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Microsoft study shows that tech is shortening your attention span
Think the abundance of technology in your life is making it harder to concentrate for long periods? Microsoft might just have some evidence to support your theory. It recently published a study (conducted using both surveys and EEG scans) suggesting that the average attention span has fallen precipitously since the start of the century. While people could focus on a task for 12 seconds back in 2000, that figure dropped to 8 seconds in 2013 -- about one second less than a goldfish. Reportedly, a lot of that reduction stems from a combination of smartphones and an avalanche of content. Many younger people find themselves compulsively checking their phones, and the glut of things to do on the web (such as social networking) makes it all too easy to find diversions.
Storyboard: Sharing the spotlight
We roleplayers tend to be a little... self-centered. Kind of the nature of the game, seeing as how you're creating a persona and then trying to flesh out an entire life story for that persona. It's natural that you'd want to be on the center stage a little more often. The problem here is obvious. Heck, you can see it in day-to-day life. If only one person thinks, "I'm the star," everything flows fine. If everyone thinks that, you're surrounded by a screaming cacophony of people who all think that their individual problems are more important than anyone else's problems. You have a band full of lead guitarists and no one on drums, a full team of pitchers without anyone at second base. You need to learn how to step away from the spotlight. To let someone else be important for a bit. To give up the spotlight and be the supporting cast for a while. So how and why do you do that? I'm glad you let me assume that you asked.
The Daily Grind: When do you stop paying attention to parts of the game?
We admit that yeah, there are places where the developers clearly just don't care any more. But it's not like we players are exactly blameless here, either. World of Warcraft players freely admit that they've long since stopped reading the quest text, leading to several cases of players standing around and bashing their metaphorical heads against a wall because they didn't actually read the text before jetting off. It's not necessarily that the quest text is bad (that's another discussion altogether), just that there comes a certain point when 90% of the time it's so irrelevant that you don't need to care. And if it's not the quest text, it's something else. You turn off the music in City of Heroes to just listen to Pandora instead. You start browsing for known good builds in Champions Online rather than figuring one out. You take a look at what you have to do between campaign missions in Guild Wars so you can stop bothering with sidequests. When have you stopped paying attention to a part of a game, however minor? Have you ever tried to care again, or have you remained apathetic toward that element from then on? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of something or other lorem ipsum watermelon rutabaga cantelope lorem ipsum: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so if you noticed the text here has changed mention butterflies when you respond to this Daily Grind!
Neurologists examine the brain on video games
The New York Times' Bits blogger Matt Richtel recently took part in a University of California at San Francisco study of the brain by playing a "primitive" racing game inside of an MRI machine. This wasn't one of those attempts to show that gaming can improve brain functions, but rather the early stages of a larger project to "measure and map the ethereal concept of attention." Ritchel's brain was observed as he maneuvered around or ignored "distractions" in the game (a multitasking simulation). Personally, we think this science project needs to evolve a bit. Look at that brain! It's bored out of its mind. For real, when there are other researchers out there bringing back giant aurochs from extinction or growing an "alien" form of bacteria, it's on today's scientists to step their game up. At least force test subjects to make some real Split/Second decisions. Following Richtel's playtime in the MRI scanner, Dr. Adam Gazzaley, lead researcher of the UCSF project, concluded that the results were "neither surprising nor novel and consistent with existing literature." Yeah, but what would happen if you threw in an attack helicopter and some exploding barrels? [Image sources: The New York Times; Shutterstock]
Action games improve 'real-world' skills, researchers suggest
"So what?" you might be thinking, "I don't care about the real world." Hey, we hear you. But! What if you could get those nagging loved ones off your back? A host of new studies could prove an important bargaining chip in convincing your parents, partners and pad-mates that you really should keep playing Black Ops in lieu of other activities, productive or not. NPR reports on a series of brain studies that suggests playing action games can improve one's attention, multitasking ability and vision skills, including spatial reasoning and "contrast sensitivity" -- "a skill that comes in very handy if you're driving in fog," says Daphne Bavelier, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester. And get this: Jay Pratt, a psych professor and brain researcher at the University of Toronto, claims his studies have shown that women, who he says typically score worse than men on spatial cognition tests, "improved substantially" after playing action games "and almost caught up to the men's scores." So, if your particular loved one happens to be both concerned and a female, reassure her: Black Ops supports split-screen multiplayer! But, um, before you forward anyone the article, you may want to edit out some parts ... Apparently, just a few weeks of "training" can show lasting effects on your "real-world" skills for up to two years, and all the researchers involved encourage (ugh) "moderation" in playtime. [Thanks, Chris; image credit: J. Adam Fenster/University of Rochester]
Study: TV and games linked to attention problems in school
[Image credit: dospaz] A new study conducted by researchers at Iowa State University recently found that viewing television and playing video games were both associated with greater attention problems among young children. The study, which appeared in Pedatrics recently, followed the television and video game usage habits of 1300 "middle childhood" subjects, connected those up with "teacher-reported attention problems," and found that increased exposure to both television and video games was associated with attention issues. The study doesn't mention that there's a casual relationship here, only that the two were "associated." A separate part of the study involved 210 "late adolescent/early adult participants" who provided self reports on both issues, and also found that some connection existed between the two. This study follows up on previous group research from the same university, but the researchers admit that much more research is needed before clear conclusions can be drawn. Thanks, Will!
Macworld 2010: TUAW talks to OpenFeint
On the day before Macworld last week, I got a chance to sit down with Eros Remini, VP of Marketing for OpenFeint, to talk about his social gaming network for iPhone apps. He shared with me that the network has claimed a gigantic 12 million users total, with about a million of them active in iPhone games from day to day. Additionally, the average user plays three or four games regularly -- unlike most other consoles, the iPhone is really a device that can split attention rather than have players dive deep in on one game. He also told us about the OpenFeint app that was released last month, as well as their popular free game of the day giveaway -- once per day, they give away an OpenFeint game for free right there inside the app. And we also talked about both how OpenFeint is serving as connection between developer and customer, as well as why Apple hasn't really shown an interest in an official iTunes gaming network like this. You can check out the whole interview on video right after clicking through the link below. Enjoy!
Using your iPhone in the city? Be careful!
I've lived in big cities for almost ten years now, first in Chicago and now in Los Angeles, and I could have told you exactly what this New York Times piece does: that you've got to be careful while using your iPhone while walking the city streets. We've heard about this before with the iPod, but an iPhone offers up even more distraction while walking around -- in between checking email, jumping on Twitter, and/or playing any number of games, it's practically impossible to spend enough attention on where you're walking and what you're doing even on a relatively clear street. Think it's a joke? Over 1000 people found themselves in emergency rooms in 2008 because they were distracted while walking, says the article, which is twice the number from 2007, which itself was almost double the number from 2006 (and it's probably gotten higher in the last year). That's not to say that we need actual legislation to deal with this (although legislation has been discussed in New York, and there is already legislation on the books in many places against using your phone while driving), but it's something to keep in mind: I put my iPhone away whenever I cross a street, and just plain stop whenever I need to do anything more attention-deserving than switch a song or up the volume. And it only took me one close call with a moving truck to figure that one out. If you're walking around with your iPhone or iPod in a busy urban environment, be careful out there. Note: Clarified the statistics above; the 2008 number is approximately four times the 2006 number.
Updating doesn't help your iPhone app, but price drops do
Here are two different insights from Pocket Gamer about how developers can grow the profile of their iPhone apps. The first comes to us from the wisdom of Peggle, that game that I just can't stop playing. Apparently, they've coined the term "Peggling," which means lowering the price of your app, and seeing a huge benefit from it. Whenever a game drops its price down to 99 cents, much as Peggle did soon after release, it sees a significant bump in the charts. I'm sure there are many other factors at play here -- Peggle was a great game, so you can't sell more of a crappy game just by selling it for cheaper, and I saw a lot of Twitter and blog attention when the price dropped, so it pays to have people watching the price in the first place. But under the right circumstances, dropping the price can do a lot for a game that's already selling pretty well.But an update, apparently, won't. That's what the makers of Zen Bound told Pocket Gamer -- they say that when they released an update with new levels and new features, it didn't make a difference in their sale numbers at all. Games like Pocket God have made a reputation for themselves by providing regular and solid updates, and certainly it seems like those updates have at least spurred sales, if not made them blow up, but the Zen Bound guys say that singular updates on major products probably won't kick sales into gear.Interesting. We're at least a few generations into App Store sales at this point, and we're started to see trends and consumer behavior in better relief; developers are getting better and better ideas every day about how to price and service their apps and customers.
EA, Namco set sights on iPhone development
Two big gaming companies have made stark moves towards some major iPhone development in the future. Electronic Arts has made what seems to be the strongest move: they've put together a division in the company specifically for making iPhone games, and not just any games. Specifically, the kind that cost 99 cents. 8lb Gorilla is the name of the group they've put together in-house, and apparently it's a bunch of young developers given the task of putting together quick and cheap games about once a month that can sell for 99 cents, keep customers happy, and still bring in a profit for EA. The first title out of the group is a game called Zombies and Me, which appears to be an action game where you blow up zombies with explosives. Who wouldn't pay 99 cents for that one, right?Namco is also making moves toward the platform, though not that specific (or risky, though EA's gambit could pay off big if the young devs turn out a hit). They've created an "Apple Games" division within their company, designed to make games specifically for the iPhone and iPod touch, and presumably for any other platforms that Apple decides to release games on. We hear the Mac is pretty popular -- does "Apple Games" include those other computers they make? Yet another Pac Man remake is the first title from them, but hopefully more original releases are coming.Very interesting to see major companies start setting aside resources specifically to target the App Store's unique market. Mac gamers have been fighting for years to get devs to pay attention to their platform, and now it looks like Apple's handheld devices, along with the relatively easy money of the App Store, have finally done it.
Five tips to minimize raiding downtime
I'm a rather avid raider, putting in a solid 20 hours a week on my Warrior. One of the major things about the time spent raiding is that it can be very precious. There is only so much time that 24 other people, plus appropriate class substitutions, can be available each week. It's critical that the time spent raiding is used well.Unfortunately, using raiding time well is about as much of a challenge as is downing Illidan. In preparation for this article, I've spent the past three weeks keeping track of the down time in raids. We raid Sunday through Thursday nights, from 7:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. We experience a downtime of about 51 minutes for each raid, which is about 20% of the time. Down time is defined as the time that my character is standing still, not attacking, not moving, and not being MDed to.Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I'm not really sure. Tip #1: Chain pullingPersonally, I do my best at the main tank to chain pull and push the trash through as fast as possible. This works out 99% of the time, however the 1% of the time it doesn't work out can grind the raid to a halt. Case and point: The trash to Supremus isn't too bad, and is a lot of packs where the MT, OT, and Pally tank each have some mobs to tank. There are also some ranged dragons that the Warlocks tank. These pulls can go very fast, and are very predictable. Pulling slowly we can do this in about 40 minutes, while chain pulling each group, we can push through in 15.Tip #2: Fully self buffed, all the timeIt doesn't take much to buff yourself. Every class has some buff they can apply to themselves, be it food buffs, spell buffs, or shouts. The key here is that you can find a minute or two to always buff at least yourself, if not others. Although, it might not always be possible to buff others as you're going along - and that's okay with most raid leaders for trash pulls.
How to enjoy grinding and read books at the same time
For a long time now I've been a big fan, not only of WoW, but of audible.com, where they have a great library of audiobooks for sale and download to your portable audio device of choice. Without realizing how or when, I have developed a habit of blending these two loves together for a marvelous effect: grinding plus audiobooks equals a great time.The basic problem with grinding in an MMO, after all, is that it doesn't require your full attention, especially if your goal is straightforward and you've done it before in one way or another. It's relatively easy to just put yourself on autopilot and do the job while your mind does something else. Listening to an audiobook is the perfect companion to this, because it fills up your mind, and leaves your hands and eyeballs itching to do something of their own. Also, I'm a person that has trouble reading with my eyes. I can do it for short periods without any trouble, but with long books, I tend to fall asleep or get distracted very easily. Through Audible, I might have read more books with my ears than I have read with my eyes by now, and although I know some people must have the paper copy of a book in their hands, there's probably a large number of WoW players out there who find themselves not reading as much as they would like, and would love to know that there's another way to get their literary fix.
Immersion or the lack thereof
Jane over at Game Girl Advance recently had a fascinating debate with herself on the level of immersion experienced by WoW players. While on the one hand she says that she often does other things while playing WoW (checking her email, instant messaging her friends) she also says that about 10 percent of the game requires most of her attention. Perhaps, she asks, the non-immersive nature of the game is what makes it so popular? But then she counters he own argument, stating that WoW is extremely immersive, sucking you in for blocks of hours at a time without you ever realizing it. I suppose I would have to agree with her, err both of her really. While I spend a lot of time alt-tabbing to check email for work while I game, I also find that WoW is the sort of game that draws you in. Not the same way a movie in a dark theater does. I wouldn't exactly say that I tend to forget the world around me, unless I'm in an intense instance group or perhaps a raid. I think that the variety of gameplay is one of WoW's keys to success. You can dive in as deep as you like when you log in. You can log in, head to the nearest dungeon, and play for hours on end, or you can quest for 30 minutes to an hour and then go do something else. The nature of an MMO means that you will spend a lot of time playing it, but WoW doesn't require you to spend all your attention on it while you play.
Continental telematics safety system alerts drivers of impending hazards
It's fairly safe to say that Continental Automotive Systems isn't the only company out there conjuring up an in-car safety system to alert motorists of impending hazards, and while a certain sect (we jest, we jest) would likely ignore whatever great advice it's sure to give, we can still admire the effort here. Dubbed a "car-to-car and car-to-infrastructure telematics application," the system's goal is to alert drivers in advance of potential perils such as poor traction conditions, an approaching ambulance / emergency vehicle, or a road-block ahead that could induce fits of frustration. The developments are reportedly right in line with the US government's Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) Initiative, and we're sure officials are mighty proud of the E-Flare, which provides optical and acoustic warnings coupled with a force-feedback gas pedal, and E-Horn, which accepts incoming warning signals from emergency vehicles and alerts the driver via (presumably distracting) in-cabin lights and sounds. No word just yet on when our next whip will sport a few extra senses, but rather than make things easier on us to control, why not jump straight to autopilot?[Photo courtesy of Continental]
Twilight Easter Eggs
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was in development for approximately, oh, say, forever. That intensely long cycle, besides making a game epic and wonderful and amazing, usually gives rise to an extreme attention to detail. Some savvy forum-goers have compiled a list of little easter eggs for your enjoyment, which can be found after the jump.How many of these did you find, or even notice? Do you feel as though these little details even make a difference in the overall gaming experience? We ourselves find that we're occasionally drawn back to the world of Hyrule for a few minutes, just to feel that epic sense of adventure ... or maybe it was just those bomb arrow fireworks.
