We Think

I was doing some research for my essay at the library the other day, and I stumbled upon this book, 'We-Think.' Here's a YouTube video that summarizes the topics of the book:

It discusses how the internet has allowed for mass collaboration and mass innovation and what this spells for the future. I'm not finished it, but it has been an interesting read so far. You can read the first few chapters here.

For this course, I've had to do a lot of research about the relationship between the internet and society. I've noticed that is very important to pay attention to the date of the papers I'm reading for this subject, since this relationship is constantly evolving. 'We-Think' was published in 2008, which seems fairly recent. However, that was a full four years ago! I don't even know if I had a Facebook account back in 2008. I've looked at some papers from 2004, and even 2000 on subject; but while I'm reading them, all I can think about is how my home computer was still running Windows 98 during the time.

This is just a constant reminder of how new this virtual world is and how quickly it can change. The current internet is an entirely different animal than it was in 2000, and I need make sure I consider this in my research. 

The Future is Soon!

In class yesterday I mentioned this new technology that allows interfaces to be controlled with your mind. I thought I may as well share the TED Talk that introduces it. 

Although this technology is very new and the extent to which it can actually be utilized is still unknown, it's easy to get carried away with all the possibilities that it presents. Early versions of touch screens often seemed unresponsive and impractical, but they have slowly improved over time. It's not hard to imagine that this technology will evolve as well, and if it becomes as responsive as a touch screen it might represent the next level of user interface.

In class we discussed how the user interface systems have evolved. One major theme of this evolution was removing the abstraction; that is, every level became increasingly linked to a physical direct interpretation of the underlying system. The input has changed from simply typing commands, to manipulating files with a mouse, to touching the files directly. Each of these changes were prompted by the introduction of new technology. The GUI wouldn't have been possible without faster computers that could show graphics! The NUI wouldn't be possible without responsive touch screens.

The next possible step could be this mind technology. This really is the most direct way to communicate with technology. Ideally, there would be no abstraction between what you want to do, and what happens.

As pointed out in class, however, there are some ethical considerations to be aware of for this technology. People don't have as much control over their minds as they do for their body, since everyone has a chance to rationalize their decisions before physically making them. This filter would have to be accounted for. Furthermore, this may provide privacy issues, as technology will literally be able to read your mind. Also, is working with your mind really more efficient than using a touch interface? Not until this technology improves substantially I would argue, or until people become accustom to it. Lastly, this even further decreases the need for actual physical movement (as you can see at 9:09) which could create health considerations.

It may be a little early to get excited, but as we saw with the Microsoft Future Vision, you've got to be able to dream to create anything. After all, half of the technology we have today would have seemed impossible 500 years ago, so who can tell what might come of the future in this exponential age.

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

Now, rewind for a second and try to recall that dark winter morning of January 18th, 2012. You were probably still in bed when it struck you that you had no idea when Zac Efron's birthday was. This sudden insatiable thirst for knowledge was probably followed by an awkward climb over to your desk where you booted up your computer in a quest for the truth. In a few seconds, you were greeted by this spooky web page on Wikipedia mumbling something about free speech- which, as far as you were concerned -was most definitely not Zac Efron.

This is when you use Britannica. (source)

Even if you had never heard of SOPA before and wouldn't care to know, you now do. Indeed, Wikipedia was one of a number of websites to 'blackout' in protest of the SOPA bill. As it turns out, 162 million other people also received this message in exchange for whatever they were trying to learn about on Wikipedia. There is no way this message could have been so quickly spread to so many people in some other medium, such as print or broadcast.

As I'm sure you are aware, many of these websites were protesting because they believed SOPA didn't properly attack the issues it was designed for (piracy and copyright infringement) and instead created dangerous methods for corporations to dictate the internet. The fear of losing the 'free' internet as we know it today was enough to prompt many websites (such as Google and Wikipedia) to protest and warn all users of their website of this potential threat. The protest was super effective, and support for the bill began to decline. 

The MPAA, one of the supporters of SOPA, released this statement the day before the blackout. Clearly, the MPAA didn't approve of this blackout; they called it a "publicity stunt" that "punished their users" and "abused" the power of their websites. The notice was ignorant of the real reason the websites were protesting, but it did present an interesting statement: 

"It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests."

Regardless of any good intentions of Google and Wikipedia, this statement is still a valid point. As we've discussed in class, the modern age has shifted more power to the individual. In this case, these technology companies were able to utilize their massive user base to achieve a political goal by presenting them with bias information.

I suppose that this is really no different from other major influences, such as the government or the MPAA itself, which utilize their own influences to achieve their goals as well. It is simply important to note that Google and other websites that provide basic information to the masses have a lot of influence; though perhaps due to their reputation of not being evil. In such a state of power, users must trust these websites to be responsible (hence the title of this post) and trust that the information they present are without a hidden agenda. Ironically, to ensure that they could continue to present unprejudiced information, Google and Wikipedia had to break the very credo they were protecting.

The Steam Workshop: Crowdsourcing Content

Making a video game can be hard and expensive. Here's an interesting thought though: how about other people make the video game and you sell it?

Well, it's not actually that simple, but it is an interesting idea.

In my previous post, I discussed how new technologies have brought game development to the masses. I also mentioned how crowdsourcing projects like Kickstarter can fund video game development by drawing donations from across the world. Another form of crowdsourcing emerges when we draw the content itself from the people. Now that independent and hobbyist game design has reached the quality of studio work, it is possible to take advantage of this commercially. Valve was one of the first to realize this potential, and created the Steam Workshop.

Mann Co, Valve's fictitious alter ego, learns that even the worst situations can still yield a profit. (source) 

Team Fortress 2 is one of Valve's hit titles, and it has been constantly updated and supported since its release almost five years ago. Valve also released the developer tools for the game, allowing other programmers or game designers to easily modify or add to the game. A large community formed around the game, and many players spent their free time using those tools to create alternative weapons or new game play modes and maps. These creations, however, were never officially supported by the game, and were only every used by the select group of players who were involved in the modding community. Valve, seeing the quality of these works, created a simple submission system in 2010 that allowed people to submit their creations to be officially included in the game. This was the beginning of the Steam Workshop.

You couldn't have that mullet before the Steam Workshop. 

Sure enough, the project was a success. No longer did Valve have to design new weapons or hats; all that was being done by the community. Even later, Valve created a store for the game that allowed players to buy hats made by other players, which gave a portion of the profits to the creator of the hat. This too was a success, with these creators (and Valve) making a ton of extra cash.

Valve was crowdsourcing game content.

With time however, the number of submissions grew and grew until they became too much to handle- so what did Valve do? They used crowdsourcing again. The Steam Workshop evolved further and now allows players to view, sort, and rank content made by other players. This has created an interesting dynamic that allows players to add to the game as they play it.

Other video games, such as LittleBigPlanet, have also focused on allowing users to create their own content using built in level editors and tools. The Steam Workshop is unique, however, in that it supports programmed mods of any kind as an integral feature of the platform. Modding takes time and dedication, and it requires a lot more personal commitment to create and share. There have always been many websites and communities that focused on creating original content and mods for popular games, however, these have always been segregated from the game itself. When these mods are available directly in the interface of their respective games it brings this content to a much wider demographic. This allows players to get a lot more out of these games, and this feature becomes a valuable element of the game. In these cases, the developers only have to support the Steam Workshop, and then sit back and relax as the world does the rest. And so, these companies can use crowdsourcing to extend the value of their game.

Skyrim is the second game to use the Steam Workshop, with more to come. From the user's end, it is very simple and easy to try different mods. The submissions range from gameplay tweaks to entirely new missions. It is an awesome feature, and I'm excited to see this implemented in more games to come.

The Indie Video Game Movement

Over the last few years, the video game industry has seen a huge rise in the popularity of indie video games. There have been a number of independent video games that have been commercially released to unexpected financial and critical success. Super Meat Boy (2010, 1 million sales, 90% Metacritic), Braid (2008, 93% Metacritic), World of Goo (2008, 94%), Minecraft (2011, 4 million sales, 93%), Amnesia (2011, 86%), Bastion (2011, 90%), Limbo (2012, 92%), are a just few examples of the many commercial titles developed by tiny teams with huge success.

Some of these hits, such as Minecraft, were completely developed by only two people! This contrasts the other end of video game development, where the estimated development costs exceed 50 million dollars with hundreds of employees working on different aspects of the game. The end credits of Splinter Cell Conviction ran for a whopping total of 22 minutes- these teams are enormous!

Limbo offered a unique art style and narrative, and won awards! (source)

I believe that independent video games represent an important emerging sub-market of the gaming industry. Unlike major publishers and developers that continue to pump out sequels after sequels, indie developers are able to take the risk trying something different. In an industry known for repetition and cloning, innovation is becoming increasingly important for success. If the arrival of the Wii is any indication, people are attracted to new and interesting products.

Independent games have always been developed alongside commercial games as hobbyist projects, so, why have they only recently come to the forefront of the industry? Cave Story was developed and released for free in 2004 and garnered much community and praise. However, it was not until 2010 that the game was packaged and sold commercially; and not until then did I hear of it.

(Cave Story) Wait, I know this game is free- so why did I pay for it? (source)

Just as we discussed in class, evolving technologies are distributing more power to the individual. In the gaming industry, indie video games are the result of this shift. They define a new niche of game design that pushes the creative bounds of the industry. There are a number of reasons why this market may have just emerged, here are some of my thoughts:

1. Digital Distribution:
In the last few years digital distribution has become an easy, manageable, and secure method for sharing and selling games. A game developer no longer needs a publisher or producer to publish their games into the market. Furthermore, modern online communities share and spread games, reducing the importance of commercial advertising. These developments have made it easier for developers to directly reach their consumers.

2. Accessible Development Tools:
Simply put, video games are just easier to make now than they have ever been before. Tutorials and packaged video game libraries are easily available to make game programming much more accessible. Powerful engines like Unity are freely available for use. Even novice programmers can design full games using software like Game Maker. There are tons of free and extensive resources on the internet to make both programming and game design easier.

Game Maker taught me programming practices without me knowing it!

3. Mobile Video Games
Nearly everyone has a smart phone nowadays. Indie game development is highly suited to the mobile market, because the games are generally smaller and the market is easy to distribute on. Mobile games reach a wide range of people and are often inexpensive, helping indie game developers profit from a accessible market.

The industry has evolved a lot from the development of these technologies, but removing the publisher has also created new and exciting opportunities. The Humble Indie Bundle and the Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter are two interesting examples. Although not directly crowd sourcing, the Humble Indie Bundle allowed customers (for a limited time) to buy a set of quality games for any price they wanted, provided they gave at least a cent. This project proved to be immensely successful, generating income for developers but supporting charity as well. They have already raised a raw 10 million dollars from selling games in this format, with more bundles to come. This method echos the crowd-sourcing concept, since it relies on many people contributing small amounts. The bundle also carries a positive community feeling similar to crowd-sourcing, since the money directly supports developers and charity.

The Double Fine Adventure is another curious example, which draws financial support from a dedicated adventure game community to fund a new adventure game. Again, this carries the positive community feeling associated with crowd-sourcing since people feel they are collectively contributing to revive a lost but treasured game genre. This project has too been very successful. The developers asked for 0.4 million to make the game, but have already received 2.6 million in kickstarter donations.

To summarize, I think independent video games are AWESOME!

The Motivation Behind Crowdsourcing

During lecture today, we discussed how crowd-sourcing has become a powerful and efficient business strategy. At one point, we were asked if it were true that, "You do well by doing good." In class, many seemed to agree that from a business point of view, this is probably not true.

This reminded me, however, of an excellent video about the science of motivation:

 

In the video, they discuss how recent research suggests that the best work is created in workplaces where the employees feel they are working towards a greater purpose. They show that when offered greater monetary rewards for complicated tasks, the participants actually preformed worse. This might explain why crowd-sourcing is often successful, since people feel like they are contributing to a community.

This further reminds me of the topic of motivation as discussed in psychology class last year. It was shown that when there is no extrinsic motivation for an activity (such as money), people are more likely to engage in it and embrace it because they feel they are doing it for themselves, not for someone else. Although the personal reward for participating crowd-sourced projects may be little, people are usually motivated intrinsically to participate, which can lead to better performance.

So, it would appear that in some situations,"You do well by doing good," is true even in the business sense.

Is the Internet a Human Right?

Computers have revolutionized the world and changed the way we live; there is no doubt about that. We use computers to do everything, everywhere, all the time. However, the computer itself is only half of the story- it is the internet that has really impacted society. The internet is the modern medium for learning, communication, and sharing. It could argued that the internet has merely made old services more accessible, since we've always had libraries, mail, and filing cabinets. Even if this were so, the impact of this new-found accessibility itself has far greater repercussions. For example, the invention of the printing press simply decreased the cost of book production, however, that effect is often credited for the revolutionary spread of literacy to all social classes. The internet is arguably the next printing press, such that its incredible ability to propagate information allows for huge social impacts.

Never before has the individual had so much power to influence and reach the world. The world is pulled together as people from across the globe can easily reach anyone else. It has come to the point where many modern societies function on the internet; that is, access to the internet is almost essential for school, business, and even social intercourse. It has now come to the point where internet access can be viewed as human right. 

But is the internet a human right? Apparently it is, if you ask the UN.

In June 2011, the United Nations declared the blocking people from the internet was violation against human rights. As discussed by Sulan Wong in the Computer Networks journal, people are entitled to freedom, including freedom of speech, expression, and communication. As the article explains, the European Union reasons that internet access is vital for proper freedom of expression:

"The European Parliament believes that the Internet is a universal space that now allows the pursuit of all these manifestations of freedom as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on the Rights Civil and Political Rights, becoming the most versatile tool for the exercise of freedom of expression globally. To that extent, the Internet should not be subjected to “interference by public authority”or limitation of access or control of content." (Wong)

Some countries have already implemented laws exercising this right, such as France, Estonia, and Finland. On the flip-side however, Google Vice President Vint Cerf has spoken out against internet access as a human right. In his opinion, the internet is a valuable tool to allow the expression of human rights, but the technology itself is not a right, since technologies change over time and may have different worth in different settings. He is concerned that setting internet access itself as a human right is putting emphasis on the wrong values. He does consider that internet access is more plausible as a civil right, however.

Personally, I can see that both sides of the argument have valid points. Although the internet is crucial to expressing certain human freedoms, it is but merely one means for this end. However, since the internet does play such a central role in our community, certain actions should be taken to protect its availability.

(All images from Wikipedia.)