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Comment Re:What does this even mean? (Score 1) 296

by booyoh (#39301621) Attached to: My PC use accounts for __% of my computing time

Honestly, serious question. Is this asking me how much time I spend on my own machines vs. those at work? Is it asking how much computation is local vs. in the cloud? Is it asking how much is laptop vs. cell phone or tablet? Impossible to answer this.

THANK YOU! I was about to ask the same question. Took me a while to find it after seeing all of these off-topic comments.
Businesses

Submission + - Valve Switching Team Fortress 2 to Free-to-play Increased Revenue Twelvefold (gamasutra.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: We've frequently discussed the growing trend among video game publishers to adopt a business model in which downloading and playing the game is free, but part of the gameplay is supported by microtransactions. There have been a number of success stories, such as Dungeons & Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online. During a talk at the Game Developers Conference this week, Valve's Joe Ludwig officially added Team Fortress 2 to that list, revealing that the game has seen a 12-fold increase in revenue since the switch. He said, 'The trouble is, when you're a AAA box game, the only people who can earn you new revenue are the people who haven't bought your game. This drives you to build new content to attract new people. There's a fundamental tension between building the game to satisfy existing players and attract new players.' He also explained how they tried to do right by their existing playerbase: 'We dealt with the pay-to-win concern in a few ways. The first was to make items involve tradeoffs, so there's no clear winner between two items. But by far the biggest thing we did to change this perception was to make all the items that change the game free. You can get them from item drops, or from the crafting system. It might be a little easier to buy them in the store, but you can get them without paying.'
Graphics

Submission + - Tim Sweeney Claims 2000x GPU Performance Needed (pcper.com)

Submitted by Vigile
Vigile writes: In a talk earlier this year at DICE, Epic Games' Tim Sweeney discussed the state of computing hardware as it relates to gaming. While there is a rising sentiment in the gaming world that the current generation consoles are "good enough" and that the next generation of consoles might be the last, Sweeney thinks that is way off base. He debates that claim though with some interesting numbers including the amount of processing and triangle power required to match human anatomical peaks. While we are only a factor of 50x from the necessary level of triangle processing, there is 2000x increase required to meet the 5000 TFLOPS Sweeney thinks will be need for the 8000x4000 resolution screens of the future. It would seem that the "good enough" sentiment is still a long way off for developers.
AI

Submission + - Angelina: An AI that makes computer games from scratch (extremetech.com) 1

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "A PhD student at Imperial College London has created a computer AI, called Angelina, that can create computer games from scratch. In a process called “cooperative co-evolution,” which is an emerging field of evolutionary computation, each aspect of the game is broken down into “species” — level layout, enemy behavior, and power-ups are all species. Angelina takes a random selection of species and throws them together to create a game. Then, Angelina simulates a human playing through this random game 400 times. Levels that are too hard to complete are softened. Maps that are completely impossible are thrown out entirely. Power-ups are added, removed, and tweaked. Enemy behavior is changed. After each of these changes, another 400 iterations are played. Each time, Angelina breeds together fun designs, while bad designs are left out of the gene pool. The end result, which you can experience for yourself on the Games By Angelina website or on New Scientist, is surprisingly good."
Games

Submission + - Kinect for couch potatoes (amuletdevices.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: These guys are using something called Haarcascades to allow Kinect gesturing while laying down. So you can use Kinect and be a lazy ass!
Advertising

Submission + - Proceeds from Vita ad donated to Anonymous (playerattack.com)

Submitted by dotarray
dotarray writes: German band Atari Teenage Riot was recently featured in the "Never Stop Playing" ad campaign for PlayStation Vita — today founding member Alec Empire has announced that all royalties and other money arising from the ad will be donated to a website supporting hacktivist group Anonymous.
Games

Submission + - Halo: Reach and GRAW designer crowdfunds tactical shooter (kickstarter.com)

Submitted by airfoobar
airfoobar writes: Following the massive success of Double Fine's Kickstarter campaign, which allowed them to develop an old-school adventure game without the blessing of a game publisher, we get the news that an independent team led by Chistian Allen (lead designer/creative director for games like Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and Halo: Reach) has launched a Kickstarter for a new hardcore tactical shooter. This is amazing news! Am I the only one who feels humbled by the beauty of what is starting to happen on Kickstarter?
Games

Submission + - Next-gen game controllers tug at thumb tips (scienceblog.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Engineers at the University of Utah have designed a new kind of video game controller that not only vibrates like existing devices, but pulls and stretches the thumb tips in different directions to simulate the tug of a fishing line, the recoil of a gun or the feeling of ocean waves. “We have developed feedback modes that enhance immersiveness and realism for gaming scenarios such as collision, recoil from a gun, the feeling of being pushed by ocean waves or crawling prone in a first-person shooter game,” said the lead researcher on the project, adding he hoped the technology would be adopted in the next generation of gaming consoles.
Games

Submission + - Valve Reportedly Working On 'Steam Box' Gaming Console (theverge.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: This article at the Verge claims that Valve is currently working on a way to bring Steam to the living room with its own gaming console. Quoting: 'According to sources, the company has been working on a hardware spec and associated software which would make up the backbone of a "Steam Box." The actual devices may be made by a variety of partners, and the software would be readily available to any company that wants to get in the game. Adding fuel to that fire is a rumor that the Alienware X51 may have been designed with an early spec of the system in mind, and will be retroactively upgradable to the software. Apparently meetings were held during CES to demo a hand-built version of the device to potential partners. We're told that the basic specs of the Steam Box include a Core i7 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GPU. The devices will be able to run any standard PC titles, and will also allow for rival gaming services (like EA's Origin) to be loaded up. Part of the goal of establishing a baseline for hardware, we're told, is that it will give developers a clear lifecycle for their products, with changes possibly coming every three to four years. Additionally, there won't be a required devkit, and there will be no licensing fees to create software for the platform.'

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