparation for cracking a market dominated by specialty retailer GameStop.
"Our goal is to buy used video games for more, and ultimately sell certified pre-owned video games for less," Walmart senior vice president for entertainment Laura Phillips said.
Despite the size of Walmart and the strategy of offering better prices to both sellers and buyers of used games, GameStop president Tony Bartel told Bloomberg he wasn't concerned.
"Target, Walmart, Best Buy, Amazon, they've all tried or are trying used games," Bartel said. "Frankly, when someone comes it helps us, because it raises awareness that you can turn in video games, and we have the lion's share of the market."
Industry analysts seemed to side with Bartel in downplaying the threat Walmart poses. Wedbush's Michael Pachter suggested the retailer would have a difficult time establishing the relationship with customers that gets them to trade in their games, while Longbow Research's James Hardiman pointed out that Walmart's approach may not pay off as GameStop is dominant despite not being the most lucrative way to trade in games as it is.
"They might offer you $20 for a fairly new game you're done playing with, and turn around and sell it for $55," Hardiman said. "There's a lot of ways, if you're concerned about the economics, to do better than that. You can sell it on eBay for $45."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...sed-game-sales

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The VR documentary made for the Oculus Rift is here

October 28th, 2014, 22:36 Posted By: wraggster

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FIFA 15 holds on to UK number one for a fifth week

October 27th, 2014, 21:46 Posted By: wraggster

EA's football franchise has more time at the top than any game this year
FIFA 15 closed out a fifth consecutive week as the UK's number one retail game, the longest that any single title has stayed at the top this year.
According to data released by Gfk Chart-Track, this is the pinnacle of a strong year for EA's console line-up. The publisher's games have laid claim to the top of the chart for 18 of the 43 weeks in 2014 so far. At this point last year, it had managed just 10.
Bayonetta 2, a Wii U exclusive, was the only other new release to make the top 10, charting in 7th place. Ubisoft's Just Dance 2015 finished the week at 19th, despite being released on six different formats. Tellingly, the Wii version accounted for 55 per cent of its sales. Not the Wii U - the Wii.
Another notable new release was Firaxis Games' Civilization: Beyond Earth, which charted one place ahead of Just Dance 2015. This would be dispiriting news for the series' ardent fans, but it should be noted that the charts do not include the majority of PC digital sales, including those through Steam.

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