tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35823797223101314812024-02-22T09:00:44.796-08:00GeoGameSharing my thoughts around web-map-gamingAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-38573002251084527032019-01-04T08:32:00.001-08:002019-01-04T08:32:50.672-08:00New book on GeoGames and GeoPlayLong time no posts, but my sabbatical in 2017 allowed for finalizing our new book GeoGames and GeoPlay. Hope it will be a good read for everyone. Do let me know if you would like re-prints of specific chapters.<br />
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<a href="https://images.springer.com/sgw/books/medium/9783319227733.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="230" data-original-width="153" src="https://images.springer.com/sgw/books/medium/9783319227733.jpg" /></a></div>
<a href="https://www.springer.com/la/book/9783319227733" target="_blank">https://www.springer.com/la/book/9783319227733</a><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-80193612785858576212016-07-12T07:29:00.000-07:002016-07-14T10:49:49.066-07:00A GeoGame success storyBack in 2012 I asked where the great location based games were. <a href="http://osu-geogames.blogspot.com/2012/03/where-are-great-location-based-games.html" target="_blank">http://osu-geogames.blogspot.com/2012/03/where-are-great-location-based-games.html</a>, and I could only the speculate about how such a game would change things. Then last year when I first heard about the coming of Pokemon Go, I told friends that this would be a smash hit. Not just because of the popularity of the game, but because the nice fit of the game mechanics with geolocation, mobility and motion-detection, now supported by most cellphones. Now, despite a launch riddled by unresponsive/overloaded game servers, it is clear to me that this will help the general public realize what GeoGames can offer in terms of entertainment, and maybe also as a way of discovering and learning about the real world. Remember, Pokemon Go hails from <a href="https://www.ingress.com/" target="_blank">Ingress</a> and uses much of the same data such as portal locations. Seeing that my own neighborhood gyms was right at the Ingress portals peaked my interest for how those portal locations were determined (never really played Ingress), so I found this great <a href="http://www.ingressguide.com/portals/creating/criteria/" target="_blank">information on the Ingress support pages</a>. So don't be surprised if you find yourself training your Pokemons at cool/popular local spots with educational/historical value! Behold the power of GeoGames as educational.<br />
We now learn from<a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/ad-agencies-scramble-to-form-pokemon-go-strategies-1468425523" target="_blank"> this WSJ article</a> that a pizza place in NYC saw a big uptick in business after providing some in-game power-ups at their location, which apparently attracted a lot of players to their restaurant. Clearly this business opportunity will not be squandered by Niantic, who will soon be introducing sponsored locations rather than just those generated from the old Ingress map. This is yet another example of how current day mapping is as much about real world representation as it is about buying a place on the map.<br />
As for the game mechanics, I must say that I was a bit disappointed that I was not supposed to use my phone's motion detection ability to gesture an actual throw to capture a Pokemon. I was also hoping for more P2P interactions beyond the portals and other hubs. It would be cool to be notified of another trainer I your vicinity ready to fight, pull up your phone and see their avatar overlaid on their actual persona, and engage in a exchange. Oh well, maybe that's for v.2. For now, big thanks to Niantic/Google and Nintendo for bringing GeoGames to the public!<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-56661933969986746012016-03-10T06:05:00.001-08:002016-03-10T06:05:31.932-08:00Designing games of science - a meandering and complex path A short yet insightful look into the complex task of designing good science learning games is provided by Elizabeth Pennisi in <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6277/1106.full-text.pdf+html" target="_blank">this recent working life piece for Science </a>. She describes her own meandering path of to become a scientist and game designer, driven by an urge to help students learn biology. I can relate to the difficulties she describes of having to navigate a very interdisciplinary environment where you need at least four radically different lines of expertise in subject matter, game design, technology, and learning science.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-83841349690407914232015-09-09T11:36:00.001-07:002015-09-09T11:36:39.605-07:00GISuser.com Feature – Epic Win: Using GIS and Gaming to Save the WorldI feel a certain sense of accomplishment today. I read through this piece about <a href="http://gisuser.com/2015/09/feature-epic-win-using-gis-and-gaming-to-save-the-world/">GIS and gaming</a> by Troy Lambert that caught my eye as interesting, only to find the work of our GeoGames group featured in the middle! Very cool. I am happy to see the potential of GIS as a gaming platform featured, especially as I reflect on how we might be able to mitigate the "...mass exodus to virtual worlds" by infusing GeoGames and GeoPlay with a deeper sense of mission, community and reinforcing feedback.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-33623126848758009942015-09-08T07:26:00.002-07:002015-09-08T07:26:36.840-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ezAH_WY6a8I/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ezAH_WY6a8I?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
Thanks for this pointer by National Geographic Education Blogger Sarah Zeglin. <a href="http://blog.education.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/04/game-of-the-week-reach-for-the-sun/">http://blog.education.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/04/game-of-the-week-reach-for-the-sun/</a>. Another production from <a href="https://www.filamentgames.com/">Filament Games</a> that looks really nice. What I find particularly helpful about their games catalog is that they provide educators with more specific learning goals/standards that are supposedly targeted by each game, and a detailed curriculum that can be used together with the game.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-19800785662672681072015-08-28T08:00:00.000-07:002015-08-28T08:00:29.183-07:00Alliance megagame - a huge board in-person GeoGame <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Here's a great example of a map-based, almost realistic, geopolitics/economy multiplayer game. It is interesting to think of how this game could be implemented online. Clearly the video illustrates the animated interactions that can happen when you gather 60+ players in the same room around one big game for a 4-hr play session. Can those interactions be as rich and nuanced when you can only hear a voice or see persons through video? Probably not, looking at the body language in some of those scenes. How much does that contribute to player engagement? Not clear, and certainly an interesting thing to look into.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-38193861717216826122013-10-03T11:24:00.002-07:002013-10-03T11:24:45.726-07:00The Importance of Spatial and Visual ThinkingKirk Goldsberry, professor of Geography at Michigan State University, makes a nice argument in this <a href="http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/09/teaching-and-learning-visualiz/">Harvard Business Review online post</a> about the importance of spatial and visual literacy. I think each day about how well (or not) we manage to prepare all students (not just geography and associated areas) for critical consumption and use of spatial information. Unfortunately, most of the time, I come to say 'not very well'. Taking my own University's general education curriculum as an example, there are requirements in place to foster literacy in the written word, in science, in foreign language, in the arts and humanities, but very little if anything around spatial and visual literacy. Yet, pretty much any subject matter is spatially situated and modern culture is saturated by visual media. One of the comments on Kirk's posting came from Jack Dangermond, president of Esri, who added an observation that spatial thinking has found its way into the public mind through other avenues than academics. Clearly, every-day technology brings the power of maps and spatial data to more people than ever, and I hope all geographers celebrate that. I also side with Kirk that P-16 education need to recognize spatial and visual literacy as a main foundation for a well rounded individual. Reading, math, science, and art skills are great. Understanding their visual expression in space and time makes them even greater.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-57140169686767698312013-09-12T05:35:00.001-07:002013-09-12T05:40:13.488-07:00A RECIPE for Meaningful GamificationIn this video Scott Nicholson at Syracuse University shares his ideas around Meaningful Gamification that goes beyond the simple points, badges, and levels to dig more deeply into factors that will generate intrinsic motivation and engagement.<br />
Here's a link to his blog - <a href="http://becauseplaymatters.com/">http://becauseplaymatters.com/</a><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/f4qikCx_SSc" width="459"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-30750003804924580772013-09-10T06:29:00.001-07:002013-09-10T06:29:28.770-07:00The story behind "The Game That Can Give You 10 Extra Years of Life."This great piece in the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-mcgonigal/watch-now-1up-your-life_b_3876195.html">Huffington Post</a> describes "...the biggest disaster in TED history!" It gave me an opportunity to revisit Jane McGonigal's talk from last year to hear how games (among other things) can make us live richer and healthier lives.<br />
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Be sure to follow up on <a href="http://blog.superbetter.com/show-me-the-science-resilience-games-post-traumatic-growth-and-more/">http://blog.superbetter.com</a> and look at some of the research behind those remarks. In addition, just watching and engaging with the talk would also add 7.68245837 minutes to your life-span. So, while the talk is 19 minutes, your are really only spending less than 12 minutes watching it...?<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-13642084334385402002013-08-28T05:28:00.000-07:002013-08-28T05:28:23.370-07:00GLS 9.0 conference presentations<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio_zmfB5xarEqNtCrPDlAz2zP2mjksrIDE5Zn081lL0FRPW8pgL2oxFKt7kUH5p3OQTQV010jF2qQlmL4TyRsLTa0TihclFE8TIjAyMeVBcgnPRshBZA26y5d6eB9OTIDjqclYdO0qLBk/s1600/Slide2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio_zmfB5xarEqNtCrPDlAz2zP2mjksrIDE5Zn081lL0FRPW8pgL2oxFKt7kUH5p3OQTQV010jF2qQlmL4TyRsLTa0TihclFE8TIjAyMeVBcgnPRshBZA26y5d6eB9OTIDjqclYdO0qLBk/s320/Slide2.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
Myself and Brendon Mikula from our GeoGames team presented two posters at this year's <a href="http://glsconference.org/" target="_blank">Games+Learning+Society 9.0</a> conference. It was an energetic and stimulating meeting as usual and our latest work and results were very positively received by those who visited our displays (and there were a lot of people). <a href="http://www.geography.osu.edu/faculty/ahlqvist/files/pubs/GLS%20Poster%20Ahlqvist%20et%20al.pdf" target="_blank">Poster 1 </a>describe the overall architecture of our Online Map Game platform and <a href="http://www.geography.osu.edu/faculty/ahlqvist/files/pubs/GLS%20Poster%20Mikula%20et%20al.pdf" target="_blank">Poster 2 </a>presents some of the early results from user studies using the game in Geography undergraduate classrooms.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-922792172684655442013-05-22T07:06:00.002-07:002013-05-22T07:06:49.508-07:00A Futurology of GIScienceYesterday I had the great opportunity to address the 2013 University Consortium for GIS symposium attendees gathered at George Mason University. I was asked to talk a bit about what I think are important trends that will affect the GIS area in the near future, so I provided these few observations:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Location are becoming a required feature of (ever smarter) services </li>
<li><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875);">Maps are created, designed and used differently –socially driven by anyone </span></li>
<li>Any spatiality (<span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875);">Warped and imagined spaces and places)</span> that helps organize an activity will be used.</li>
<li>Most applications will not be “serious and some will be "super-serious"</li>
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If you care to look through it here is the <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/cgi0wcjg0f3jw16/UCGIS%20Pleanry%20-%20Spatial%20Games%20%E2%80%93%20a%20call%20to%20action.pdf" target="_blank">full presentation</a>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-55234886025625170742012-05-01T09:08:00.000-07:002012-05-01T09:08:44.995-07:00New map games<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp8gp5mGQ8lzt68GIq8wDkDRMKGUltvQj9JY5KYcdr77J4P_5mT-MDN-AniFc-PaSc9ETKHf0nlkppfCaZFxE_DgRUxQXwi8wa2jsi9-U9W89CnQmIOH33CK6PMM2iD1VoqFW9Kk02hnU/s1600/cube.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="174" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp8gp5mGQ8lzt68GIq8wDkDRMKGUltvQj9JY5KYcdr77J4P_5mT-MDN-AniFc-PaSc9ETKHf0nlkppfCaZFxE_DgRUxQXwi8wa2jsi9-U9W89CnQmIOH33CK6PMM2iD1VoqFW9Kk02hnU/s320/cube.png" width="320" /></a></div>
A bunch of things are emerging, both in terms of online map games (OMG!) and research that look at what these creations have to offer. Some of the more interesting example from my own navigation is <a href="http://mapattack.org/">MapAttack from Geoloqi</a>, and the new <a href="http://www.playmapscube.com/">Google Maps promo game</a>. Both offer some entertainment and fun, although I must say that I quickly stopped thinking about the real places when I played cube, and just treated it as a marble board with obstacles. On the research horizon I recently found one of the first journal papers reporting from the geospatial domain by <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0198971511001116">Alenka Poplin in Hamburg</a> who looks at the potential uses of online serious games for public participation in urban planning.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-60545032157435122772012-04-03T10:36:00.001-07:002012-04-03T10:37:09.473-07:00April fool's quest<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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April fool's weekend is over and I will admit that I fell for one of the jokes, the Google Maps Quest (<a href="http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2012/03/google-maps-gets-8-bit-nes-treatment/1#.T3s0fNlC1ua">see Brett Molina's USA Today report here including links to some funny landmarks</a>). The regular interface was mysteriously appended with a Quest layer when I launched it on Saturday morning. Being a GeoGame evangelist I was obviously overexcited to see this playful addition to Google's services and started to look around for clues on how to play/use it. Some time later I realized my embarrassment but it was a fun joke, see this <a href="http://youtu.be/rznYifPHxDg">YouTube video</a>. Although, as readers of this blog will know, I do not usually joke around when it comes to online map games (OMG!) If you missed it you can still look around in the <a href="http://maps.google.com/?t=8&utm_campaign=8bit&utm_source=yt">Quest mode here</a>. We stay tuned for Google's next step into the OMG! world.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-60585848360649960562012-03-28T07:48:00.001-07:002012-03-28T10:56:26.754-07:00Social network charrettes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/images/arcnews-spring-2012/quo-vadimus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="151" src="http://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/images/arcnews-spring-2012/quo-vadimus.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<a href="http://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/spring12articles/quo-vadimus.html">Brian Berry notes in his ArcNews commentary entitled "Quo Vadimus?"</a> (where are we going), that the <a href="http://pewresearch.org/millennials/">millennial generation</a> is among a growing segment of US Internet users who play games on social network, and that the geospatial community has yet to realize the potential of social games for addressing real world issues. He points at an interesting parallel with the 'charrettes' that designers/planners frequently use find participatory solutions to scenarios with conflicting goals and trade-offs. I elaborated on that very theme earlier this year under the title <a href="http://osu-geogames.blogspot.com/2012/01/gis-games-geodesign.html">GIS + Games = GeoDesign</a>. It's great to see more people recognize the power of new dynamics afforded by the use of emerging technologies and constant connectivity. Thanks to colleague <a href="http://www.geography.ohio-state.edu/our-department/faculty-more/medvedkov">Yuri Medvedkov</a> for alerting me to the article.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-20761692174674269442012-03-14T18:53:00.003-07:002012-03-14T18:53:46.554-07:00Where Are the Great Location Based Games?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In his <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/251575/where_are_the_great_location_based_games.html">column </a>David Daw at PC World Magazine rightfully asks the question "Where Are the Great Location Based Games?". Pointing to the most exciting examples of today such as <a href="http://www.shadowcities.com/">Shadow Cities</a> he concludes that game producers seem reluctant to leave their traditional game mechanic where place is mostly a backdrop for the action. To make location based games worthwhile, he argues, these games need to make location and place a central or at least important part of the game dynamics. i couldn't agree more. While I don't see our idea of GeoGames/OMG! (and that's short for Online Map Games) to be squarely defined as a location based game, it is certainly allowing (real) places have an important influence on the game. While we can proudly brag that we have our new fully WebGIS-based test architecture in place now (sorry, we'll have to wait a bit to release this to a wider audience) we are also increasingly aware of the difficulties in dealing with a game world fully anchored in reality. Yes, the world is not fair, some places have certain advantages that are hard to get around. Maybe playing these real world games will only generate <a href="http://osu-geogames.blogspot.com/2011/09/early-visionaries.html">Mirror Worlds</a>. Wouldn't that be intriguing, and scary?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-58654320242239589322012-02-22T02:03:00.000-08:002012-02-22T02:08:10.549-08:00GeoGame development update by Kiril Vatev<span id="internal-source-marker_0.5897521808827032" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Graduate student Kiril Vatev gives an overview of the development of our new GeoGame prototype:</span><br />
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<a href="http://www.geography.osu.edu/img/faculty/kiril-vatev.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.geography.osu.edu/img/faculty/kiril-vatev.jpg" /></a><span id="internal-source-marker_0.5897521808827032" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
Cyberlearning GeoGame project is reaching the Milestone 1 stage of its
development -- a fully functional online prototype. Being one short
month away from a Milestone 1 demo, I can think of no better time to go behind the scenes of the development of the project and
look at the technology that enables this online game.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
head the small development team and have played a large part in
designing the framework for the game. Since I do not have a computer
science background, the technologies we have picked are easy to learn
and accessible without the need for technical training. For this blog
entry, I will keep the content general and friendly, with just enough
technical attributes included where completely necessary.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">To
understand the switch from a native computer application to an online
application for the game, it is important to note the troublesome areas
of native applications. Unless developed completely from scratch and
compiled for specific systems, native applications will always require a
runtime library -- be it the JRE (Java Runtime Library) or .NET, or any
of the other libraries. These libraries make application less
accessible for users, raise major compatibility issues, and present
various hurdles in installation and distribution for end users. And
speaking of distribution, a native application presents administrative
issues when being used in a classroom setting. In a lab, each computer
will require an install of the application by an authorized system
administrator, and each consequential update of the software will
require administrator involvement. Aside from the general pain this
causes in the process, this results in slower distribution systems and a
revert back to older development models based on major-version
releases.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Finally,
the last problem this project faced with its native application was the
lack of integration. The map used in the application was used only as a
backdrop of the game -- like a board -- and was not the interactive
element of the application. Interaction was done through a grid overlay
on the map, effectively making the map itself a decoration on the game
board, rather than an active element.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">An
online application presents an entire paradigm shift from the described
problems of native applications. Everything exists in the cloud, and
that solves the first two. Since our targeted end-users already do much
of their daily tasks online, from email to social networks to academic
research, so we can expect them to have a modern Internet browser. In
fact, all of you reading this blog entry already have the necessary
system requirements to play the game. The online application also boosts
the application maintainability. Updating the entire end-user base is
as simple as one click from me. Small feature releases, performance
improvements, UI changes, hot fixes, and security tweaks can all be
released to the public as soon as they are finished, and do not have to
sit dormant until an entire major release is completed. Many popular web
application, on average, perform 40 minor deployments daily, and we
could easily do the same.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The
last problem presented above, similar to its causation, can be solved
by the technologies selected for the project. The map is a very
important part -- if not the most important part -- of a geogame, and in
this new version, we wanted to put the map front and center, in its
full glory. Since “generic” map services, like Google Maps, Bing Maps,
OpenStreetMap, NASA’s JPL map -- and as you can imagine, this list goes
on and on -- are more or less zoomable static maps with a very low
degree of customizability, and we happen to be geographers that have
access to all kinds of data, the most obvious technology decision for
this project is </span><a href="http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/arcgisserver/index.html"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">ArcGIS 10 Server</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.
Without saying, this software can take the desktop maps we use daily
and host them online as web services. However, what it also provides is a
web interface for standard GIS geoprocessing capabilities, as well as a
</span><a href="http://help.arcgis.com/en/webapi/javascript/arcgis/help/jsapi_start.htm"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">JavaScript API</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
that allows full interaction and manipulation of all of the map’s data
layers from within any web page or application. Not only is this a great
solution for this project, but it is fitting for any application
involving online GIS.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">However,
a robust map is not the only thing that a game needs. The next step is
having a game engine. Typical game engines handle multi-user interaction
and enforce game rules; in the background, they also render an
interface, handle networking, threading, and memory management, and
manipulate the game data. Unsurprisingly, this is also the definition of
any web server, and therefore, we had plenty of options. And best of
all, most web server platforms already handle all of the background
tasks. That was easy.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Next,
we knew we wanted something that would make our lives a lot easier when
developing the game -- even without manually handling networking and
memory management, this is still a big task. Quickly, we identified the
need for an </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model%E2%80%93view%E2%80%93controller"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">MVC architecture</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.
MVC stands for model-view-controller. In simplest terms, this
architecture breaks down a large application into small and intuitive
parts, and provides the necessary framework to put those parts together
into one application without the developer’s involvement. Models are
where data management is handled, and these tend to be the easiest
parts, as there is usually very little code written -- most MVC
frameworks use visual models and generate the code for you. Views are
what the user sees -- the user interface -- but with a twist. MVC
frameworks can create “smart” views which dynamically adapt to the
specific user while they are still on the server, and the user is served
an optimized version of that user interface. These can be as easy or as
complicated as you need them to be. Views are also convenient in that
they allow any client-side technology to be used, which means that our
application will play nice with Internet sensations like HTML5 and
jQuery. Finally, controllers are the brains of the application. These
sections handle the game logic and enforce the rules, but there will be
more on this later.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Since we already needed to run a Windows Server for the application GIS, the obvious choice for our development platform was </span><a href="http://www.asp.net/mvc"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">ASP.NET</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">,
which conveniently enough comes with a great MVC architecture. ASP.NET
uses C# as its server-side language, which is easy to learn and provides
a friendly environment even for a beginner.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For
the final blow of this knock-out decision to develop the GeoGame as an
online application, we had to provide a native-application level
experience inside a browser: two-step process involving full
user-interaction with all game and page elements and a single,
asynchronous action page. The former, as alluded to before, is addressed
by the use of the modern web technologies of </span><a href="http://www.html5rocks.com/en/"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">HTML5</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> and </span><a href="http://jquery.com/"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">jQuery</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
-- both are technologies that sound much harder to learn and use than
they really are. The latter part would prove to be: asynchronous web
applications are easy to create using </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_%28programming%29"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">AJAX</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, but effectively handling AJAX calls on the server side is a different ball game entirely.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Enter </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_state_transfer"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">REST</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">.
REST stands for Representational State Transfer, which is really a
fancy way of saying “generic single-service endpoints which passively
wait for generic standardized instructions.” That is a mouthful, so let
me explain:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Consider
a lemonade stand. Among its numerous attributes, a lemonade stand is
simple, does one specific, focused thing, only takes a few ingredients,
it’s independent from things outside the stand, and mostly sits idle
waiting for customers. This is much the same way in which a RESTful
application works. To enforce game rules and actions, you can write many
small pieces -- the stands -- which require a user to provide a
specific thing -- money -- and return a specific, predefined thing --
lemonade. In a web application, these actions can be anything, from a
request for a specific piece of data, to a parcel click action, to a
purchase within the game. This is not only user-friendly, but it is
developer friendly, as it breaks up a large and daunting application
into very manageable small pieces. Best of all, REST is both built into
ArcGIS 10 Server, and is natively supported in ASP.NET MVC. Remember the
controllers I mentioned earlier? They are back. The controllers house
all of these REST endpoints, and MVC already has very easy tools to map
simple and intuitive URLs to each REST endpoint -- don’t worry, these
are handles in bulk, and you do not need to map each endpoint by hand.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I
hope that this has given you an enticing first look at the new and
improved GeoGame, and I am very excited to showcase the prototype when
all of the final touches are in place.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-20566990070394953252012-02-10T02:03:00.000-08:002012-02-22T02:10:44.793-08:00GeoGames for research on land use change in Cyprus (Guest blogger: David Massey)<br />
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<a href="http://www.geography.osu.edu/img/faculty/david-massey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.geography.osu.edu/img/faculty/david-massey.jpg" /></a></div>
This
is David Massey, a MA student of Ola Ahlqvist here at Ohio State, guest
blogging about my upcoming presentation at the <u><a href="http://www.aag.org/annualmeeting">AAG conference</a></u> later
this month. </div>
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This
past summer I was in the eastern Mediterranean on the island of Cyprus working
fulfilling my GIS duties on the <u><a href="http://www.davidson.edu/academic/classics/toumazou/aap/index.html">Athienou Archaeological Project</a></u>,
but also doing field work for my MA thesis which involves using games to
simulate data and examine land use change. </div>
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Researchers
have long examined the causes of land use and land cover change through the use
of Cellular Automata (CA), Agent-Based Models (ABM), or Multi-Agent Simulations
(MAS). In particular, MAS are useful because the agents in a
simulation can resemble the actual interactions and decision making processes
of people in stakeholder positions. Most notably, <u><a href="http://www.cirad.fr/en">CIRAD</a></u> researchers
have conducted several participatory modeling projects that incorporate
stakeholders into all stages of model development in order to understand
complex environments in the form of a game (e.g. see <u><a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ip/ooa/2007/00000036/00000001/art00008">Bousquet et al.2007</a>; <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837706000640">Castella et al. 2007</a></u>). </div>
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Games
have been used by researchers in many disciplines, but as demonstrated by the
Green Revolution Geo-Game, it is increasingly possible use design games with
GIS to incorporate real-world geographic locations and to play out hypothetical
scenarios. Several conferences are now devoted entirely to games,
including the <u><a href="http://www.glsconference.org/2012/%20">Games + Learning + Society</a></u> conference, and
the smaller <u><a href="http://thatcampgames.org/">ThatCamp Games</a></u> “un-conference”. </div>
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Having
individuals play a game to simulate data very similar to using Agent Base
Modeling or Monte Carlo simulations, but in my opinion, more accurate because
the key stakeholders are making decisions and acting, not necessarily based on
rational or logical algorithms, but on how they would react in real life.</div>
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My
research focuses on agriculture in Athienou, a village located in the UN Buffer
Zone in Cyprus. As a result of the <u><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_invasion_of_Cyprus%20">1974 Turkish invasion</a>, </u>Athienou lost nearly all of its farmland and the local farmers
were forced to develop new farming strategies. Today, Athienou is
dominated by dairy, chicken, and cereal farms but land ownership issues due to
the invasion remain at hotly contested issue, as seen in <u><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolides_v_Orams%20">recent highprofile court cases</a></u>.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYn-1M8if7L4uIquT8fOprfBYxs3hyjAxBJaHtWG9HBj7QnN25LnYoAFLENnJwR9_Bih_ikApgaaQ0ePyWY6hojao_LUsx3VavQQYbL3Cx5naWc01FwsFGFBvIfmsaywkN8TgMLXaXank/s1600/FarmGame.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYn-1M8if7L4uIquT8fOprfBYxs3hyjAxBJaHtWG9HBj7QnN25LnYoAFLENnJwR9_Bih_ikApgaaQ0ePyWY6hojao_LUsx3VavQQYbL3Cx5naWc01FwsFGFBvIfmsaywkN8TgMLXaXank/s320/FarmGame.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I
followed the <u><a href="http://cormas.cirad.fr/ComMod/en/%20">Companion Modeling (ComMod)</a></u> approach
developed by CIRAD researchers for this case study. This methodology
involves a cyclical progression of field work, modeling, and simulation with
the stakeholders. Accordingly, first, I established the “rules” for
farming in this region though background research and from conducting
interviews with Greek-Cypriot farmers from Athienou. Following examples
from other ComMod research, I developed these rules into a role playing game
(RPG), a tool which also represents the conceptual model of the agricultural
system. </div>
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My
research question involved simulating a scenario in which the Turkish Occupied
land to the north of Athienou becomes available for farming again. This
question was used in two ways. </div>
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I
had the Greek-Cypriot farmers who helped establish the rules, also play the RPG
to see how they would develop the land. Then I had undergraduate students
play the RPG to see how they would develop the land. This created
two outcomes based on different types of knowledge about the agricultural
system. In this study, I used “expert” and “non-expert” to refer to
specific types of knowledge about a system. Here, the Greek-Cypriot
farmers are the “experts” because they provide the (insider) native perspective
of farming in Athienou. The undergraduate students are “non-experts”
because they bring their own outsider non-native observations and
understandings farming in Athienou.</div>
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So,
the purpose of the simulation was to first, determine how the Greek-Cypriot
farmers would indeed develop their land, and second, in surveying the gaming
strategies and results from both the “expert” and “non-expert” outcomes,
examine ways to potentially crowd-source information.</div>
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I’ll
be presenting on Sunday the 26<sup>th</sup> at 10:00am in <u><a href="https://webspace.utexas.edu/jam5889/www/index.htm%20">JenniferMiller’s</a></u> session ‘Using Spatially Explicit Simulated Data for
Modeling and Geovisualization’.</div>
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To
see more about what I research, check out <u><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1785329631">my </a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1785329631">academia.edu</a><a href="http://osu.academia.edu/DavidMassey"> page</a></u>!</div>
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<a href="http://osu.academia.edu/DavidMassey"></a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-54929698326147383812012-01-06T06:08:00.001-08:002012-01-06T06:37:18.373-08:00GIS + Games = GeoDesign<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoKzTc9p2s0HZY7wlI8Ftivm5zANXwoJRt0gUBl6o1uplqBaDP9qYuftDWbNpEVbs9r0DhCUZVK8NDIHOyC8SNBHIv7qmlyKtH31nkoEg4hFFSMOSfVNs0jUP6Oq3hXkxAIwE0ijt_AHo/s1600/Rambles_through_our_country_1890.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoKzTc9p2s0HZY7wlI8Ftivm5zANXwoJRt0gUBl6o1uplqBaDP9qYuftDWbNpEVbs9r0DhCUZVK8NDIHOyC8SNBHIv7qmlyKtH31nkoEg4hFFSMOSfVNs0jUP6Oq3hXkxAIwE0ijt_AHo/s400/Rambles_through_our_country_1890.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rambles playing board. Source: Library of Congress<br /><a href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/pga/03200/03272v.jpg">http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/pga/03200/03272v.jpg</a> </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
With the <a href="http://www.geodesignsummit.com/">GeoDesign 2012 meeting</a> underway I find it timely to bring in some reflections on how GeoGames = GIS + Games can bring some solutions to the GeoDesign table. Much of this is drawn from <a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cagis/cagis/2011/00000038/00000003/art00005">a longer article in the journal Cartography and Geographic Information Science</a>.<br />
<br />
According to <a href="http://www.directionsmag.com/articles/making-smart-growth-smarter-with-geodesign/122336">Ahmed Abukhater of ESRI and Doug Walker of Placeways (2010)</a> The GeoDesign framework includes at least four elements; Sketching of potential plans and designs, Spatial models that can simulate impacts of proposed designs, Rapid feedback on the effects of any proposed/sketched design, and Iteration through several alternative designs. A combination of GIS, cartographic, and design software could probably deliver this functionality but it would be a hard task to integrate all three.<br />
<br />
Some game software, on the other hand, already integrate all four of the GeoDesign elements. The game-map editors with typed libraries of objects support the sketching and spatial modeling of elements, constructed maps can immediately be tested by players and provide rapid feedback on any suggested edits, and alternative worlds can easily be saved and tested separately to allow for iteration through alternative designs. In addition to this, many game platforms also support massive multi-player support that can open for broad public participatory approaches.<br />
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Cartography has not elaborated that much on maps and map-making of entirely imaginary worlds, despite some early recognition of a more design-oriented cartography in the analytical cartography literature during the 80s and 90s (see e.g. <a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/maney/caj/1980/00000017/00000001/art00002">Moellering 1980</a>; <a href="http://envplan.com/abstract.cgi?id=a231483">Nyerges 1991</a>). But despite the emergence of Geovisualization, digital landscape modeling for scenario-building was mostly found in the landscape architecture and environmental planning fields. Also, cartographers and landscape architects have somehow approached design from an expert-oriented perspective, rarely putting people in the middle of the process, nor tapping fully into the energy and creativity of an engaged public. <a href="http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/projects/vgi/docs/position/Goodchild_VGI2007.pdf">VGI</a> has been a radical shift in this direction but existing geospatial platforms still seems to be lacking in ability to leverage that power. <br />
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In contrast, the online gaming communities are in many ways founded on a people-centered approach, with wikis for sharing experiences and tips, social knowledge construction as a central process, and open platforms for user contributions to code and design ideas. These social and technological infrastructures that support online gaming could very well be tapped into by GeoDesigners by switching out the virtual game worlds for real worlds using existing spatial data. Some of the concerns around VGI not being authoritative also becomes moot when we consider it for future visions. Who is to judge what is the right vision for the future? We all have a stake, and forming that vision together globally will be very powerful.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-89920068559509842662011-12-14T08:10:00.000-08:002012-01-05T05:17:17.186-08:00All the world's a game<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/images/print-edition/20111210_SRD001_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/images/print-edition/20111210_SRD001_0.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Big thanks to James Baginski who alerted me to a special report in <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21541164">The Economist </a>before the holidays. It is called "All the world's a game" and is a collection of up-to-date observations about the game industry that most people would benefit from knowing. Debunking some myths, the article explains that the average gamer is not a nerdy, teenage boy. According to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the average age of the U.S. gamer is 37 years and 42% of gamers are female. If you didn't already know, games are big business these days. Last year's release of "Call of Duty: Black Ops" brought in $650,000,000 in the first five days. Compare to the last Harry Potter film who brought in mere $169,000,000 in its first 3 days. There are also some interesting tidbits about markets for virtual goods and how the Chinese government is looking into taxing the supposedly $1.5 billion-a-year virtual-goods market. And how about those gamers that go pro and can win tens of thousands of dollars in game tournaments, watched by millions of people over the web, and pulling in big name sponsors like Coca Cola and Intel? And then there's the ongoing debate about linking aggression to violent video games, or the risk of addiction, where there is still no credible evidence for such causation. It actually seems the correlation is the opposite if anything. Maybe you can take out your rage in the virtual world instead?<br />
<br />
Clearly, these things matter, but more important in my opinion is the way games have shifted away from the traditional video game console or PC-based system to hand-held devices and into web applications. This is partly responsible for opening the games to a broader audience, when your phone or a web browser on a library computer can be your point of access. And it also provides opportunities for constant, real-time access, making games an integral part of our daily lives.<br />
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The Economist then beg to answer "What video-game technology can do in the real world". Military simulation games are increasingly using real-world satellite and other geographic data to create game worlds that mimic our own. Other examples provide compelling evidence that games can solve real world problems and needs in a variety of areas; medicine, genetics, city planning (think SimCity), and increasingly companies are trying to find ways to 'gamify' their products and services. Obviously, turning the world into a game is an interesting prospect with many potential benefits as well as dangers. Our own GeoGames project hope to do one contribution to the understanding of how we can learn things about our world, geography, through games. Hopefully it is possible to combine the human desire to play with some bit of learning too :-)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-48144547790155989172011-12-13T06:23:00.000-08:002011-12-13T06:23:54.610-08:00AGS Geographic Knowledge and Values Survey<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">You may access the survey online by clicking the following
link: <a href="http://webteach.ubalt.edu/UltimateSurvey/Surveys/TakeSurvey.aspx?s=F30154FD158241D39265B445E3BD5817">AGS
Geographic Knowledge and Values Survey</a> (If the link does not take you
directly to the survey, please copy and paste this URL into your web
browser: <a href="http://webteach.ubalt.edu/UltimateSurvey/Surveys/TakeSurvey.aspx?s=F30154FD158241D39265B445E3BD5817">http://webteach.ubalt.edu/UltimateSurvey/Surveys/TakeSurvey.aspx?s=F30154FD158241D39265B445E3BD5817</a>
). Based on trial runs, we estimate the survey will take 12 to 18 minutes
of your time. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Please help us spread the word by forwarding this invitation
by every possible means: email, Internet, listserves, newspaper, radio,
TV, social networks (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.), and personal
appearances (clubs, local to national groups, public events, etc.). </span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-4604628456826854462011-12-01T13:04:00.001-08:002011-12-01T13:26:57.185-08:00The 13 percent technology<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://i4.ytimg.com/vi/kT0KMsfD4d8/default.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i4.ytimg.com/vi/kT0KMsfD4d8/default.jpg" /></a></div>
Despite its wide penetration and multi-billion dollar industry status GIS is still arguably only serving a small fraction of our needs. Mike Goodchild talks about this in terms of<a href="http://www.esri.com/news/arcwatch/0211/future-of-gis.html"> the 13 percent technology</a>, meaning that GIS generally deal with outdoor spaces and the average American spends only 13 percent of their time outdoors. This leaves 87% of our time not really addressed by the geospatial technology. While this thesis depends on the scale at which you want 'coverage' (being inside my office still will pinpoint my location as 40<span style="font-family: Symbol;">°</span>00'02N, 83<span style="font-family: Symbol;">°</span>00'44W and enable many interesting geospatial services), it is interesting to think about the possibilities offered by full coverage inside houses, department stores, etc. Google now introduces "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy-DI_bWElg">Take Google Maps Indoors</a>" - the ability to navigate some of these indoor spaces on your Android phone. My favorite example is obviously the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy-DI_bWElg">IKEA </a>possibilities (have no idea what's with the Spanish musical theme!) but it also got me wondering if store owners really want their customers to be able to navigate the store labyrinths easier. I know of some really clever shortcut in the IKEA stores I frequent and it certainly helps me to not be exposed to all the great things I could buy. Airports, certainly a win-win for all, but apart from that?? Why would mall owners want to help customers to be more effective and spend shorter time in the mall? Anyway, GIS seems to be slated for a quick run to become a 99% technology. That last percent would be some unnamed private spaces where I would prefer a total dead zone.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-80997314384492269972011-11-10T06:14:00.000-08:002011-11-10T07:43:38.600-08:00Geography Awareness Week & GIS Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-J0A6NJtwF7IPEaPtd1VmR5tXlg4vdAXmmRGoNRsc7-oBD6DJteKlt7yfucuO1L83IEWqE9nO8er1pLn3IQVmdRENDyHNkxODAwYfR26HcPlIqbPFZF9hyphenhyphen23JKRnzg9L0wrSeJGTDx6M/s1600/GAW2011.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-J0A6NJtwF7IPEaPtd1VmR5tXlg4vdAXmmRGoNRsc7-oBD6DJteKlt7yfucuO1L83IEWqE9nO8er1pLn3IQVmdRENDyHNkxODAwYfR26HcPlIqbPFZF9hyphenhyphen23JKRnzg9L0wrSeJGTDx6M/s320/GAW2011.png" width="320" /></a></div>
Yes, it's that time of the year again and we have an exciting series
of events at OSU for GAW this year! We will be presenting some of our
game ideas to the larger OSU community during the Geography & GIS Fair on Nov. 15, 11am-1pm in the Ohio Union. Same afternoon there's an open house at BRPC, really cool (I know, bad joke)! We also have a playful <a href="http://geography.osu.edu/img/gaw11/SMALL/Poster%20B_SHORT_5%20GeoCache.jpg">Geography Treasure Hunt</a> where anyone can join in a real-world treasure hunting game using GPS
to locate clues hidden around campus. Teams of 3-4
participants race through campus to find all the caches on their route.
The fastest team wins the grand prize!
Finally the event is capped by the presentation "<a href="http://geography.osu.edu/img/gaw11/Dobson%20GGO%20template%20for%20talk.pdf">Through the Macroscope: Geography’s View of the World</a>" delivered by AGS President, Dr. Jerome Dobson. I am particularly looking forward to this presentation since the title reminds me of <a href="http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2011/3/105316-plug-and-play-macroscopes/fulltext">Katy Börner's excellent (admittedly a bit technical) overview</a> of emerging tools to understand the "infinitely complex". GIS, simulation environments (yes, games too!), mining of massively crowd-sourced data are all examples of such tools. In Katy's words: "Rather than make things larger [like a microscope] or smaller [like a telescope], macroscopes let us observe what is at once too great, slow, or complex for the human eye and mind to notice and comprehend."<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://cacm.acm.org/system/assets/0000/4758/022011_CACMpg1_Plug-and-Play1.large.jpg?1298047013&1298047012" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://cacm.acm.org/system/assets/0000/4758/022011_CACMpg1_Plug-and-Play1.large.jpg?1298047013&1298047012" /></a></div>
A related <a href="http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2011/3/105332-twitter-as-medium-and-message/fulltext">essay by Neil Savage</a> illustrate the growing possibilities for social scientist to tap into massive data sets on human individual behavior, decisions, etc. Twitter is by no means the perfect source for this type of data but it is one of the first to emerge in what can be expected to become a flood of auto-generated, spatially coded, and personally tagged information. Understanding these data flows is critical to its proper use and also for developing alternative, even better data streams. Visual analytics provide one macroscope onto these data flows and can provide stunningly complex and still comprehensive perspectives of seemingly chaotic data.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cacm.acm.org/system/assets/0000/4746/022011_CACMpg18_Twitter-As1.large.jpg?1298046749&1298046749" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://cacm.acm.org/system/assets/0000/4746/022011_CACMpg18_Twitter-As1.large.jpg?1298046749&1298046749" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="title">The Truthy tool shows a graphical representation of
how a Tweet propagates, with retweets in blue and topic mentions in
orange. Tweets that are sent back and forth between two Twitter accounts
appear as a thick blue bar.</span>
<span class="credit">Source: Savage, 2011, </span><span class="credit">Credit: truthy.indiana.edu </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-12104506163126872732011-11-02T06:04:00.000-07:002011-11-02T06:04:13.356-07:00Games vs. Reality - is there a difference?Many times when I speak about our ideas to use Online Map Games as a way to simulate spatial planning and policy scenarios, people object that even if we can get people to use these simulations and act out decisions, they would still only be 'games' and not the real thing. but what is the 'reality' these days. Most spatial planning is carried out through a GIS, using remote sensing information, at a distance, and in front of a computer. I am not saying that this is all good, but it is happening. In the light of that there is a pretty good reason to think that a simulation carried out in a similar environment - using a computer, online maps, remote collaboration - can give us a pretty good idea of what the real thing would look like.<br />
<br />
NPR today started an investigation into the revelation of <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/11/02/141908180/stuxnet-raises-blowback-risk-in-cyberwar">Stuxnet and the issue of Cyber-Security</a>. their report provides a captivating story of how a facility such as a power plant, where most operations are entirely controlled by computers, gets 'infected' by a computer worm that allows a remote villain to take over the role of the control room. Sounds like a script from a movie, but the Stuxnet incident, which allegedly infected an Iranian nuclear facility and destroyed, is a very real prospect. The NPR story illustrates how training for similar attacks can be conducted through simulations, essentially computer games, that replicate the setting of a computer based control room where operators are trying to fend off an attack by the enemy team, located in another room and who essentially just takes over control after infesting the control room computer systems.<br />
<br />
As computer games become more realistic, our reality becomes more like a computer game. Augmented reality games already blend reality with gaming such that a make-believe world is implpanted into reality and is as real as it gets for the participants and even to bystanders. It is now hard to draw a line between reality and games.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-39605477061895614392011-10-26T11:44:00.000-07:002011-10-26T11:46:36.575-07:00BIG problems - BIG data<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN93IMIUIPBmJfj0todEY6s6rKNHrHEmSXNRWfPgsUkwP6uP9aQZdRMoAB3B21AQ9wo_ZxGm9PfveLih8RUw2vak2V_Dzir_aHTWMFPNEuY0ka-xzwLHHYGVz8rvapoAOYGmiVsm68nQM/s1600/mix.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="141" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN93IMIUIPBmJfj0todEY6s6rKNHrHEmSXNRWfPgsUkwP6uP9aQZdRMoAB3B21AQ9wo_ZxGm9PfveLih8RUw2vak2V_Dzir_aHTWMFPNEuY0ka-xzwLHHYGVz8rvapoAOYGmiVsm68nQM/s320/mix.png" width="320" /></a></div>
As we are picking up speed with our NSF sponsored GeoGames project we are starting to untangle some of the very specific details of taking a <a href="http://chapters.ewb.ca/pages/enabling-programs/member-learning/development-history_-approach-and-issues/greenrev-2006.zip">well-researched role-playing simulation </a>on the Green Revolution, and turning that into a computer game. While the original game is well described in terms of content and rules, there are always small questions left to be resolved. Our team played a short version of the game the other week and one of the participants commented that it was really tough when kids started dying in the family you are responsible for. It was hard to make ends meet, and this is part of the point with the game. There are no easy fixes to food shortage and starvation, and as we are slated to cross the <a href="http://gigaom.com/cleantech/how-big-data-will-help-manage-a-world-of-7-billion-people/">7 billion marker next week </a>it feels even more important to come up with a variety of approaches to understand and address this big problem. If GeoGames could provide some answers for us remains to be seen but <a href="http://georeferenced.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/big-data/">Thierry Gregorius' recent confession</a> at the altar of Big Data is a testament to how fundamental the GIS world is changing. Online Map Games (OMG!) have the potential to bring about massive amounts of individual-level decision making around realistic data, in contexts that embed some of the most pressing issues we face (such as rural farming in developing countries). We are eager to hear from readers of this blog what you think would be useful game scenarios to develop, both from an educational and from a policy perspective. What would be the most important human-environment simulations that we should construct and have thousands of players engage in?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3582379722310131481.post-40736497086964000432011-09-29T10:41:00.000-07:002011-09-29T10:41:13.832-07:00Games for Change - what games have changed<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.gamesforchange.org/g4cwp/wp-content/themes/g4c-v2/images/g4c_logo_69px.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.gamesforchange.org/g4cwp/wp-content/themes/g4c-v2/images/g4c_logo_69px.png" /></a></div>
One of the meetings that I hope to go to next year is the Games for Change summit. Apparently a high-profile event with potential for good energy. At the center is an organization with the same name that seeks to be a "...global advocate for supporting and making games for social impact." See <a href="http://www.gamesforchange.org/">http://www.gamesforchange.org</a> for more info. Through their newsletter I saw this <a href="http://kotaku.com/5829045/what-games-have-changed">really nice summary of some great things that games have done for society</a>. It includes high impact testimonials from classrooms, the developing world, and research. They also provide video of the <a href="http://www.gamesforchange.org/2011/07/g4c2011-most-popular-talks/">best talks from this year's event</a> by world renowned game designer Jesse Schell, Valve Software’s Gabe Newell,
Sheryl WuDunn’s conversation with Laura Pincus Hartman from
Zynga.org and Pierre Guillaume Wielezynski from the UN World Food
Programme, and US Department of Education’s James Shelton. <br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04154291834408709835noreply@blogger.com1