Taiyoung Ryu

GDC 2009 was my second GDC. Actually, during my last GDC, I couldn’t attend many sessions or exhibitions because I gave a talk on the last day so I had to prepare for my lecture all the week. However, during this GDC, I had enough time to attend various sessions, keynotes and exhibitions. As far as lectures, I focused on virtual worlds and new business models for games. So, on Monday and Tuesday, I mostly attended sessions of Worlds In Motion Summit which deals with virtual worlds and online community services. Most sessions in Worlds in Motion Summit were focusing on in-game commerce and methodologies to activate useres’ social behaviors because those are the most important parts in the business of online community services. Especially, some sessions emphasized the strategy how to approach users according to their gender and age. Case studies about social games by the CEO of Playfish were also instructive. He gave a lecture about five key lessons learned from developing social networking games and explains why those lessons matters for the future of overall game industry as well as social networking services based on his experiences. Some round table sessions were fun as well. I attended a game writing round table held by Richard Dansky, a pioneering game writer from Ubisoft and a microtransaction round table held by Daniel James, the CEO of Three Rings.

Keynote lectures were also interesting. It was great chance to attend Iwata Satoru’s one-hour-long English speech. That’s because he hardly talks in public and in English. In his lecture, he talked about success factors of Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS and game design philosophy of Miyamoto Shigeru. The second session by Kojima Hideo was also interesting. His thought about the combination of game design, hardware technology and software technology was very insightful.

My another goal of this GDC was to find staff for my thesis project. I achieved the goal. I found some programmers and artist for my project at GDC. In addition, I was able to contact the most successful commercial BCI device developer, Neurosky. I met the CTO of Neurosky and talked about my thesis project. Finally, he promised me to be a technical supporter and advisor for my project.

Please download this Processing file.

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Ways to Fail in My Project

- Personally:
A. Inadequate communication skill: I have a language barrier. It is a big problem to me an international student from another country not using English. What’s worse is that the barrier sometimes makes me shy and passive. That’s more likely to interfere my communication with other people. Consequently, it could ruin my thesis project.
B. Lack of creativity: I worked in the game industry more than 6 years as a designer. I think my work experience has side effect and has been obstructed my projects. When I worked I had to design only commercial things. Sometimes, I was supposed to imitate existing successful games to make money. I think that could have badly influenced my creativity. In previous projects, I focused on just mediocre ideas. I have to get over it.

- In general:
A. Lack of communication: We’ve had only a little communication about our projects and things we’ve been doing. I think more communication will be required for our thesis projects to make it more creative.
B. Lack of skill set: To make physical things or digital things, proper skill sets are needed. Of course, during design process, it doesn’t seem to be a problem. However, without enough skill, nobody can complete his or her projects.

World Press Photo

The photos cover a huge range of issues from political issues and wars to entertainment. Some of them deal with entertainment issues. I think those could help my thesis projects in more philosophical ways.

This photo proves a theory that the archetype of entertainment originated from rituals. Also, it talks about one of the most controversial issues in current entertainment industry, intellectual property. The photo of Bungee jump shows various aspects of entertainment.

For me, this photo is really impressive. This photo shows a kind of narrative created by an ecosystem. It is similar to the way sandbox games create their storyline. Out of the system of the game, the narrative is created unintentionally.

Phtojournalistic Image

I made Los Angeles in my world

Rendered images:

Playblast vidoe (not rendered):

A mail from a little boy of the world

Digital Game Research Association(DiGra), a notable international video game research association, announced that their 4th biennial conference will be held in London on September 4th, 2009. Also, they announced the first call for papers for the conference.

Detaild information of the call for papers is as follows:

The South of Britain Consortium are pleased to announce the first Call for Papers for the Digital Games Research Association 2009. DiGRA is an organisation that embraces all aspects of game studies, and the conference aims to provide a diverse platform for discussion, and a lively forum for debate. We therefore welcome papers from any discipline focused on any aspect of games, play, game culture and the games industry. The conference will be the fourth DiGRA conference, following Utrecht, Vancouver and Tokyo, and welcomes contributions from scholars working in any area of interest to the association. The official business of the Subject Association will also be conducted at the conference.

The Conference invites the following proposals for consideration:

Individual or Collaborative Papers

Panels

Workshops

Posters

Graduate Student Roundtable Papers

Initial selection will be through the peer review of abstracts of 500-700 words in all categories. Panel and Workshop proposals should include abstracts for the contributions of all participants.

Continue reading "DiGra 2009 Conference -Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory" »

Gigapan is a kind of global connection projects through gigapixel photos and online communities like Microsoft's Photosynth. Gigapan project was desinged by Carnegie Mellon University, NASA/Ames Research Center, Google Corporation. Recently, they announced the beta version of Gigapan robot which enables a ordinary digital camera to take a giga-pixel photo.

Their ultimate goal is to bridge cultural divides by contributing to a global network of community images.

Continue reading "Gigapan Robot" »

Tokyo Game Show has been one of most influential commercial game showcases in the world competing with E3 for years. Now that E3 show became an invitation-only showcase, Tokyo Game Show is world's biggest game showcase without a doubt. Of course, the Leipzig Game Convention is also getting bigger. However, in various aspects like the number of game companies participating in the showcase and the number of game titles exhibited in the showcase, it is too early to consider Leipzig Game Convention is a rival to Tokyo Game Show. At this year's Tokyo Game Show(Oct. 9th - 12th), a new indipendant game session called Sense of Wonder Night was attention-getting. Though the scale of the session was not big enough, it was monumental. That's because it was the first major indie game showcase in Japan. While there have been a number of notable indie game competitions and show cases such as IGF at GDC and Indicade showcase in the US, Japanese game developers and fans haven't paid attention to indie games very much.

Sense of Wonder Night showcase was organized by Computer Entertainment Supplier’s Association, Nikkei Business Publications, Inc and IGDA Japan. They showed 11 innovative indie games from all over the world on the business day at Tokyo Game Show. The showcased games were picked from a set of game submissions made earlier this year for the contest. Two games from USC Interactive Media(The Unfinished Swan, The Misadventures Of P.B. Winterbottom) were presented at the showcase.

The presentation of each game at Sense Of Wonder Night 2008 was as follows (from Gamastura.com):

Continue reading "Sense of Wonder Night at Tokyo Game Show 2008" »

The Immersa-Dome is a multi-sensory, projection-based virtual reality system. Though the Immersa-Dome looks similar to the Sensorama, which was a virtual reality machine known as the first example of multi-sensory technology, it shows much more advanced virtual reality technology. Immersa-Dome's hemisphere display fills user's front and peripheral view. Unlike other immersive displays, its display adopts a flat projector and a hemisphere matte with which the developer succeeded in making an immersive display at a low cost. Also, it provides users with vivid stereo surround-sound through 360 degree speakers inside the hemisphere. It maximizes users' immersive experience with time-triggered scents, wind simulation and vibration.

The introduction of this machine at Wired Next Fest 2008 is like below:

The Immersa-Dome is the world's first multi-sensory, projection-based virtual reality system — like taking a thrill ride while sitting still. Take a seat, lower the giant dome over your head and watch vivid CGI or hi-def video with both front and peripheral views and stereo surround-sound. Your seat vibrates, simulated gusts of wind blow through your hair, and time-triggered scents put Smell-O-Vision to shame. Better yet, you can skip those enormous black VR goggles: Though it may look like a space-age salon hairdryer, Immersa-Dome requires no headgear, allowing you to enjoy your virtual adventure without ever touching the console.

The developer of the Immersa-Dome, Aardvark Applications, a digital display research company based on Texas is expacting the Immersa-dome will be used in theme parks and museums and currently pioneering vaious multi-sensory theatrical technologies.
Visit their website

This amazing robot is defined as unbreakable robot, which is the most popular exhibition at Wired Next Fest 2008.

Kick it, smash it, or drop it from on high — professor Mark Yim's modular ckBot can take a licking and reassemble itself afterward. Scattered about, its modules can detect one another using infrared, smart cameras, and radio beacons, then slink across the floor and magnetically reconnect to form a bipedal bot capable of walking on flat surfaces. Break the ckBot as often as you like; this great-grandfather of Terminator 2 is designed to withstand the everyday accidents that would doom a lesser robot to the scrap heap

The engineers who made this robot are continuing to research about modular robots, which represent the future of robotics. Visit their website: Modlab in University of Pennsylvania