attendance
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Harvard used cameras to track attendance without telling students
You've probably had professors that got on your case for missing class, but they don't hold a candle to what Harvard University's faculty tried this past spring. The institution conducted an experiment that used surveillance cameras to track attendance, snapping photos that a computer analyzed to determine the number of empty seats in a given lecture hall. While the system couldn't identify individual students, the school didn't tell the 2,000 people involved that they were under watch -- they had no way to object to the test.
Officers' Quarters: Expansion team
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook. Here at the OQ we've heard from a lot of guilds who are being massacred by normal mode Throne of Thunder. This week it's refreshing to hear from a guild that has found unexpected success in Tier 15. They're now weighing a second raid team, but the raid leader has doubts about this expansion. Hello Scott, I'm the raid leader of a casual, family centered guild. We have always been on the lower end of the raiding curve, clearing raids only after they have become old content. However most recently we have been progressing remarkably well during Mists. For the first time our guild has attempted the raid while still current. While only going 3/12 in Throne of Thunder is nothing to the guilds who are now farming heroic Ra-Den, it has greatly lifted the spirits of our guild and it's members; so much so that there is now talk of forming a second raid team.
App Developers' Conference dated, call for papers open now
GDC is the Game Developers' Conference that happens every year up in San Francisco, and the company also hosts a number of other GDC events all over the world. Usually, they do GDC Online in Austin, TX every fall, but that conference has recently been changed into two different conferences, both of which are set to take place later this year in Los Angeles. One half of the conference will be called GDC Next, and will focus on the future of gaming development, featuring things like the new Ouya console, cloud gaming, and next generation platforms. And the other half is now called the App Developers' Conference, and will focus on not just game development, but mobile app development as well. Both shows are being held in Los Angeles on November 5-7, 2013, and both shows are now open for submissions for panels and talks. ADC is obviously looking for app makers who can speak on the design, business, and actual programming of apps, so there will undoubtedly be some talented iOS developers there that week. If you have a great idea you'd like to present, you'll need to get your submission in by May 29. It's interesting to note this change. The official GDC itself has also been swinging more towards mobile game development, and away from major studio talks and presentations. This last year at GDC, there was an indie scene like I've never experienced before, and while some of that was driven by major publishers like Sony and Microsoft, much of it has to do with Apple's App Store and other mobile opportunities. As a result, more than ever of GDC is dedicated specifically to smaller mobile developers, and these two new conferences are part of that push.
Officers' Quarters: 10 tips for successful guild events
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook. Guild events outside of the usual raiding and PvP activities can help break up the monotony and get people excited about their guild. This week's email comes from an "event officer" who wants to know, how do you get people to show up? I am an officer in my guild, and we have been re-evaluating our roles. I am considering becoming the Social Event Coordinator, and I am looking for some advice to get things started. ... My ideas include scheduling nights to do scenarios/dungeons for achievements, old school raids, and probably a pet battle league once people aren't as focused on gearing up for raids. My questions are: Do you have any suggestions on how to communicate to guildies that aren't around much that these events are being planned? Do you have suggestions on how to determine interest before scheduling? Do you have suggestions on how to encourage participation? Do you have other event ideas that have worked for you?
CES 2012 sets all-time records for attendance, exhibitors and claimed floor space
CES 2013 has already been scheduled (it's January 8 - 11, for those curious), and it'll have new records to break once things get going again. A source close to the CEA informed us today that CES 2012 has broken a trifecta of records already, and the final tallies aren't even in yet. For starters, more people attended CES this year than ever before. That's people who actually showed up and claimed a badge -- not just those who registered and flaked -- with the final figure already confirmed to be upward of 153,000. That trumps the 152,203 that arrived in Las Vegas back in 2006, as well as the 149,529 that hit the ground here last year.Furthermore, a record amount of exhibition space was claimed, with 1.86 million net square feet used this year; the prior record was set in 2008 when 1.857 million net square feet were claimed. Finally, a new record was set when looking at the total number of exhibitors, with over 3,100 outfits checking in this go 'round. The prior record? 3,072, which was set in 2008. There's no question that CES felt busier than ever for us this year, and now we've got the numbers to prove our suspicions -- naturally, we're already mentally gearing up for CES 2013. We'll be here, and hopefully so will you.Update: The official PR is out! It's embedded after the break.P.S. - You can relive our CES 2012 coverage right here in our hub!
Officers' Quarters: Formal invitations
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available now from No Starch Press. To the esteemed druid Shapez: The Guild of Heroes formally requests the honor of your presence to attend our martial gathering, to be commenced on the evening of October twenty-fourth, in the year of our lord two thousand eleven, for the purposes of assailing that fiendish realm the Firelands, forthwith to slaughter its inhabitants most precipitously and attire ourselves in the abundance of their worldly treasures. The horn heralding our advance shall be sounded precisely at seven o'clock. Your humble servant and friend in all things, Orcman For casual raiding guilds, attendance can often be a huge struggle. The handful of players who seem to show up (or not) on a whim are the bane of their officers' existence. The example above is of course exaggeration, but you do begin to feel that you should send your players written invitations on fancy stationery. This week's email is from a guild leader who seems to be running an entire guild of such people, and he's looking for answers. I have been the leader of a small, casual, friends-and-family guild for over three years. We have seen good times and bad together, including a LK kill before the end of Wrath. Cataclysm, however, just isn't working out. At any given time our roster is experiencing a great deal of churn, and despite the fact that several of our core members are rock solid, I just can't put a raid together any more. We customize the schedule, confirm it, re-confirm it and still have people not show up. Recruiting is a bit tough due to the atmosphere of the guild. If you're not casual enough to enjoy raiding with three generations of the same family, you probably won't stay, and that's okay. We usually wind up picking up entire clans, for at least a little while, but these affiliations just don't seem to be strong enough to keep the guild running. I've read your book, and we've adapted a lot of our practices around your advice. Unfortunately, it hasn't been enough. A week ago we lacked enough players to field our regularly scheduled progression raid, even though I had confirmed we were raiding only the day prior. I was angry enough to hang it all up right then and there. I decided I'd give it a week, try harder on the organization and make sure to express how important it was that everyone be on time, etc. Same result this week. I suspect that because my guild members know that I'll never actually remove them from participating -- because, after all they're all someone's family -- they just don't have any reason to uphold their agreements.
GDC Online 2011 hits record attendance
This week's Game Developers Conference Online in Austin, TX finished on a high note yesterday, as it saw record numbers this year: 3,350. This marks a 12% bump over 2010, which is good news for the conference organizers as they start to lay plans for 2012. GDC Online 2011 held over 145 panels, keynotes and discussions and culminated with the Game Developers Choice Online Awards that, among other honors handed out, inducted EverQuest into the Hall of Fame. We've had Massively reporters on the scene at GDC Online 2011 all week long, so if you missed it, it's never too late to catch up on all of the design theory and frank developer talk. GDC Online will be returning to Austin on October 8th, 2012.
Tokyo Game Show 2011 draws largest crowd ever as show floor continues to shrink
Though shrinking booth sizes and publishers entirely skipping this year's event characterized the Tokyo Game Show, it saw its highest attendance numbers ever in 2011, according to the event's organizers. Over four days, the event drew 222,668 visitors, averaging 85K people on the two public days and 26K on the two "industry" days. TGS grew by 15,021 visitors in 2011 (3.25 percent), with each of its four days seeing individual growth as well. The next show has been scheduled for 2012, and will take place from September 20 through September 23, once again at the Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan. We'll be on-site for breaking news, liveblogs, and, of course, videos of Rappies. We've also got our usual list of ... alternative statistics after the break.
GDC 2011 reaches record attendance, GDC 2012 scheduled
Wondering exactly how many people you need to be supremely jealous of, thanks to the fact that they got to hang out with and generally become best buds with Eric Chahi, Clint Hocking, Peter Molyneux and other gaming inudstry legends at GDC 2011? According to the event's official blog, this year's conference was attended by a record 19,000 gaming professionals, who attended over 450 lectures, tutorials, keynotes and friendship bracelet craft circles. Want to help add to that number next year? Well, check your calendars -- the Game Developers Conference is going to roll back into San Francisco like a brisk wind March 5 - 9, 2012.
CES 2011 sees big boost in attendance, CES 2012 scheduled way more sensibly
Good news for people who love bad good news. According to IDG News, this year's Consumer Electronics Show saw around 140,000 people descend upon it, which pretty much destroys the estimate of 126,000 attendees. We're told that around 126,000 humans showed up last year to see Palm introduce webOS 1.4 (and for everyone else to introduce an e-reader), while just 113,000 booked a ticket to Las Vegas for CES 2009. The last time this quantity of Earthlings arrived in the desert to get their geek on was CES 2008, or in other terms, the last year that life as we knew it was halfway normal. There's no question that we felt as if the floor was teeming with people, and the show in general just felt more alive than usual. Furthermore, we're being hit with even more amazing news from the show floor: the official show dates for 2012. Rather than pushing CES up against a pair of holidays in Christmas and New Year's Day, the Consumer Electronics Association has finally seen fit to bump things forward a week. CES 2012 will officially be held January 10th through 13th, and we're guessing that most of the press events will start on the 8th or 9th. Sadly, we weren't able to go three for three with outstanding news today -- the show is still slated to be held in Las Vegas, so we're apologizing in advance to the internationals who will once again wonder how a place overran with neon, grotesque paper cards at every street corner and a public transportation system that only stops once every five minutes could be so highly touted.
Officers' Quarters: The fall surge
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.Back in June, I wrote about surviving the summer, when raider interest wanes and many players go AFK for weeks on end. Now that fall is back in full swing, all those players are back. Many guilds find themselves with a renewed roster of raiders clamoring for suddenly limited slots. This week, one reader asks how to handle all the extra bodies. Scott, I lead a casual raiding guild. We have 1 25-man a week and about 3 10-mans a week including ToC 10 and Ulduar 10. I don't force anyone to raid. I tell them that they can sign up for whatever they want but if they sign up and don't show up, then they are penalized. My problem is that since I allow anyone to sign up and I don't have set groups, what do I do when I have more people signed up than I need?
Tokyo Game Show 2009 attendance down slightly
The Tokyo Game Show maintained a relatively steady attendance this year, with the exception of the first public day of the show, which saw a 10,000 attendee decrease from the prior year. The business days maintained almost the exact same figures as 2008, which had seen a dramatic drop from 2007 -- but, with the global economy in shambles, that's not shocking. Thursday (Business): 27,435 ('08 - 27,305; '07 - 29,783) Friday (Business): 24,605 ('08 - 24,178; '07 - 32,390) Saturday (Public): 61,138 ('08 - 71,639; '07 - 64,795) Sunday (Public): 71,852 ('08 - 71,166; '07 - 66,072) In total, the show had 185,030 attendees, which is still nothing to sneeze at -- unlike [tasteless gaming conference Swine Flu joke goes here]. [Image]
Japanese college giving away free iPhones, using them to track students' attendance
Nearly 500 students and faculty at Aoyama Gakuin University in Japan will receive free iPhones as part of the school's new Mobile & Net Society Education and Training program. The trial, which is set to begin this fall, will use the iPhone's built in GPS function to determine if the students are present, and use that information to replace traditional methods of taking attendance. The university's announced a deal with provider Softbank Mobile to provide the phones and basic services to all students and staff at the school for no charge. The school also plans on rolling out simple tests and homework assignments using the device. So... is there an app for that, or what? [Via Digg]
New Mobile Google Calendar on the iPhone too
Hot on the heels of the new version of Gmail Mobile for the iPhone comes a new mobile version of Google Calendar leveraging some of the same technology. The previous iteration was frustratingly feature-poor, allowing you only to view your appointments and add new ones using a natural language interface which could be frustrating with the iPhone's keyboard. Thankfully the new version has a more typical appointment entry screen. Better appointment entry is nice, but the big new features in the new version of Google Calendar for the iPhone are the ability to edit existing appointments, invite other people to events, and the ability to manage appointment invitations and attendance statuses. Although the official announcement on the Official Google Mobile Blog inexplicably downplays it, Google Calendar now has a modicum of offline functionality on the iPhone and Android phones. Now even if you have no network connection it can still show you appointments that you've previously viewed, though you can't edit them. Hopefully this matures into a true offline capability in future versions, but it's sure nice to know that you can get to your appointments if you need to when you're without a network connection.
More than 17,000 people attended GDC 2009
How much did limiting the number of press invites affect the total attendance of the 2009 Game Developers Conference? By about 1,000 people, according to a press release from organizer Think Services. This year's GDC hosted "more than 17,000 game industry professionals," down from last year's 18,000. Ask any of the Joystiq GDC 2009 Squad, and we're sure they'll tell you that 17,000 people feels like plenty.Next year's GDC will again take place in San Francisco's Moscone Center, from March 9 to March 13.
Officers' Quarters: Empty slots
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.One of the primary struggles I face in a guild with no attendance policy is getting warm bodies to fill 25 raid slots for every raid. It seems like it doesn't matter how many people we recruit these days, we just can't seem to get enough people to make it happen all the time. As new players join us, old ones get burned out or stop playing altogether to wait for the next expansion. Based on this, you might already conclude that I can't really help the person who wrote this week's e-mail -- and maybe I can't! But I've learned that sometimes other factors can come into play, and this person might already be onto one of them.Dear Scott, I am in a raiding guild that usually runs about 3-4 raids a week and currently we are progressing through Black Temple as we have already cleared Mount Hyjal. [. . .] Recently we have had some issues with people showing up to raids and it seems to coincide with when our guild leader (raid leader) is not able to make it to the raid. If our raid leader doesn't log on we can't seem to fill out a 25 man raid but when he does log on we have no problem. Not really sure why this phenomenom happens but it seems to happen every time.
GDC '08 breaks attendance record, press may need invite next year
As many who attended GDC recover from illness (thanks to days of rain and the plague-ridden in attendance), CMP Media says its 2008 conference broke a record and hosted 18,000 game industry professionals (previous attendance was somewhere around 16,000). Highlights included, well, we've covered all that already. GDC will be back at the Moscone Center in San Francisco again next year, blissfully later from March 23-27.Attendance could also take a tiny dip next year as Kotaku reports GDC may become invite-only for those seeking press credentials. Jamil Moledina, executive director of the Game Developers Conference, tells the site that CMP hasn't nailed down details on how it's going to work, but they are looking at an "invite model for press access." Moledina is worried about maintaining the show's atmosphere and wants to make sure GDC maintains its core goals.Read: 2008 GDC breaks attendance recordRead: GDC, DICE, E3 could all be press invite only
Officers' Quarters: The raid farming blues
Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. At one time, possibly for ten or even twenty minutes, Molten Core was an exciting challenge. But now, if I never see the featureless brown walls of that godforsaken cave for the rest of my life, it will be too soon. Most raiding guilds probably aren't at the point where running Karazhan or Gruul's Lair is the tedious chore that weekly MC runs became, but someday all of this shiny new Burning Crusade raid content is going to be old hat too. At that point, it's going to be harder and harder to convince people to go back to it to help alts and newer guild members gear up. One reader dealt with this issue prior to the expansion. Hey, Great column. Here's a situation I came upon many times while running with a raiding guild in summer 2006. I'm curious as to how you dealt with it. I spent 4 months in a progress guild . . . and we did a great job for the time that I was there (downed C'thun in June '06 . . . moderate progress in Naxx after). But I came into the guild later than most of the people, and I only got in because of skill. I was one of the rare exceptions that was allowed in the guild of AQ40 hardcore raiders, with cloth blues from DM . . . I was a resto shaman. As time went on, we would get me the occasional piece of gear from a farm-status instance (I ended up with 5/8 Earthfury, but that's kinda necessary), but for the most part the guild was focused on progress, and we did not do MC or BWL very much anymore. The problem is, when Naxx hit, it got even worse. We were constantly wiping in Naxx, having issues with bosses that we shouldn't've, and I attributed it to the fact that everyone wasn't as geared out as possible. Some people needed pants off Rag, some people needed that one piece from Nef, . . . I was still using Finkle's Lava Dredger!
