‘Toylet’ Games in Japan’s Urinals (for guys only ;)

Sega has announced that it’s testing consoles called “Toylets” in urinals around Tokyo. The novel hardware asks the user to strategically vary the strength and location of his urine stream to play a series of games. [...]

Each urinal is installed with a pressure sensor. An LCD screen is mounted on the wall above, letting the gamer select from and play four different minigames. There’s “Mannekin Pis,” which simply measures how hard you can pee, and “Graffiti Eraser,” which lets you remove paint by pointing a hose in different directions.

There’s the faintly misogynistic “The Northern Wind, The Sun and Me,” where you play as the wind trying to blow a girl’s skirt up, and the harder you pee, the harder the wind blows.

Link in Japanese (see also the Wired article)

Online gaming curfew

While France is re-establishing curfews for teenagers, Korea is dealing with other problems tied to online gaming addiction. The authorities are discussing the creation of an online gaming curfew:

Not only does South Korean have the largest online gaming community in the world, it also has its fair share of tragedy associated with it. Several incidents have been reported in which gaming has directly, or indirectly, ended in death.

A 15 year old South Korean boy was alleged to have murdered is mother, before committing suicide, after being scolded for playing online games for too long. In another case, an older male died after a non-stop gaming session lasting over five days.

It’s not just the extreme cases that have led the South Korean government to consider requiring Internet service providers to cut off access to online games, for all users under the age of 16, for the six hours following midnight.

Link

Touch screen, kiss screen

When dating games become so real, a new form of addiction which brings a whole new level of consequences shows up in couples.

The DS has a mic and a touchscreen, so… one time, she asked me to say “I love you” a hundred times into the mic. I was on the airplane when she asked me that, so I was like, no way. And then there’s the part where you have to kiss her. [...] The girl’s face shows up on the screen, and you have to touch her lips to give her a kiss. That’s pretty weird…. this is embarrassing. I’m sweating right now just talking about it.

My husband has a virtual girlfriend

Play Megaphone!

This is one of the presentation that struck me the most at this Lift Asia. What Jury does is really amazing, and opens up so many possibilities. Check it out, especially the demo she does around 2 minutes 50 seconds.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=7667600769302301416" width="400" height="326" wmode="transparent" /]

Playstation fed surgeons

These two have nothing in common unless you are responsible for the investments of a clinic:

[The AGEN Holding - a group that runs clinics in Romandy - strategy] involves investing in innovative technologies such as cartilage transplantation, irradiation of tumors (IORT) or robotic surgery. “We are confident of its growth in the next fifteen years with the arrival of a generation of surgeons fed to the Playstation” commented Antoine Hubert.

Link

Further proof (see Unlocking the positive potential of video games) it’s time to change our view on video games.

Unlocking the positive potential of video games

Here is an interesting article talking about the state of the video games market in Korea, and the effects of gaming in society. This market is set to undergo MASSIVE change in the coming years, with offline gaming losing ground to social/group/online gaming:

The Korea Herald: Unlocking the positive potential of video games

According to [...] the official report of the Korean game industry, [...] revenues totaled 5.14 trillion won in 2007, a 31 percent drop from 7.45 trillion won in 2006. The sharp drop was caused by the drastic shrink of the arcade game sector, whose revenue plummeted from 3.3 trillion won in 2006 to a mere 87 billion won in 2007 [Korea, where a market size can be divided 40 in a year...].

In contrast, online games enjoyed solid revenue growth of 26 percent, from 1.78 trillion won in 2006 to 2.24 trillion won in 2007. Mobile games posted healthy growth of 5 percent, with income totaling 252 billion won in 2007.

(((Video games create more self-efficacy…)))

Regarding the positive effect of computer games on personal behavior, [...] playing online games enhances users’ “self-efficacy” and leadership. Self-efficacy is an educational psychology term that means capability in performing actions needed to attain certain goals. It is critical to distinguish between self-esteem and self-efficacy. Self-esteem is a sense of sense-worth or self-respect, whereas self-efficacy is one’s ability to produce effects. [...]

(((…and teach you how to be a “leader”)))

When people become a leader in games they learn how to manage and control a number of team members. Those leaders actually perform a similar role as they would in reality in terms of organizational management and strategic challenges. Whether it is online or offline, the way we cooperate as a team to solve a problem basically shares the same modes of activity. [...] higher game leadership actually presented higher offline leadership, leading us to the conclusion that “virtual leaders are real leaders.”

Link

Event: the new video game industry

In partnership with our friends of Nouvo, we organize debates about the evolution of society and technologies. Events are free, in French, and followed by informal drinks. We simply ask you to register by emailing julie.bauer@tsr.ch.

Bien que le jeu vidéo en tant qu’industrie de loisir de masse ait une histoire relativement récente, il apparait aujourd’hui que ce média atteigne une nouvelle maturité tant par de nouvells formes ludiques que des nouvelles pratiques de création. De nouvelles formes ludiques telles que le “serious games” sont là pour en attester. Les “serious games” désignant l’emploi de mécaniques ludiques issues du jeu vidéo pour favoriser l’apprentissage de divers contenus. D’autre part, la création des jeux en elle même implique la maitrise de ce moyen pour porter du sens, des émotions, des messages afin de toucher tous les publics. Plus d’infos sur Nouvo.ch

Intervenants:

Le débat sera animé par Bernard Rappaz, rédacteur en chef de TSR Multimédia. Ses invités:

Jean-Noël Portugal: Consultant Associé du cabinet Intuneo spécialisé dans les industries de la création numérique : jeu vidéo, animation, cinéma numérique, Internet, télévision, téléphonie et médias interactifs. Il est également président d’HD3D SAS, filiale de studios d’effets spéciaux et laboratoires cinématographiques d’Ile de France

Emmanuel Guardiola: Game Designer depuis 10 ans, Emmanuel Guardiola est directeur de la conception pour la gamme Game4Everyone à Ubisoft. Auteur de Ecrire pour le jeu (Dixit, 2000), il enseigne le Game Design à l’Ecole Nationale des Jeux et Media Interactifs Numériques (l’ENJMIN).

Infos pratiques:

L’événement se déroulera le 14 avril de 18 à 20h à la Télévision Suisse Romande, 20, quai Ernest-Ansermet, Genève.
Entrée libre mais inscription obligatoire par e-mail à julie.bauer@tsr.ch