Zynga has over 146 million users of its social games, but they're almost entirely on Facebook. But as we reported in July 2010, Google quietly invested over $100 million in the gaming company, ensuring that major Zynga titles on the Google platform were only a matter of time.

Zynga is Building its Empire

CityVille - like FarmVille meets Sim City - already boasts over 72 million players on Facebook (and that's down from a peak of over 100 million), which is 30 million more people than there are on Google Plus altogether, according to the latest estimates. Suffice it to say, it will be a long time before Google Plus can provide users at Facebook's scale.

But Facebook could use the competition, and game producers like Zynga are all too happy to help create it. Zynga has expressed dissatisfaction with the terms of its relationship with Facebook for a long time, and it has channeled its rapid growth into more than one partnership outside Facebook, including Yahoo, MSN Game Portal, and of course Google.

The Potential of Google Games

Google, for its part, has been building features for a game platform for a year or longer, and analysts believe that Google Plus games represent an enormous opportunity for the company and game developers alike. As Tricia Duryee at AllThingsD reported in July, Google may spur that opportunity along by undercutting Facebook on in-app fees and other costs for developers.

Google Plus already has some titles that compete with Zynga's big genres, including a mythical city-building game called City of Wonder and an organized crime game called Crime City, but Zynga is the big name in social gaming, and today's announcement brings the game style that made it successful to Google Plus.

Have you played any Google Plus games? Tell us which ones in the comments.

GameStop announced this morning through industry site GameIndustry.biz (login required) that it is in the process of picking an existing Android tablet to ship as a "GameStop certified gaming platform." While this seems like an odd move, there are a variety of reasons that this might actually be a really smart move by GameStop.

Avoiding Traditional OEM Headaches

What is GameStop doing here exactly? This is what they are NOT doing:

• Building their own hardware
• Building a game-centric mobile operating system
• Rebuilding Android as a forked version for GameStop
• Trying to replace the iPad

"I don't see any need to create a new one with the three hundred or so on the market already," GameStop president Tony Bartel told GameIndustry.biz. "We have a refurbishment centre and we can bring in the product and preload certain games onto it. It's an Android device."

GameStop has chosen a tablet model and is going to pre-load it with Android games. It will also stream console games to the device. It will be sold at GameStop next to other gaming devices from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. GameStop is thinking of creating an external controller for the device.

This could be brilliant.

A Mini Portable Television For Gaming

Think about it. It would be like buying a small television that is hooked up to the cloud that can bring your games everywhere, anywhere, all the time. For a hardcore gamer, it might be the perfect device. Where an iPad is not optimized for the serious gamer, an Android tablet with a dual-core chip and a serious GPU could be a terrific device. On top of that, GameStop probably has no illusions of selling tens of millions of these things. They can simply reorder several thousand from the vendor (be it Motorola, Samsung, HTC, or whoever) when supplies dwindle.

Could it be a Motorola Xoom?

On one hand, GameStop may be sticking its foot in the "me too" department. They are not alone. On the other hand, this may be the next evolution of mobile gaming that started with the GameBoy long ago.

A full blown Android tablet running nearly nothing but games more or less blows the current mobile gaming systems like the Nintendo 3DS or the Sony PSP out of the water. GameStop is going to put it on store shelves right next to these very same products. If price is only a nominal issue, what are you going to choose?

Amazon Would Do Well To Partner With GameStop

It is unlikely that GameStop would be partnering with Amazon for this tablet. Foremost, the Amazon tablet is not currently in existence, which does not jive with GameStop's statement that it has already chosen a device to run its gaming platform. Yet, imagine the possibilities. GameStop would get access to all of Amazon's retail channels and Amazon would have instant access to an industry vertical it currently only is entered in through the Amazon Appstore. Amazon through GameStop becomes the go-to resource for mobile gaming the same way it for books and trying to do with music and premium video.

There is precedent for a gaming-specific Android device. The Sony Ericsson Experia Play was built as a smartphone with a gaming controller built right into the device. While this is probably not a device for adults looking for a great smartphone experience, teenage males probably find it very attractive.

Gamers: Is this a crazy idea by GameStop or does an Android tablet made specifically suited to your needs and wants the next great era of gaming. Let us know in the comments.

As one participant in Latitude's study noted, traditionally gamers have been thought of as the "stereotypical, petulant and portly adult playing a viscerally violent game in his parents' basement." According to the report findings, that stereotype of the anti-social, immature gamer is outdated. Today's gamer is "social, tech-savvy, goal-oriented" and is much more social than they're usually given credit for. For example, 84% of the study participants use social media "at least several times per week."

Click here to view large image.

The following visualization answers this question: How Would You Like to Interact with Games in the Future? Gesteral systems, such as Microsoft's motion-controlled gaming system Kinect, is the most popular request.

This visualization asks: Where Would You Like to See More Games Applied? Education and healthcare were the two most popular answers.

Finally, check out this video analysis of the findings:

For other research on gaming demographics and usage, see these ReadWriteWeb posts from earlier this year:

• Mobile Gaming Audience is Younger, Has Strong Female Presence
• Gaming and Entertainment Dominating Mobile Usage [Infographic]
• Do Video Game Developers Ignore Women Gamers?

This bundle includes: Crayon Physics Deluxe, Cogs, VVVVVV, Hammerfight, and And Yet It Moves. As with the previous Humble Bundles, these games are all available cross platform (several of which are making their Mac and Linux debuts with this offer) and are DRM-free.

A package deal on 5 great indie games is always good news for gamers, but it's the way that deal works that continues to make Humble Bundle both interesting and unique. The Humble Bundle lets buyers choose what they want to pay for the games. Not only do you get to set the price you'd like to pay for all 5 games, you can also determine how that money gets allocated: dividing it between the game developers, the Humble Bundle team, and charitable organizations. As with past bundles, the two charities involved are the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child's Play.

Since the launch of the first Humble Bundle last year, the effort has raised over $1 million for charity. The generosity of gamers is noteworthy, as is exactly what that generosity looks like in terms of the different platforms for which the games are downloaded. In the past, Linux and Mac users have proven to be far more generous than Windows users, with Linux users contributing twice as much as Windows users.

The Humble Bundle offer only lasts two weeks, but as the games are available DRM-free, once you purchase them, they're yours to re-download and re-install as you deem fit.

Indeed, video gameplay is not restricted to one age group or gender. Rather, game playing is ubiquitous, with 72% of households in America saying that they play some form. Just 18% of gamers are under age 18, while 53% are between the ages of 18 and 49. That means almost a full third - 29% - of gamers are over 50. The gaming population is skewed slightly more male than female: 58% to 42%. But it's important to note that women over age 18 represent a significantly greater proportion of this population (37%) than do boys age 17 or younger (13%).

Looking at these statistics, it's clear that the explosive growth of mobile and casual gaming has challenged what's long been seen as the traditional gaming market. Sales of game software is declining, but social gaming is booming.

So has the industry adjusted to account for gamers that don't fit that old stereotype?

While there's a steady stream of new social gaming titles available on Facebook and the like, the entertainment market research firm Interpret says that women gamers still aren't having their needs met. The firm released a report earlier this month entitled "Games and Girls: Video Gaming's Ignored Audience," arguing that the female gaming market is far more nuanced than some of the "casual-centric reputation" suggests.

The report found that console use among female gamers has increased significantly in the past two years - and not just for the Wii. 21% of women gamers now use an Xbox 360, up from 17% two years ago. Women gamers are also demanding new types of games, with 44% of those responding to the Interpret survey saying they preferred genres other than casual, exercise, and music. They also tended to prefer games that emphasized narrative and character development over combat and preferred solo to group gameplay.

Changing Demographics, Changing Game Development

The rise of social gaming has largely been associated with women, but the Interpret report suggests that it's wrong to assume that women want - or only want - casual gameplay, the likes of Zynga's Farmville or Cityville, for example. Of course, in the rush for MAU (monthly active users), new games are constantly under development in order to lure new players.

Some of new gaming studios are developing with female audiences in mind. Earlier this year, we wrote about the first title released by Silicon Sisters, a Vancouver-based and women-run gaming studio. The game, School26, is aimed at middle school-age girls and involves negotiating various social situations at school. Here's what I wrote back then:

That's a very different set of goals and behaviors than most video games. There isn't swordplay here. No princesses to rescue. No alien invaders to vanquish. There isn't "action." There's "talk." The rewards aren't cash or weaponry. The skills honed in School 26 aren't the ability to time your jumps or dodge bullets or land killing blows.

As a long-time gamer, I have to say that this isn't the sort of gameplay that interests me. I like killing things. In games, of course.

In other words, it's actually pretty hard to develop a game that, de facto, "girls love."

We're All Gamers Now

Despite the emphasis among some social gaming companies to market to women, Lisa Marino, CEO of the social gaming company RockYou predicts that we may see what she calls a "return to center." She contends that as social gaming gains more credo within the gaming industry, we're likely to see even more titles aimed at men. She points to Zynga's recent Empires and Allies as an example.

She also believes that the casual gamer is becoming more sophisticated and - male or female - is demanding more intricate gameplay and higher production values. But at the end of the day, she argues, the most important thing for gamers is that we're able to play these games where we want and when we want. After all, we're almost all gamers now, and so appealing to us will take a lot more sophistication than simply assuming we're all 17 year old boys in the basement or 55 year old women on Facebook.

"Our goal is to build the ultimate game creation experience, one that democratizes the game creation process by eliminating all technical barriers, leaving one's imagination as the limiting factor," says Stencyl co-founder Jonathan Chung.

And like Scratch, this means that Stencyl could be a great tool for placing game creation in the hands of some of gaming's biggest fans: kids. "Teaching kids how to code is a hard problem because the rules of syntax and other similar intricacies get in the way of learning the core concepts of learning how to think logically," says Chung. "I believe that kids, even younger ones, have the ability to think logically. As we've seen in our beta program, using a visual programming environment like Stencyl or MIT Scratch, breaks down barriers and allows kids to grasp those fundamentals and build sophisticated games on their own."

The success of Scratch doesn't just come from that visual programming element or from having an easy-to-use toolset. Rather it's a result of a great community around the project as well. Stencyl has also modeled itself on Scratch in this way with its "StencylForce," its own game development community. This will allow users to get support and ideas from one another, as well as share and download openly-licensed resources.

Currently, the game creation tool lets users build Flash games for Mac and PC, but the company plans to roll out support for iOS over the summer. It has a much larger roadmap as well, with plans for an iTunes-like marketplace - for games and for the games' building blocks - as well.

Stencyl's game creation software is currently free and works on Mac, Windows, and Ubuntu.

According to the survey data, these 63 million iOS gamers downloaded an average of 2.5 games per month. The percentage of iPhone owners who play iOS game is between 50 and 75%, and based on the number of gamers playing on iOS devices, it looks as though the iPad alone has started to unseat those devices particularly aimed at gaming, such as the Playstation Portable.

But it isn't just a matter of more iOS gamers and more iOS game downloads. According to the survey data, games are also seeing an increase in in-game spending, something Distimo describes as a "must-have feature for game developers." Although approximately 88% of the top 300 iOS games are available for free, in-game purchases - within both free and paid games - generate approximately two-fifths of total gaming revenues. It accounts for aboutu 40% for the total revenue for iPhone and 32% for iPad.

The release of today's survey data by Distimo and Newzoo coincides with their partnership which will provide a detailed monthly data service, including download volumes and value for the top ranking games in the App Store.

Latitude Research (which partnered with ReadWriteWeb last year on a study about kids and future Web technology) has launched a new study on The Future of Gaming - they want to hear fresh perspectives from both game enthusiasts and non-gamers. What do you think the role of games will (or should) be in the future? Can they motivate and inspire people to reach personal or societal goals? Can they bring together online and offline experiences in meaningful ways?

]]> Participate in Latitude's 10-minute survey on the future of gaming. A $25 Amazon gift card will be awarded to 10 individuals with the most insightful responses.* Latitude's privacy policy can be viewed here.

So far, we've heard people talking about games in terms of social discovery and community, as a means to improve on traditional education techniques, and as a civic engagement tool. People also want games to motivate and enable - to help them reach their ideal selves - by making things like healthier habits or better money management seem more attainable and enjoyable.

Here's how a few of our The Future of Gaming participants have told us they have or would like to see games applied:

• Social Networking & Community

  • "I recently read that some people are reaching out to other players within games in an attempt to garner support for Japan in the wake of the earthquake/tsunami/(possible) nuclear disaster. In this way, games are becoming just another way we are able to interact with others be it friends or strangers across the globe." - Will E., Associate Staff Scientist at Avedro

  • "Xbox is my generation's golf. It's how I met a comic book writer and an iOS developer." - Michael C., Designer

• Health

  • "I would love for games to improve my performance. Track my inputs and set goals for them and alert me of how I am doing compared to others. One major goal I would love to gameify would be fitness." - Christian A., Studio Director at Toy Studio

  

  Screenshot of Health Month, an online social health game.

• Finances

  • "Right now having games help with health, activity, and entertainment in general is working well for me. Going forward I'd love to have games track progress with money management and stress relief." - Jon R.
  Guest author Kadley Gosselin is a writer for Latitude Research (@latddotcom), an international research consultancy helping clients create engaging content, software and technology that harness the possibilities of the Web.

• Politics

  • "Politicians are even using games to communicate. North Carolina governor Beverly Perdue, in the midst of controversy over state budget cuts, posted a game on her website that asked players to decide what jobs and services to cut, or what taxes to raise, in order to balance the budget. (Of course, the game didn't include any modeling of the possible effects of those cuts or taxes beyond the immediate balance sheet!)." - Caroline R.

• Education

  • "I really think that, as education moves online, we need to be harnessing the power of computers to provide immersive interactive experiences for students. Gaming has really pushed my thinking forward in that regard." - Ted C., Instructional Designer at Samuel Merritt University

  What are your thoughts? Click here to participate in Latitude's 10-minute survey on the future of gaming.

  *Winners are determined by Latitude. Gift cards will be issued to winners by email within 8 weeks of entry, via the contact information collected at the end of the survey. One entry per person; duplicate entrants will be disqualified.

  ---

  To learn more about working with Latitude, contact: Brian Conry, Director of Sales, at bconry@latd.com, and visit us on the Web here. For general inquiries, contact: life-connected@latd.com.

  Creative Commons-license photo by enfad.

  ]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/what_is_the_future_of_gamification_survey.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/what_is_the_future_of_gamification_survey.php Gaming Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:00:00 -0800 Guest Author Boosting STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education has become a priority for the government, for schools, and for tech companies. In emphasizing the importance of doing so, many point to statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor that note that while there will be more than 2 million job openings in STEM-related fields by 2014, fewer than 15% of U.S. college undergraduates now pursue degrees in science or engineering.

  It isn't enough to convince college students to major in science - or rather, by the time students hit college, it may be too late to pique their interest in the field. So many STEM efforts are aimed at encouraging the scientific and technical minds of younger students.

  One way to ignite that interest is to give kids the skills so they can build and play their own video games. That's the idea behind Microsoft's Kodu, a visual programming language and game development tool. A product of Microsoft FUSE Labs, Kodu Game Lab enables children as young as five to design, build, and play their own games on the PC and Xbox.

  ]]> STEM Education Through Xbox Game Development

  A free download, Kodu Game Lab doesn't require any programming experience. Its language is entirely icon-based, and with it, children can drag and drop icons in order to create their own games and worlds. Even though it doesn't require knowledge of a programming language, Kodu does help develop important programming skills, in part by getting children to think about "if/then" statements and the idea of actions and conditions.

  Microsoft is releasing a new version of its Kodu Game Lab today, and it's also kicking off its Kodu Cup Competition for students ages 9 to 17. The competition asks kids to design their own video game using Kodu, and the winners will compete for a $5000 prize for themselves, along with $5000 for their school and a trip to the worldwide finals of Microsoft's Imagine Cup competition.

  According to Gabrielle Cayton-Hodges, a research fellow at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, there are many educational benefits to teaching children how to play and program video games. She argues that "learning how to create and edit such a system is learning critical analytic skills including systems thinking, problem solving, iterative design and digital media literacies."

  Kodu is just one of many great tools that encourage kids to code. You can see some of our other recommendations here and here.

  ]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/kids_can_now_build_their_own_xbox_games_with_kodu.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/kids_can_now_build_their_own_xbox_games_with_kodu.php Gaming Wed, 16 Mar 2011 11:03:21 -0800 Audrey Watters

  The last 10 years have been called the era of Web 2.0, a term used to describe a new type of online experience, wherein a user could be both author and audience. That decade, said SCVNGR CEO Seth Priebatsch today in his opening keynote at the SXSW conference, was the decade of social. 

  That decade, however, has been won, said Priebatsch. Facebook has come away as the clear leader and now, a new decade is upon us - the decade of games. These are not children's games, however. These are games that could change the world.

  ]]> Priebatsch, a highly energetic 22-year old who dropped out of Princeton after his freshman year to start location-based game SCVNGR, delivered a wide-reaching presentation explaining that this next decade, put simply, could deliver the tools necessary to save the world. And no, we're not exaggerating. He laid out the points of his talk from the get go, with the last one, as he explained it, being how game mechanics would solve global warming.

  "The last decade was the decade of social. The framework for the social layer is now built," declared Priebatsch. "It's called Facebook."

  Facebook, with its 600+ million social connections has won the competition in terms of mapping our social interactions, he said. To further cement its position as owning the social graph, he explained, Facebook released the Graph API, which allows developers to utilize its social graph and build upon it.

  With that battle won (at least according to Priebatsch), the next battle is over gaming. But we're not talking about simple video games and the like - we're talking about a "game layer on top of the world."

  "The game layer is he next decade of human technological interaction," he explained. "Unlike the social layer, which trafficked in connections, the game layer traffics in influence. The game layer seeks to act on individual motivation - where we go, how we do it and why we do it."

  So what does this all mean? Priebatsch says that the game layer could be 10 times as large as the social layer and that, used correctly, could help to solve the world's problems.

  "It's kind of naïve of me to say that the game layer could solve any of these huge problems, they're just too big," he conceded. "But you don't have to just focus on that. While the game layer cannot solve these massive problems, it can give us the tools to make the solutions possible. It can move something that's impossible to something that's just difficult."

  To prove his point, he then ended the session with a game - a massive game involving the entire several hundred member audience. As each person entered the room, they were given anywhere from one to three cards with different colors on each side. Each card had one of three colors on each side and were handed out randomly. To win the game, each row of the audience had to self organize to show only one color by trading with the audience members around them. That is, the entire room had to move from chaos to order, with each row only showing one color, within 180 seconds. If they did this, he said, SCVNGR would donate $10,000 to the National Wildlife Federation.

  One minute after he started the clock, he stopped it. The audience had self-organized, despite a variety of problems, in just one minute.

  What did this show? Priebatsch compared the various rules and problems faced by its players into ones the world population might face in solving global issues. There was a lack of communication, there were micro-trading issues, different allocations of resources from player to player, restricted movement decentralized leadership, and even different "countries," as aisles served as "oceans" between the rows. The audience did, however, have two things to work with - a countdown and a common goal. Despite these various factors, and through the proper motivation, a large problem was solved quickly through applied game mechanics.

  This is Priebatsch's vision for how game mechanics will be applied to real-world situations over the coming decade to solve seemingly impossible problems. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing what comes next from Priebatsch. SCVNGR, it would seem, is just the beginning.

  The game layer is coming. It's going to be fun. It's going to be powerful," said Priebatsch. "I wish you all have a great time playing your way through the next decade."

  We have to wonder - what will this game look like? If a so-called Facebook Revolution can topple governments, what can applied game mechanics achieve?

  ]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_game_mechanics_will_solve_global_warming.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_game_mechanics_will_solve_global_warming.php SXSW 2011 Sat, 12 Mar 2011 14:57:18 -0800 Mike Melanson The long-rumored Playstation Phone just made its official debut by way of a high-profile Super Bowl advertisement and updated Facebook page. The phone, known as the Xperia Play, has been expected to appear at next week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Now, according to Sony Ericsson's Facebook page, the date is set: Feb. 13, 2011 at 18:00 GMT (or 1 p.m. Eastern/10 a.m. Pacific).

  The announcement should bring news of the phone's price, carrier partnership(s) and launch date.

  ]]> No Longer a Rumor, Official Announcement Forthcoming

  In January, business news site Bloomberg confirmed the phone's existence and launch plans after a continuous series of leaks, photos and videos made their way around gadget blogs all across the Web. Despite Sony's silence on the matter, the phone was clearly in development for a 2011 launch. In fact, Engadget even went so far as to call the phone one of the "worst kept secrets" in the industry. Thanks to a number of hands-on reviews, tear downs, and extensive photos, there's already a lot that's known about this new, gaming-centric smartphone powered by Google's Android mobile operating system.

  The phone will run Android 2.3 ("Gingerbread") and will include a slide-out game controller instead of a slide-out keyboard, as would normally ship on phones using this particular form factor. It also has a 5-megapixel camera,  microSD card slot, single-core processor that clocks from 122.88 MHz to 1 GHz, 512 MB RAM and an Adreno 205 GPU.

  Android is Ready for Gaming, Says Sony

  Most importantly, the Xperia Play will run Sony Playstation games. And it won't be the only phone that can, either -  Sony recently announced that it will offer a program to port the original PlayStation One (PS One Classic) games to other Android devices, as well as newer games developed using the toolkit Sony will provide. These games will be sold through Sony's app store on the phone - the PlayStation Store - where they can be directly downloaded to any supported Android device.

  

  The new Facebook teaser for the phone is live now on Sony Ericsson's page, asking you to like the page in order to read the official announcement.

  As for the commercial, it's a decidedly creepy shot of a back alley, black market  surgery where the lovable Android robot guy gets thumbs grafted onto his nubby arms. "Android is ready to play," says the ad. That may be true, but still...ick.

  ]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/playstation_phone_makes_a_public_debut.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/playstation_phone_makes_a_public_debut.php Mobile Mon, 07 Feb 2011 08:08:47 -0800 Sarah Perez At a Tokyo press conference yesterday, Sony announced a new program that will bring Sony PlayStation games to Google Android devices, both phones and tablets. The cross-platform software framework that makes this possible is being called the "PlayStation Suite," an initiative to deliver the casual games of the PSP to a wider audience.

  However, not all PlayStation games will work on all Android devices - there are a few caveats that apply. But Android support may only be the beginning.

  ]]> PlayStation Suite Details

  To start, the PlayStation titles offered will be the older, original PlayStation One (PS One Classics), not the more popular PlayStation Portable (PSP) titles. However, newer games developed using the tools Sony provides will also be delivered by PlayStation Suite, or the "PS Suite," as Sony is calling it for short.

  

  Not all Android devices will be able to run the PlayStation games, unfortunately. Sony says the games will require the use of Android 2.3, code-named "Gingerbread," the latest release of the Google mobile operating system, or higher. Presumably, that means "Honeycomb" will be supported as well, the newest tablet-only release of Android.

  In addition, games will only run on devices that meet the requirements set forth by the new "PlayStation Certified" licensing program for hardware manufacturers. The program will offer both developer support and logo licensing to its participants.

  PlayStationStore: An App Store for Games

  The PlayStation games will be distributed through an app store, the PlayStationStore, where games can be directly downloaded to any supported Android device. There's no word on when exactly this store will launch, only that it will arrive "within this calendar year."

  

  We'll likely hear more about Sony's plans at Mobile World Congress, the mobile industry event taking place next month in Barcelona. That's also when Sony plans to officially unveil its PlayStation phone, too -  a Sony Ericsson handset (Xperia Play) that runs Google's Android OS. Despite the phone's still "unofficial" nature, it has made an appearance in a number of photos, videos and Engadget even got its hands on one for an early review. In other words, it definitely exists.

  And yes, it runs Sony PlayStation games, too, via an app called PlayStation Pocket, which Engadget said looked like a tool for managing downloaded games on Android devices.

  On the record, however, Sony only confirmed that, in addition to Android, the games will run on its next-generation portable gaming device, code-named NGP, also announced at the press event.

  Beyond Android?

  An interesting side note to this story is the fact that Android may not end up as the only mobile platform where PlayStation games are supported. Engadget, which attended the press conference in Tokyo, said that Sonly was referring to the PlayStation Suite a "hardware-neutral" development framework that would make games portable to "all sorts of handhelds." What does that mean for porting Sony games beyond Android?

  While Sony gave no official mention of its plans to extend beyond Android, it's entirely possible. With a framework in place, its only a matter of creating software development kits (SDKs) for other mobile operating systems. Of course, that's no small matter. And we certainly won't hold our breath waiting for PlayStation games on Apple's iOS, either. Games are some of the most popular applications on Apple's platform, and are often sold for premium prices. Would Apple really let Sony encroach on its bread-and-butter? Doubtful.

  Source, Photos: Engadget

  ]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sony_playstation_games_are_coming_to_android.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sony_playstation_games_are_coming_to_android.php Mobile Thu, 27 Jan 2011 07:21:46 -0800 Sarah Perez The 3D virtual world Blue Mars has announced that it is restructuring, dropping its PC development to focus solely on Apple iOS. The company itself is also restructuring, with an unspecified number of layoffs, including the departure of CEO Jim Sink.

  Once pegged as an up-and-coming competitor to Second Life, Blue Marks is a CryEngine 2-powered virtual world from developer Avatar Reality. On Friday, the company said it will no longer add new content to the PC version of Blue Mars, switching its efforts to develop a version of the virtual world on iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad devices. The servers will remain online, but there will no longer be any technical support. Current city developers will no longer be charged monthly hosting fees.

  ]]> According to the company announcement, "With over 50 million new tablet devices projected to reach consumers this year along with tens of millions of iPhones and iPod Touch devices, the market for Blue Mars Mobile is a massive opportunity for our company and our customers. We already have a functioning alpha in house and we aim to release the first builds of Blue Mars on iOS next month." The shift in focus

  The move from a desktop client to a mobile platform makes sense in terms of general trends towards mobile gaming. And if Blue Mars is successful with its release, it will be the first 3D virtual world on the iPad. But some question whether mobile devices will be able to provide the same sort of experiences - resource-intensive in terms of graphics, data, and processing power - that a PC can.

  The Future of Virtual Worlds

  The change in the focus of Blue Mars development - along with a larger company shake-up echoes some of the problems that Linden Labs Second Life has faced in the past year - layoffs, management changes, and a struggle to woo new "residents" and maintain interest in 3D virtual worlds. For its part, Linden Labs has recently hired Rod Humble, a former EA Games exec, as CEO.

  It remains to be seen if making virtual worlds more like games or more like mobile apps will be what saves these companies from more bad news in 2011.

  ]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/virtual_world_blue_mars_drops_pc_development_to_fo.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/virtual_world_blue_mars_drops_pc_development_to_fo.php News Mon, 17 Jan 2011 08:02:01 -0800 Audrey Watters The man who ran that obnoxious avatar social network Meez for four years, Sean Ryan, has taken a position as the head of Facebook's gaming platform, according to a report this afternoon by Kara Swisher.

  Ryan has held a number of positions throughout the last 15 years, including running Listen.com, which acquired the company that became Rhapsody and then sold to Real Networks. He was an outspoken critic of Microsoft's Zune, its licensing arrangements with major labels and the impact they had on the rest of the music industry. "I understand that in a capitalist society the labels are just maximizing returns wherever they can," he wrote in 2006, "but this deal is the slippery slope to Hell for all other players in the category." Sounds like a fun guy to be in charge of games at Facebook.

  ]]> What is the significance of gaming on Facebook? As ReadWriteWeb's Audrey Watters, a game player herself, says:
  

  Gaming is one of the main reasons people keep that Facebook tab open all day. It's no coincidence that the rise in social games has paralleled Facebook's explosion -- and visa versa. The games really reinforce the social connections and in some cases, for people who "friend" in order to expand their gaming networks, games drive those social connections.

  As the gaming companies themselves grow strong, like mega-time-eating-monster Zynga, Facebook will need a capable strategist to make sure that the balance of power between the platform and the participants remains favorable to all. Or at least to Facebook.

  Given Ryan's past statements about entertainment ecosystem power dynamics, this is no doubt something he will be comfortable addressing. Given his willingness to spend four years as the CEO of a social network targeting 14-22 year olds with customizable 3D cartoon avatars as a form of self expression and a delivery mechanism for brand messaging, it's hard to guess what the net gain or loss for humanity will be of Ryan's new position.

  Right: Some geeks like Meez. Photo by Nano Taboada.

  ]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_games_gets_fun_new_boss.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_games_gets_fun_new_boss.php Gaming Mon, 03 Jan 2011 13:08:48 -0800 Marshall Kirkpatrick

  Can you imagine some of the technology world's best game play being combined with the immersive experience of a motion-controlled full-body interface? Nathan Olivarez-Giles posted the video above, from Christmas day, on the LA Times tech blog today, showing USC researchers playing the wildly popular game World of Warcraft with their bodies, using a hacked Microsoft Kinect interface and their own software. That software, called the Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit (FAAST), is freely available for anyone to download and train.

  It's crude software so far, but the research team says they'll be making it more sophisticated with time. It looks pretty cool already.

  ]]> The researchers say at the end of the video that they don't intend this hack to become a primary method of gameplay, but rather an additional option that will appeal to kids told to go outside or who are in physical therapy. I don't know - I think a whole lot of people want to see full, natural control over WoW come to the Kinect.

  After a long snowstorm kept my wife and I locked in the house several years ago, with nothing to do but play World of Warcraft together, I still have muscle memories of my feet pattering through ravines, down hills and along roads. They return to me every time I visit the park with my dogs.

  That mixing of the real and the virtual is only going to become harder to separate when we can control all our virtual activities with our full physical bodies. And some people are going to love it. Others will no doubt raise concerns about the dissolving of the line between the body and the avatar, the self and news feed, etc. Like most tools, such technology will likely raise possibilities both banal and devine.

  ]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/kinect_hacked_to_play_full-body_world_of_warcraft.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/kinect_hacked_to_play_full-body_world_of_warcraft.php Augmented Reality Tue, 28 Dec 2010 15:18:48 -0800 Marshall Kirkpatrick