1.
Video game development
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Video game development is the process of creating a video game. Development is undertaken by a developer, which may range from one person to a large business. Traditional commercial PC and console games are funded by a publisher. Indie games can take time and can be produced cheaply by individuals. The indie game industry has seen a rise in recent years with the growth of new distribution systems. The first video games were developed in the 1960s, but required mainframe computers and were not available to the general public, commercial game development began in the 1970s with the advent of first-generation video game consoles and home computers. Due to low costs and low capabilities of computers, a programmer could develop a full game. The average cost of producing a video game rose from US$1–4 million in 2000 to over $5 million in 2006. Mainstream PC and console games are developed in phases. First, in pre-production, pitches, prototypes, and game design documents are written, if the idea is approved and the developer receives funding, a full-scale development begins. This usually involves a team of 20–100 individuals with various responsibilities, including designers, artists, programmers, Game development is the software development process by which a video game is produced. Games are developed as an outlet and to generate profit. Development is normally funded by a publisher, well-made games bring profit more readily. However, it is important to estimate a games financial requirements, failing to provide clear implications of games expectations may result in exceeding allocated budget. In fact, the majority of games do not produce profit. Most developers cannot afford changing development schedule and require estimating their capabilities with available resources before production, the game industry requires innovations, as publishers cannot profit from constant release of repetitive sequels and imitations. Every year new independent development companies open and some manage to develop hit titles, similarly, many developers close down because they cannot find a publishing contract or their production is not profitable. It is difficult to start a new due to high initial investment required
2.
Epic Games
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Epic Games, Inc. is an American video game development company based in Cary, North Carolina, partially owned by Tencent. Founded in 1991, they are best known for their Unreal Engine technology and it is the parent company of game developer Chair Entertainment, and also owns game studios in Seattle, Guildford, Berlin, Tokyo, and Seoul. Key developers at Epic Games include chairman, CEO and technical director Tim Sweeney, jerry OFlaherty was the studio art director from 2003 to 2007. Chris Perna has been the art director since OFlahertys departure from the company, Cliff Bleszinski, Epics design director, announced his departure on October 3,2012. Epic Games was founded as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991 by Tim Sweeney in Rockville, Maryland, releasing its product, ZZT. In 1996, Epic MegaGames produced a shareware isometric shooter called Fire Fight and it was later released commercially by Electronic Arts. In 1997, Safari Software was acquired in whole by Epic MegaGames, in 1998, Epic MegaGames released Unreal, a 3D first-person shooter co-developed with Digital Extremes, which expanded into a series of Unreal games. The company also began to license the technology, the Unreal Engine. In 1999, the changed its name to Epic Games and moved its offices, including its Rockville headquarters, to Cary. In 2006, Epic released the Xbox 360 and PC bestseller Gears of War and completed work on Unreal Tournament 3 for PC, PS3, on May 20,2008, Epic Games acquired Utah based Chair Entertainment. In summer 2009, Epic released the Chair developed Shadow Complex on Xbox Live Arcade, on November 7,2008, Epic Games released Gears of War 2, the sequel to their bestselling game Gears of War, which continues the story of humanitys struggle against the Locust Horde. Epic worked on an iOS game, Infinity Blade, which was released on December 9,2010 and they also released Gears of War 3, the third game in the Gears of War series on September 20,2011. In 2011, Epics subsidiary Titan Studios was dissolved, at the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards, Epic Games announced their new game Fortnite. In June 2012, Epic announced that they were opening up a new studio, Epic Baltimore, Epic Baltimore was renamed to Impossible Studios in August 2012. However, the studio ended up closing its doors in February 2013, Tencent Holdings has the right to nominate directors to the board of Epic Games and thus counts as an associate of the Group. A number of staff left the company months after the deal was announced. In October 2012, Cliff Bleszinski announced he was leaving Epic Games after 20 years with the company and his official reason was Its time for a much needed break. Later in December 2012, Epic Games president Mike Capps announced his retirement and cite the reasons as the arrival of a boy he is having with his wife
3.
Unreal Engine
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The Unreal Engine is a game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter game Unreal. Although primarily developed for first-person shooters, it has successfully used in a variety of other genres, including stealth, MMORPGs. With its code written in C++, the Unreal Engine features a high degree of portability and is a used by many game developers today. It has been awarded by Guinness World Records as the most successful video game engine, the current release is Unreal Engine 4, designed for Microsofts DirectX11 and 12, GNM, OpenGL, Vulkan, Metal, and JavaScript/WebGL. Unreal Engine 1 provided a software rasterizer and a hardware-accelerated rendering path using the Glide API, specifically developed for 3dfx GPUs. The release of Unreal Tournament marked great strides in both performance and Direct3D and OpenGL support. The second version was released in 2002 with Americas Army, a free multiplayer shooter created by the US Army and this generation saw the core code and rendering engine completely re-written. In addition, it featured UnrealEd 2, a level editor and this physics engine powered the ragdoll physics in Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal Championship. Other engine elements were also updated, with improved assets as well as adding support for the GameCube, support for the PlayStation 2 console was previously added in UE1. Taking Xbox aside, both GameCube and PS2 were never supported directly by Epic, support being instead farmed out to Secret Level. As such, third parties looking to use further Unreal Engine revisions had to do their own throughout the generation, as they had to in more recent years with the Wii, X360, PS3, PSP. UE2.5, an update to the version of UE2, improved rendering performance and added vehicles physics, a particle system editor for UnrealEd. A specialized version of UE2.5 called UE2X was used for Unreal Championship 2 and it features optimizations specific to that console. EAX3.0 is also supported for sound, in March 2011, Ubisoft Montreal revealed that UE2 was successfully running on the Nintendo 3DS. The first screenshots of Unreal Engine 3 were presented in 2004, unlike Unreal Engine 2, which still supported fixed-function pipeline, Unreal Engine 3 was designed to take advantage of fully programmable shader hardware. All lighting calculations were done per-pixel, instead of per-vertex, Unreal Engine 3 supports a gamma-correct high-dynamic range renderer. Initially, Unreal Engine 3 only supported Windows, PlayStation 3, OS X support was added in 2011. Its renderer supports techniques including HDRR, per-pixel lighting, and dynamic shadows, in October 2011, the engine was ported to support Adobe Flash Player 11 through the Stage 3D hardware-accelerated APIs
4.
Nvidia
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Nvidia Corporation is an American technology company based in Santa Clara, California. It designs graphics processing units for the market, as well as system on a chip units for the mobile computing. Its primary GPU product line, labeled GeForce, is in competition with Advanced Micro Devices Radeon products. Nvidia expanded its presence in the industry with its handheld SHIELD Portable, SHIELD Tablet. Since 2014, Nvidia has shifted to become a company focused on four markets – gaming, professional visualization, data centers. In addition to GPU manufacturing, Nvidia provides parallel processing capabilities to researchers and they are deployed in supercomputing sites around the world. More recently, It has moved into the computing market. In addition to AMD, its competitors include Intel, Qualcomm, Nvidia is now focused on artificial intelligence. The name of the company comes from Invidia in Roman mythology who corresponds to Nemesis, RIVA TNT in 1998 solidified Nvidias reputation for capable hardware. Autumn 1999 saw the release of the GeForce, most notably introducing on-board transformation, running at 120 MHz and featuring four pixel pipelines, it implemented advanced video acceleration, motion compensation and hardware sub-picture alpha blending. The GeForce outperformed existing products by a wide margin, due to the success of its products, Nvidia won the contract to develop the graphics hardware for Microsofts Xbox game console, which earned Nvidia a $200 million advance. However, the project drew the time of many of its best engineers away from other projects, in the short term this did not matter, and the GeForce2 GTS shipped in the summer of 2000. In December 2000, Nvidia reached an agreement to acquire the assets of its one-time rival 3dfx. The acquisition process was finalized in April 2002, in July 2002, Nvidia acquired Exluna for an undisclosed sum. Exluna made software rendering tools and the personnel were merged into the Cg project, in August 2003, Nvidia acquired MediaQ for approximately US$70 million. On April 22,2004, Nvidia acquired iReady, also a provider of high performance TCP/IP, in December 2004, it was announced that Nvidia would assist Sony with the design of the graphics processor in the PlayStation 3 game console. In March 2006, it emerged that Nvidia would deliver RSX to Sony as an IP core, under the agreement, Nvidia would provide ongoing support to port the RSX to Sonys fabs of choice, as well as die shrinks to 65 nm. This practice contrasted with its business arrangement with Microsoft, in which Nvidia managed production, meanwhile, in May 2005 Microsoft chose to license a design by ATI and to make its own manufacturing arrangements for the Xbox 360 graphics hardware, as had Nintendo for the Wii console
5.
Intel
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Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California that was founded by Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce. It is the worlds largest and highest valued semiconductor chip makers based on revenue, and is the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, Intel supplies processors for computer system manufacturers such as Apple, Lenovo, HP, and Dell. Intel Corporation was founded on July 18,1968, by semiconductor pioneers Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, the companys name was conceived as portmanteau of the words integrated and electronics. The fact that intel is the term for intelligence information made the name appropriate. Intel was a developer of SRAM and DRAM memory chips. Although Intel created the worlds first commercial microprocessor chip in 1971, during the 1990s, Intel invested heavily in new microprocessor designs fostering the rapid growth of the computer industry. The Open Source Technology Center at Intel hosts PowerTOP and LatencyTOP, and supports other projects such as Wayland, Intel Array Building Blocks, and Threading Building Blocks. Client Computing Group – 55% of 2016 revenues – produces hardware components used in desktop, data Center Group – 29% of 2016 revenues – produces hardware components used in server, network, and storage platforms. Internet of Things Group – 5% of 2016 revenues – offers platforms designed for retail, transportation, industrial, buildings, non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group – 4% of 2016 revenues – manufactures NAND flash memory products primarily used in solid-state drives. Intel Security Group – 4% of 2016 revenues – produces software, particularly security, programmable Solutions Group – 3% of 2016 revenues – manufactures programmable semiconductors. In 2016, Dell accounted for 15% of Intels total revenues, Lenovo accounted for 13% of total revenues, in the 1980s, Intel was among the top ten sellers of semiconductors in the world. In 1991, Intel became the biggest chip maker by revenue and has held the position ever since, other top semiconductor companies include TSMC, Advanced Micro Devices, Samsung, Texas Instruments, Toshiba and STMicroelectronics. Competitors in PC chip sets include Advanced Micro Devices, VIA Technologies, Silicon Integrated Systems, however, the cross-licensing agreement is canceled in the event of an AMD bankruptcy or takeover. Some smaller competitors such as VIA Technologies produce low-power x86 processors for small factor computers, however, the advent of such mobile computing devices, in particular, smartphones, has in recent years led to a decline in PC sales. Since over 95% of the worlds smartphones currently use processors designed by ARM Holdings, ARM is also planning to make inroads into the PC and server market. Intel has been involved in disputes regarding violation of antitrust laws. Intel was founded in Mountain View, California in 1968 by Gordon E. Moore, a chemist, and Robert Noyce, arthur Rock helped them find investors, while Max Palevsky was on the board from an early stage. Moore and Noyce had left Fairchild Semiconductor to found Intel, Rock was not an employee, but he was an investor and was chairman of the board
6.
Software license
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A software license is a legal instrument governing the use or redistribution of software. Under United States copyright law all software is copyright protected, in code as also object code form. The only exception is software in the public domain, most distributed software can be categorized according to its license type. Two common categories for software under copyright law, and therefore with licenses which grant the licensee specific rights, are proprietary software and free, unlicensed software outside the copyright protection is either public domain software or software which is non-distributed, non-licensed and handled as internal business trade secret. Contrary to popular belief, distributed unlicensed software is copyright protected. Examples for this are unauthorized software leaks or software projects which are placed on public software repositories like GitHub without specified license. As voluntarily handing software into the domain is problematic in some international law domains, there are also licenses granting PD-like rights. Therefore, the owner of a copy of software is legally entitled to use that copy of software. Hence, if the end-user of software is the owner of the respective copy, as many proprietary licenses only enumerate the rights that the user already has under 17 U. S. C. §117, and yet proclaim to take away from the user. Proprietary software licenses often proclaim to give software publishers more control over the way their software is used by keeping ownership of each copy of software with the software publisher. The form of the relationship if it is a lease or a purchase, for example UMG v. Augusto or Vernor v. Autodesk. The ownership of goods, like software applications and video games, is challenged by licensed. The Swiss based company UsedSoft innovated the resale of business software and this feature of proprietary software licenses means that certain rights regarding the software are reserved by the software publisher. Therefore, it is typical of EULAs to include terms which define the uses of the software, the most significant effect of this form of licensing is that, if ownership of the software remains with the software publisher, then the end-user must accept the software license. In other words, without acceptance of the license, the end-user may not use the software at all, one example of such a proprietary software license is the license for Microsoft Windows. The most common licensing models are per single user or per user in the appropriate volume discount level, Licensing per concurrent/floating user also occurs, where all users in a network have access to the program, but only a specific number at the same time. Another license model is licensing per dongle which allows the owner of the dongle to use the program on any computer, Licensing per server, CPU or points, regardless the number of users, is common practice as well as site or company licenses
7.
Personal computer
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A personal computer is a multi-purpose electronic computer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. PCs are intended to be operated directly by a end-user, rather than by an expert or technician. In the 2010s, PCs are typically connected to the Internet, allowing access to the World Wide Web, personal computers may be connected to a local area network, either by a cable or a wireless connection. In the 2010s, a PC may be, a multi-component desktop computer, designed for use in a location a laptop computer, designed for easy portability or a tablet computer. In the 2010s, PCs run using a system, such as Microsoft Windows, Linux. The very earliest microcomputers, equipped with a front panel, required hand-loading of a program to load programs from external storage. Before long, automatic booting from permanent read-only memory became universal, in the 2010s, users have access to a wide range of commercial software, free software and free and open-source software, which are provided in ready-to-run or ready-to-compile form. Since the early 1990s, Microsoft operating systems and Intel hardware have dominated much of the computer market, first with MS-DOS. Alternatives to Microsofts Windows operating systems occupy a minority share of the industry and these include Apples OS X and free open-source Unix-like operating systems such as Linux and Berkeley Software Distribution. Advanced Micro Devices provides the alternative to Intels processors. PC is an initialism for personal computer, some PCs, including the OLPC XOs, are equipped with x86 or x64 processors but not designed to run Microsoft Windows. PC is used in contrast with Mac, an Apple Macintosh computer and this sense of the word is used in the Get a Mac advertisement campaign that ran between 2006 and 2009, as well as its rival, Im a PC campaign, that appeared in 2008. Since Apples transition to Intel processors starting 2005, all Macintosh computers are now PCs, the “brain” may one day come down to our level and help with our income-tax and book-keeping calculations. But this is speculation and there is no sign of it so far, in the history of computing there were many examples of computers designed to be used by one person, as opposed to terminals connected to mainframe computers. Using the narrow definition of operated by one person, the first personal computer was the ENIAC which became operational in 1946 and it did not meet further definitions of affordable or easy to use. An example of an early single-user computer was the LGP-30, created in 1956 by Stan Frankel and used for science and it came with a retail price of $47, 000—equivalent to about $414,000 today. Introduced at the 1965 New York Worlds Fair, the Programma 101 was a programmable calculator described in advertisements as a desktop computer. It was manufactured by the Italian company Olivetti and invented by the Italian engineer Pier Giorgio Perotto, the Soviet MIR series of computers was developed from 1965 to 1969 in a group headed by Victor Glushkov
8.
Tripwire Interactive
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Red Orchestra won top prize in the nVidia-sponsored Make Something Unreal competition. Their first retail product, Red Orchestra, Ostfront 41-45, was released over Valve Corporations Steam service on March 14,2006 and they are also a licensee of Epics Unreal Engine 3. Tripwires second game, Killing Floor, was released on May 14,2009, like Red Orchestra, this game also began development as a Unreal Tournament 2004 mod, later becoming a standalone retail title. Tripwire released their game under the title Red Orchestra 2, Heroes of Stalingrad. The game is a World War II-themed first-person shooter that was developed and published by themselves, the title focuses heavily on the Battle of Stalingrad. The game was released on 13 September 2011. and uses the Unreal Engine 3, on May 30,2013, the expansion pack Rising Storm was released, focusing on the Pacific War with real life battle locations such as the Battle of Iwo Jima. Tripwire Interactive announced their fifth game, Killing Floor 2 in May 2014, in 2015 Tripwire announced Rising Storm 2, Vietnam at E32015. Killing Floor, Calamity The Ball Dwarfs
9.
Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45
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Red Orchestra, Ostfront 41-45 is a tactical first-person shooter video game based on its predecessor Red Orchestra, Combined Arms. Set on the Eastern Front during World War II between 1941 and 1945, Red Orchestra, Ostfront 41-45 depicts the struggle between Soviet and German forces. The games creators, Tripwire Interactive, developed the game out of the previous Unreal Tournament 2004 mod, Red Orchestra, as of April 2009, the game has sold around 400,000 copies. Red Orchestra concentrates mostly on the aspect of the game. The players movements are realistically modeled, giving them the ability to lie and move prone, sprint, Red Orchestra is notable for its emphasis on realism in comparison to other World War II-based FPS games. The former requires compensating for the breathing of the character and natural sway from holding the gun, while the latter is much quicker, the player must also keep track of their ammo usage mentally unlike many other FPS games, most of which use an ammunition counter. Rifles usually kill players in one if they connect with the torso or head. Vehicle support is also a prominent feature of the game, the player can operate the combat vehicles as one of the crew members. When operating a tank solo, the player can perform one of the roles at a time. The game also features artillery support in some maps which can be utilized by both leaders and tank commanders. Red Orchestra features 16 official maps and 10 community-made maps supported by the developers, the Red Orchestra SDK, though never gone beyond beta version, has allowed the production of hundreds of user-created maps. Red Orchestra features several different map types, infantry maps focus on infantry combat, but can occasionally include APCs. Tank maps focus on tank combat, Combined Arms features gameplay which makes the coordination of infantry and armor its focal point. However, in many maps only when something on the map such as a wall or a fence is part of an objective or blockade can it be interacted with. The maps feature many broken buildings and vehicles as well as propaganda posters, Red Orchestra began development as a single player game based on the Red Orchestra spy ring, during World War II. The Red Orchestra developers, Tripwire Interactive, entered the NVIDIA Make Something Unreal Contest, the Combined Arms aspect of the game in version 3.0 was brought about by heavy suggestion that vehicles should be included to secure progression in the MSUC. Further refinement of the Red Orchestra total conversion led to version 3.3, on Monday 21 November 2005 Tripwire Interactive announced that they would be releasing Red Orchestra, Ostfront 41-45 over Steam, Valve Corporations digital content distribution platform. The game was released on Tuesday 14 March 2006 on the Steam network, pre-purchasing and pre-loading began one month prior on 14 February
10.
Antichamber
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Antichamber is a single-player first-person puzzle-platform video game created by Alexander Bruce. The game includes elements of exploration through brief messages of advice to help the player figure out solutions to the puzzles as well as adages for real life. The game was released on Steam for Microsoft Windows on January 31,2013, in Antichamber, the player controls the unnamed protagonist from a first-person perspective as they wander through levels. Regarding typical notions of Euclidean space, Bruce has stated that breaking down all those expectations, the player starts in an antechamber that contains four walls. One is a menu to set the various game options as well as a countdown timer starting at ninety minutes. A third wall shows a series of cartoonish iconographs and obfuscated hint text that are added as the player finds these on walls of the puzzle space. The fourth wall is a window, showing the ultimate goal, the exit from the space, which the player must figure out how to get to. Laser beams are used as mechanisms to control doors, these may either require the beams to be blocked or unblocked. Initially, the player can trigger these themselves, later, the player gains access to a series of colored guns, each which helps the player access more of the space. Certain areas in the space are dead zones that remove any blocks stored in the gun or prevent blocks from moving through them, after most puzzles are signs with the forementioned iconographs which can be activated to give a hint about the just-completed puzzle. Eventually they are able to capture the cloud as a cube within their gun, and enter a final, more expansive area. The shell creates a structure around it - similar to the games logo - and then sucks everything around it into its center, sending the screen to black and ending the game. Antichamber started as early as 2006 as Bruces idea for a combat game based on expanding the mechanics of the game Snake into a multiplayer experience. Full development of the game, initially called Hazard, did not start until 2009, Bruce developed the game using UnrealScript with the Unreal Engine 3. Part of this came about how he was able to create Impossible Object spaces within the Unreal Engine. Bruce recognized that there was a game behind creating spaces and puzzles where the player would have to work out how the rules work. Bruce said in a 2011 interview with Kotaku that the game started off as being all about geometry. I needed to find a way to represent that to players. As he worked out puzzles, he found that injecting philosophical ideas helped to lead to puzzle designs or otherwise augment established puzzles, and made that part of Antichambers approach
11.
App Store (iOS)
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App Store is a digital distribution platform, developed and maintained by Apple Inc. for mobile apps on its iOS operating system. The store allows users to browse and download apps developed with Apples iOS software development kit, App Store was opened on July 10,2008, with an initial 500 applications available. As of January 2017, the store features over 2.2 million apps, major changes introduced in the following months include ads in search results, a new app subscription model, and the ability for developers to respond to customer reviews. The iPhone App Store opened on July 10,2008, on July 11, the iPhone 3G was released and came pre-loaded with support for App Store. After the success of Apples App Store and the launch of services by its competitors. However, Apple applied for a U. S. trademark on the term App Store in 2008, which was tentatively approved in early 2011. In June 2011, U. S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton, in July, Apple was denied preliminary injunction against Amazons Appstore by a federal judge. The term app has become a buzzword, in January 2011. App has been used as shorthand for application since at least the mid-1990s, in February 2011, Apple announced its new subscription-based service, which was to allow publishers the freedom to set the length and price of subscriptions. Previously, new magazine or news releases were sold on a per-release basis, the new service enabled publishers to sell content directly through their apps, allowing users to receive new content over specified periods of time. In February 2013, Apple informed developers that they could begin using appstore. com for links to their apps, in September 2015, it was discovered that hundreds of apps submitted and approved on App Store were using XcodeGhost, a malicious version of the Xcode development software. The issues prompted Apple to remove infected apps from the store, a security firm later published lists of infected apps, including a China-only version of Angry Birds 2, CamCard, Lifesmart, TinyDeal. com, and WeChat. On September 1,2016, Apple announced that starting September 7, developers will be warned and given 30 days to update their apps, but apps that crash on startup will be removed immediately.7 billion vs. approximately $1.5 billion by American users. Apples senior vice president of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller tweeted in December 2016 that November marked the record of highest monthly App Store sales, in January 2017, reports surfaced that documentation for a new beta for the then-upcoming release of iOS10. The functionality was enabled on March 27,2017 when iOS10.3 was released to users. Developers are also forbidden from manipulating or incentivizing feedback, the Software Development Kit for iPhone OS was announced at the iPhone Software Roadmap event on March 6,2008. The SDK allows developers running Mac OS X10.5.4 or higher on an Intel Mac to create applications using Xcode that will run on the iPhone, iPod Touch. A beta version was released after the event and a version was released in July 2008 alongside the iPhone 3G
12.
Unreal Tournament 2003
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Unreal Tournament 2003 or UT2003 is a first-person shooter video game designed mainly for multiplayer gaming. The game is part of the Unreal series of games, and is a sequel to Unreal Tournament, the game set a record for the number of downloads when the demo was released, which is a reflection of the popularity of the original UT. In addition, the engine has been widely licensed for games such as the Tom Clancys Rainbow Six series, Splinter Cell. Its sequel/expansion, Unreal Tournament 2004, was released on 16 March 2004, the available combat modes are, Deathmatch — Frag other players as much as possible to gain the highest score. Team Deathmatch — Two teams go head to head to be the best fragger, capture the flag, Players must invade the enemies base, capture their flag and bring it back to his/her base in order to score. Double Domination — In double domination two teams must control two points on the map, holding both locations for a certain period of time gives points to a team. Bombing Run — Bombing run can best be described as Unreal-style American football where the player gets the ball and has to take it into enemy territory, Players can pass to other teammates. Getting killed causes the carrier to fumble the ball. The ball launcher is used to carry the ball, it is not a weapon,3 Points are awarded for field goals, and 7 points are given for touchdowns, although the levels are often designed such that this kills the ball carrier. Last man standing — All players in this gametype spawn with a number of lives. The last remaining player to still have lives wins the match, invasion — A co-op gametype in which the players attempt to kill the invading alien AI. Mutant — Mutant is very similar to a Juggernaut or a King of the Hill type of gameplay, the first person to make a kill becomes the mutant, which gives them unlimited ammo, camouflage, and super speed. The mutant then tries to get as many kills as he can until he is killed, the person who kills the mutant then becomes the mutant. The game has single-player mode that mimics multiplayer gaming by featuring AI-bots, the UT2003 soundtrack, created by the Canadian producer Starsky Partridge and Kevin Riepl, contains grand orchestral scores, hard rock and minimalistic electronic songs. Starsky Partridge was also responsible for the music for Unreal Championship
13.
Unreal Tournament 2004
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Unreal Tournament 2004 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. It is part of the Unreal series, specifically the subseries started by the original Unreal Tournament and it is the sequel to Unreal Tournament 2003. Unreal Tournament 2004 features most of the content of its predecessor and its sequel, Unreal Tournament 3, was released on November 19,2007. The game is set in a universe where humans long before fought a war with the Skaarj, to assist in the rebuilding of the colonies by calming down enraged colonists, the Liandri Corporation came up with the idea of staging a gladiatorial tournament for the miners. The interest was so high that it grew into a sport, in last year’s tournament, they were defeated by the Juggernauts, led by gene-boosted monster Gorge. Unreal Tournament 2004 is a first-person shooter representing an extreme sport of the future. The game, designed primarily for multiplayer gameplay, offers multiple ways of movement including double-jumping, dodge-jumping, wall-dodging and shield-jumping, uT2004 also features an extensive array of weapons, all of which come with a secondary fire. Some of them were designed specifically for use in vehicle-based game types, and typically only in those game types such as the Anti-Vehicle Rocket Launcher. More than 100 maps are included in the game for all new, the available game types are, Assault — It is an objective-oriented game type in which one team attacks the objectives while another defends. Often, attackers will be rewarded for completing an objective by being allowed to spawn closer to the next objective, if the attacking team completes the final objective within the allowed time, the teams switch roles and another round on the same map begins. If not, the original attackers lose, if a second round begins and the new attackers complete the final objective in less time than the first attackers, they win, if not, they lose. First team to destroy opponents’ power core wins, Bombing Run — Each level has a ball that starts in the middle of the playing field. Your team scores by getting the ball through the enemy teams hoop and you score 7 points for jumping through the hoop while holding the ball and 3 points for tossing the ball through the hoop. The ball can be passed to teammates and is dropped if the player carrying it is killed, capture the Flag — Your team must score flag captures by taking the enemy flag from the enemy base and returning it to their own flag. If the flag carrier is killed, the drops to the ground for anyone to pick up. If your teams flag is taken, it must be returned before your team can score a flag capture. Deathmatch — or DM, is a type, in which the point is to either reach a certain number of frags or to the highest number of frags at the time limit for the match. Team Deathmatch — Two teams duke it out in a quest for battlefield supremacy, the team with the most frags wins
14.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
15.
Shooter game
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Shooter games are a subgenre of action game, which often test the players speed and reaction time. It includes many subgenres that have the commonality of focusing on the actions of the avatar using some sort of weapon, usually this weapon is a gun, or some other long-range weapon. A common resource found in many games is ammunition. Most commonly, the purpose of a game is to shoot opponents. There are many criteria to determine the type of shooter, listed below are some of the major divisions, using the following, it is possible to categorize almost all shooters developed. It is also possible for a game to have a camera, especially shooting gallery games. Tactical shooters are games that attempt to emulate lifelike ballistics and character damage, other shooter games range further away from realism and towards fantasy, like the Sci-Fi action shooting series titled Lost Planet. Games which feature non-player characters fighting alongside the player, but which are not directly controllable are not considered squad-based games, if a shooter game is playable online, there are several other sharp divisions it can take. Many games will offer differing modes which allow players to choose from various types. In team modes, players are assigned to one of two factions which are competing for some goal, co-op modes have several players on the same faction playing through either single-player or custom missions against computer-controlled enemies. Individual has all players competing with each other and this is often an optional way to categorize a shooter, but in some cases its needed to help distinguish it. A game may quite often heavily rely on stealth as opposed to direct action, others might have large horror elements to them. However, the one thing in common with all shooters is that combat with a gun or similar long range/projectile weapon is the focus of gameplay itself. Shoot em ups are a subgenre of shooters wherein the player may move up and down and left and right around the screen. Shoot em ups share common gameplay, but are categorized by viewpoint. This genre also includes run and gun games which emphasize greater maneuvering or even jumping, such as Thexder, Contra and Metal Slug. Shooting gallery games include light gun games, although many can also be played using a regular joypad, when these debuted, they were typically played from a first-person perspective, with enemy fire that occurred anywhere on the screen damaging or killing the player. One of the earliest examples is the 1985 arcade game Shootout produced by Data East, other games in this subgenre include Blood Bros
16.
Mark Rein (software executive)
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Mark Rein is the vice president and co-founder of Epic Games, creators of the Unreal Engine and the Unreal game franchise. He is also a co-owner of the NHLs Carolina Hurricanes, Rein is known to often give assessments of the progress of his company and gives a monthly update in the magazine Game Developer where he provides a short update on the state of the Unreal Engine. He resides in Raleigh, North Carolina, though he was raised in Toronto, Ontario, Rein first got involved in the video game industry when he got in touch with John Romero, who at that time worked for id Software. Since Rein was a fan of the previous Commander Keen games, Rein was then brought in to handle the business side of id as its probationary president. He then negotiated a deal with FormGen to publish a retail Commander Keen game and this business relationship with id lasted until Spear of Destiny. He was later let go from id during the development of Wolfenstein 3D and he was also later joined at Epic by Jay Wilbur, ids ex-business manager, and Reins involvement in id did mean that he was briefly mentioned in the book Masters of Doom
17.
Unreal Tournament 3
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Unreal Tournament 3 is a first-person shooter and online multiplayer video game developed by Epic Games and published by Midway Games in the Unreal series. It was released for Microsoft Windows on November 19,2007, for the PlayStation 3 on December 11,2007, Unreal Tournament 3 is the fourth game in the Unreal Tournament series and the eighth Unreal game. Similar to its predecessors, the game is primarily a multiplayer title offering several game modes. There are eight modes, including Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, as well as modes like Duel, Warfare, Betrayal, in vehicle maps, the player will be equipped with a hover board, which allows players to quickly traverse large maps and grapple onto other team-mates vehicles. Originally announced as Unreal Tournament 2007 in 2005, and set to be released in 2006 and it was renamed as Unreal Tournament 3 as the team considered it the third generation of Unreal game since it utilizes Unreal Engine 3. OS X and Linux ports were planned but they were eventually cancelled, the game received positive reviews from critics, and sold more than 1 million copies worldwide. Similar to the entries of the series, the game is primarily an online multiplayer title offering several game modes, including large-scale Warfare, Capture-the-Flag. It also includes an extensive offline multi-player game with a story, beginning with a simple tournament ladder. The following game modes are included, Deathmatch Team Deathmatch Capture the flag Duel – A one versus one game mode and it uses a queuing system, the winner stays, and the loser goes back to the end of the queue. A typical match lasts fifteen minutes with the winner being the player with most kills, Warfare – A mix of Onslaught and Assault game modes. While basic game rules are equal to those of Onslaught, Warfare adds countdown nodes as well as the orb, Vehicle Capture the Flag – Capture the Flag, with vehicles as part of the map, this game mode is distinct from the standard Capture the Flag mode. Also, players are given a rather than a translocator. Betrayal – This game type places freelance players on teams, and when the members of each team kill enemies, Greed – Greed is a game that focuses on collecting skulls dropped from dead players and capturing them in the opposing teams base. For Greed, the game uses all Capture the Flag and Vehicle Capture the Flag maps, modes not returning from the prior Unreal Tournament games include Invasion, Mutant, Onslaught, Bombing Run, Last Man Standing, Domination, and Double Domination. Assault was removed from the game during production, in this installment of Unreal Tournament, the vehicles are split into two factions, the Axon vehicles and Necris vehicles. The Axon vehicles are the vehicles from Unreal Tournament 2004. The hover board is very vulnerable to attack, and any hit will knock the player off the board and disable him or her for several seconds, leaving the player exposed, the player cannot use any weapons while on the board. In the Campaign, players control members of the Ronin, in the games story, set in 2307, some years after the events of UT2004, a Necris attack occurs on a colony on unknown planet, releasing armed Kralls on the humans
18.
Game Developers Conference
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The Game Developers Conference is the largest annual gathering of professional video game developers, focusing on learning, inspiration, and networking. Originally called the Computer Game Developers Conference, the first conference was organized in April 1988 by Chris Crawford in his San Jose, California-area living room. About twenty-seven designers attended, including Don Daglow, Brenda Laurel, Brian Moriarty, Gordon Walton, Tim Brengle, Cliff Johnson, Dave Menconi, the second conference, held that same year at a Holiday Inn at Milpitas, attracted about 125 developers. Early conference directors included Brenda Laurel, Tim Brengle, Dave Menconi, Jeff Johannigman, Stephen Friedman, Chris Crawford, later directors include John Powers, Nicky Robinson, Anne Westfall, Susan Lee-Merrow, and Ernest W. Adams. In the early years the conference changed venue each year to accommodate its increases in size, attendance in this period grew from 525 to 2387. By 1994 the CGDC could afford to sponsor the creation of the Computer Game Developers Association with Adams as its founding director. In 2005, the GDC moved to the new Moscone Center West, in the heart of San Franciscos SOMA district, and reported over 12,000 attendees. The GDC returned to San Jose in 2006, reporting over 12,500 attendees, attendance figures continued to rise in following years with 18,000 attendees in 2008 event. The 2009 Game Developers Conference was held in San Francisco, on March 23–27,2009, the IGDA awarded 25 scholarships to send qualified students to attend the 2009 GDC. Crawford also founded The Journal of Computer Game Design in 1987 in parallel to beginning the GDC, the CGDC changed its name to Game Developers Conference in 1999. The GDC has also hosted the Spotlight Awards from 1997 to 1999, the Independent Games Festival since 1999, the GDC is also used for the annual meeting of the International Game Developers Association. A pool of judges from the game industry selects the finalists and winners, the IGF is managed and developed by UBM TechWeb, the organizer of the GDC. The Game Developers Choice Awards is the industrys only open. Any member of the IGDA may nominate games, and then the votes on the finalists. As with the IGF, the creators are named as the recipients of the awards. Specialty awards such as Lifetime Achievement and First Penguin are determined by the GDCA committee, the IGF and the GDCA are presented back to back, in an awards show produced by UBM TechWeb, typically on the Wednesday of the GDC. UBM TechWeb has added several other events to the GDC in recent years, at the GDC Expo, developers display the latest techniques useful in game development. GDC Mobile, first held in 2002, focuses on developing games for mobile phones, starting in 2006, the GDC partnered with Video Games Live to feature their symphonic performance of videogame music as the closing night event
19.
San Francisco
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San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations, the California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856, after three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines, San Francisco is also the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, as of 2016, San Francisco is ranked high on world liveability rankings. The earliest archaeological evidence of habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7,1846, during the Mexican–American War, montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers, with their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships, saloons and hotels, many were left to rot, by 1851 the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to create new land, buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850 and the U. S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate, silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush
20.
Survival horror
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Survival horror is a subgenre of video games inspired by horror fiction that focuses on survival of the character as the game tries to frighten players with either horror graphics or scary ambience. The player is challenged to find items that unlock the path to new areas. Games make use of horror themes, like dark maze-like environments. The term survival horror was first used for the original Japanese release of Resident Evil in 1996, the name has been used since then for games with similar gameplay, and has been retroactively applied to earlier titles. Starting with the release of Resident Evil 4 in 2005, the genre began to more features from action games. Still, the horror genre has persisted in one form or another. Survival horror refers to a subgenre of video games. The player character is vulnerable and under-armed, which emphasis on puzzle-solving and evasion. Games commonly challenge the player to manage their inventory and ration scarce resources such as ammunition, another major theme throughout the genre is that of isolation. Typically, these games contain relatively few non-player characters and, as a result, frequently tell much of their story second-hand through the usage of journals, texts, or audio logs. While many action games feature lone protagonists versus swarms of enemies in a suspenseful environment and they tend to de-emphasize combat in favor of challenges such as hiding or running from enemies and solving puzzles. Still, it is not unusual for survival horror games to draw elements from first-person shooters, action-adventure games. Survival horror is different from typical game genres in that it is not defined strictly by specific mechanics, but subject matter, tone, pacing, Survival horror games are a subgenre of horror games, where the player is unable to fully prepare or arm their avatar. Thus, players are more vulnerable than in games. This gameplay shifts away from combat, and players must learn to evade enemies or turn the environment against them. Games try to enhance the experience of vulnerability by making the single player rather than multiplayer. The survival horror genre is known for other non-combat challenges, such as solving puzzles at certain locations in the game world. Areas of the world will be off limits until the player gains certain items
21.
The Ball (video game)
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The Ball is a 2010 independent first-person view action-adventure video game developed by Teotl Studios and published by Tripwire Interactive. The game was one of the OnLives UK launch titles, and one of the 13 games contained in the Potato Sack Bundle, on June the 7th,2016 the spiritual successor, The Solus Project was released on PC and consoles by Teotl and Grip Digital. The game features a different setting, featuring an astronaut in the future stranded on an alien world. The Ball is an action adventure game. The player controls an archaeologist trapped in a city, armed with only an artifact that can attract or repel a large metal ball. To progress in the game, the ball must be guided into trigger the puzzle mechanisms, as the player progresses, the ball will gain additional abilities, strengthening its combat ability or allowing the player to progress in platforming and puzzles. The game contains a single player campaign and a survival mode focused on combat. Fifteen other independent developers were involved in the project, including Theodore Wohng, composer. Originally developed as a mod for Unreal Tournament III at 2008, a demo version of the game was released on November 5,2009, the official game was released on October 26,2010. In 2013, the game was ported as a title for the Ouya console. The original mod entered the Unreal Engine 3 Make Something Unreal contest and picked up multiple awards, including prizes for Best First-Person Shooter Game Mod, the commercial release generated a mixed critical response, receiving a rating of 68% from review aggregator Metacritic and 73. 83% from GameRankings. PC Gamer US awarded the game 81/100, calling it A joyous, IGN gave the game a 7/10, criticizing the story presentation and combat but praising the variety of gameplay. The Ball was awarded by PC Gamer US as the 2010 Action-Adventure Game of the Year, list of video games derived from modifications Official website
22.
Angels Fall First: Planetstorm
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Previously a mod of Epic Games first-person shooter Unreal Tournament 3, AFF has since been moved to the Unreal Development Kit and was released on Steams Early Access on the 10th of October,2015. Angels Fall First has been in development from as early as 2007 by the Angels Fall First team, the mod consistently won prizes in the pre-final phases, eventually winning third place in the Grand Finals. As of 2009, development of the Unreal Tournament 3 mod had ceased, the team having then changed engines to the Unreal Development Kit, a demo version of the mod ported into the UDK engine was released in 2009. The game is now available on Steam in Early Access, Angels Fall First, Planetstorm is set in a science fiction universe during the period known as the Second Antarean War. An outbreak of hostilities between the previously subdued and forcefully integrated Antarean Empire and the alliance of several stellar states known as the United League of Planets, the war itself was inevitably caused by a variety of reasons. The gradual decay of the League, the upsurge of nationalism among the Antareans, in the resulting chaos, the long lost heir to the Antarean throne reappeared, solidifying the Antarean revolt as well as throwing the regions into a full-scale war. Angels Fall First combines two types of gameplay, FPS and space shooters, several of its maps take place on planet surfaces, primarily focused on combined arms warfare, featuring Fast-Attack vehicles, Armoured Personnel Carriers, Tanks and atmospheric Gunships. Others take place in space with a variety of spacecraft ranging from small fighters to large capital ships, infantry combat also takes place in space maps, with several maps featuring objectives that require boarding by dropship. Furthermore, players are able to board capital ships through the same method, allowing them to destroy its key components. The game is geared towards online multiplayer but has support for offline single-player with bots
23.
Distance education
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Distance education or distance learning is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school. Traditionally this usually involved correspondence courses wherein the student corresponded with the school via post, courses that are conducted are either hybrid, blended or 100% whole instruction. Massive open online courses, offering large-scale interactive participation and open access through the World Wide Web or other technologies, are recent developments in distance education. A number of terms are used roughly synonymously with distance education. The element of student feedback was an innovation of Pitmans system. This scheme was made possible by the introduction of postage rates across England in 1840. This early beginning proved extremely successful, and the Phonographic Correspondence Society was founded three years later to establish these courses on a formal basis. The Society paved the way for the formation of Sir Isaac Pitman Colleges across the country. The first correspondence school in the United States was the Society to Encourage Studies at Home, the University of London was the first university to offer distance learning degrees, establishing its External Programme in 1828. The issue soon boiled down to which institutions had degree-granting powers, as Sheldon Rothblatt states, thus arose in nearly archetypal form the famous English distinction between teaching and examining, here embodied in separate institutions. Enrollment increased steadily during the late 19th century, and its example was copied elsewhere. In 1892 he also encouraged the concept of correspondence courses to further promote education. Enrollment in the largest private school based in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1888 to provide training for immigrant coal miners aiming to become state mine inspectors or foremen, it enrolled 2500 new students in 1894, by 1906 total enrollments reached 900,000. The growth was due to sending out complete textbooks instead of single lessons, and the use of 1200 aggressive in-person salesmen. There was a stark contrast in pedagogy, The regular technical school or college aims to educate a man broadly, our aim and we, on the contrary, are aiming to make our courses fit the particular needs of the student who takes them. Education was a priority in the Progressive Era, as American high schools. For men who were older or were too busy with family responsibilities, night schools were opened, outside the big cities, private correspondence schools offered a flexible, narrowly focused solution
24.
IOS
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IOS is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the system that presently powers many of the companys mobile devices, including the iPhone, iPad. It is the second most popular operating system globally after Android. IPad tablets are also the second most popular, by sales, originally unveiled in 2007 for the iPhone, iOS has been extended to support other Apple devices such as the iPod Touch and the iPad. As of January 2017, Apples App Store contains more than 2.2 million iOS applications,1 million of which are native for iPads and these mobile apps have collectively been downloaded more than 130 billion times. The iOS user interface is based upon direct manipulation, using multi-touch gestures, interface control elements consist of sliders, switches, and buttons. Internal accelerometers are used by applications to respond to shaking the device or rotating it in three dimensions. Apple has been praised for incorporating thorough accessibility functions into iOS, enabling users with vision. Major versions of iOS are released annually, the current version, iOS10, was released on September 13,2016. In iOS, there are four layers, the Core OS, Core Services, Media. In 2005, when Steve Jobs began planning the iPhone, he had a choice to either shrink the Mac, forstall was also responsible for creating a software development kit for programmers to build iPhone apps, as well as an App Store within iTunes. The operating system was unveiled with the iPhone at the Macworld Conference & Expo on January 9,2007, and released in June of that year. At the time of its unveiling in January, Steve Jobs claimed, iPhone runs OS X and runs applications, but at the time of the iPhones release. Initially, third-party native applications were not supported, Steve Jobs reasoning was that developers could build web applications through the Safari web browser that would behave like native apps on the iPhone. In October 2007, Apple announced that a native Software Development Kit was under development, on March 6,2008, Apple held a press event, announcing the iPhone SDK. The iOS App Store was opened on July 10,2008 with an initial 500 applications available.2 million in January 2017, as of March 2016,1 million apps are natively compatible with the iPad tablet computer. These apps have collectively been downloaded more than 130 billion times, App intelligence firm Sensor Tower has estimated that the App Store will reach 5 million apps by the year 2020. On September 5,2007, Apple released the iPod Touch, Apple also sold more than one million iPhones during the 2007 holiday season
25.
Guy Fawkes
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Guy Fawkes, also known as Guido Fawkes, the name he adopted while fighting for the Spanish, was a member of a group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Fawkes was born and educated in York and his father died when Fawkes was eight years old, after which his mother married a recusant Catholic. Fawkes converted to Catholicism and left for the continent, where he fought in the Eighty Years War on the side of Catholic Spain against Protestant Dutch reformers in the Low Countries and he travelled to Spain to seek support for a Catholic rebellion in England without success. He later met Thomas Wintour, with whom he returned to England, Wintour introduced Fawkes to Robert Catesby, who planned to assassinate King James I and restore a Catholic monarch to the throne. The plotters leased an undercroft beneath the House of Lords, prompted by the receipt of an anonymous letter, the authorities searched Westminster Palace during the early hours of 5 November, and found Fawkes guarding the explosives. Over the next few days, he was questioned and tortured, immediately before his execution on 31 January, Fawkes fell from the scaffold where he was to be hanged and broke his neck, thus avoiding the agony of the mutilation that followed. Fawkes became synonymous with the Gunpowder Plot, the failure of which has been commemorated in Britain since 5 November 1605 and his effigy is traditionally burned on a bonfire, commonly accompanied by a fireworks display. Guy Fawkes was born in 1570 in Stonegate, York and he was the second of four children born to Edward Fawkes, a proctor and an advocate of the consistory court at York, and his wife, Edith. Guys mothers family were recusant Catholics, and his cousin, Richard Cowling, Guy was an uncommon name in England, but may have been popular in York on account of a local notable, Sir Guy Fairfax of Steeton. The date of Fawkess birth is unknown, but he was baptised in the church of St. Michael le Belfrey on 16 April, as the customary gap between birth and baptism was three days, he was probably born about 13 April. In 1568, Edith had given birth to a daughter named Anne and she bore two more children after Guy, Anne, and Elizabeth. Both were married, in 1599 and 1594 respectively, in 1579, when Guy was eight years old, his father died. His mother remarried years later, to the Catholic Dionis Baynbrigge of Scotton. A governor of the school had spent about 20 years in prison for recusancy, and its headmaster, John Pulleyn, came from a family of noted Yorkshire recusants, the Pulleyns of Blubberhouses. Fawkess fellow students included John Wright and his brother Christopher and Oswald Tesimond, Edward Oldcorne and Robert Middleton, after leaving school Fawkes entered the service of Anthony Browne, 1st Viscount Montagu. The Viscount took a dislike to Fawkes and after a short time dismissed him, he was employed by Anthony-Maria Browne, 2nd Viscount Montagu. At least one source claims that Fawkes married and had a son, in October 1591 Fawkes sold the estate in Clifton that he had inherited from his father. He travelled to the continent to fight in the Eighty Years War for Catholic Spain against the new Dutch Republic and, from 1595 until the Peace of Vervins in 1598, France
26.
The Gadget Show
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The Gadget Show is a British television series which focuses on consumer technology. The show, which is broadcast on Channel 5, is presented by Craig Charles, Ortis Deley, Jon Bentley. Originally a thirty-minute show, it was extended to forty-five minutes, repeats have also aired on the digital channels 5Star and Spike, syndicated broadcasts on Discovery Science and Dave, and Channel 5s Internet on-demand service My5. In Australia, it is aired on The Lifestyle Channel, the Gadget Show has received many Guinness World Records. The show previews and reviews the latest gadgets, and broadcasts the latest technology news, the show has featured Blu-ray Discs, video cameras, MP3 players, Internet multi media tablets and other technologies. A segment showing viewers how to get the most out of their technology is often included along with a competition to win anything from £5,000 to £45,000 worth of new gadgets. Each series usually contains an episode focusing on a particular technology conference or expo. Past conferences include CeBIT and the NextFest, series 5 saw a slight tweak in the format, with the three presenters hosting from a studio base, although a lot of the show still takes place outside of the studio. The studio sections were filmed at The Custard Factory on Gibb Street in Digbeth, Birmingham and this was until a new set was introduced and the studio was then moved to inside The Gadget Shows offices located inside North One Television in Digbeth. A recurring theme in the format is a regular challenge between Jason and Suzi, typically set around particular gadget and their testing or use based around it. Another addition is now the weeks main featured gadget, typically reviewed by Jon, is given a G rating from one to five. The seventh series, which started on 29 October 2007, saw the programme promoted to a 20,00 start time, from series 8, there is also a new Top 5 feature which consists of the Top 5 gadgets in a certain category. There are also several recurring features which are featured in episodes on a semi-regular basis. The show also offers a competition, that gives the winner on some occasions up to 250 prizes, for 2010, the programme received a rebrand centred on the Museo typeface. This included refreshed titles and break bumpers, also in 2010, the show saw the release of a supporting magazine called The Gadget Show Magazine. It would take until the World Tour series for the show to broadcasting in native HD. In August 2011, it was announced a new series of The Gadget Show would be shown on Fridays, however, from 26 September 2011, the show reverted to Mondays, due to strong competition on Friday nights. In February 2012, it was announced that the 17th series of the show would be in a new and it was called The Gadget Show, World Tour, and it started airing on 23 April 2012
27.
Role-playing
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Role-playing refers to the changing of ones behaviour to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role. Many children participate in a form of role-playing known as make believe, wherein they adopt certain roles such as doctor, sometimes make believe adopts an oppositional nature, resulting in games such as cops and robbers. Historical re-enactment has been practiced by adults for millennia, within the 20th century historical re-enactment has often been pursued as a hobby. Improvisational theatre dates back to the Commedia dellArte tradition of the 16th century, modern improvisational theatre began in the classroom with the theatre games of Viola Spolin and Keith Johnstone in the 1950s. Viola Spolin, who was one of the founders the famous comedy troupe Second City, insisted that her exercises were games, and that they involved role-playing as early as 1946. She accurately judged role-playing in the theatre as rehearsal and actor training, or the playing of the role of actor versus theatre roles, a role-playing game is a game in which the participants assume the roles of characters and collaboratively create stories. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterisation, within the rules, they may improvise freely, their choices shape the direction and outcome of the games. Message boards such as ProBoards and InvisionFree are popularly used for role-playing, often on forum-based roleplays, rules, and standards are set up, such as a minimum word count, character applications, and plotting boards to increase complexity and depth of story. There are different genres of which one can choose while role-playing, including, but not limited to, fantasy, modern, medieval, steam punk, and historical. Role-playing may also refer to training where people rehearse situations in preparation for a future performance. The most common examples are occupational training role-plays, educational role-play exercises, one of the first uses of computers was to simulate real-world conditions for participants role-playing the flying of aircraft. Flight simulators used computers to solve the equations of flight and train future pilots, the army began full-time role-playing simulations with soldiers using computers both within full scale training exercises and for training in numerous specific tasks under wartime conditions. Examples include weapon firing, vehicle simulators, and control station mock-ups and this technique of assigning and taking roles in psychological research has a long history. It has been used in the classic social psychological experiments by Kurt Lewin, Stanley Milgram. Herbert Kelman suggested that role-playing might be the most promising source of research methods alternative to using deception
28.
Fighting Fantasy
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Fighting Fantasy is a series of single-player role-playing gamebooks created by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. The first volume in the series was published by Puffin in 1982, the majority of the titles followed a fantasy theme, although science fiction, post-apocalyptic, superhero, and modern horror gamebooks were also published. The popularity of the led to the creation of merchandise such as action figures, board games, role-playing game systems, magazines, novels. The text of a Fighting Fantasy gamebook never progresses in a linear fashion, the story continues in this fashion, the player continuing to pick other numbered sections, until their character is stopped by the story or killed in combat, or completes the quest. Some titles use additional statistics or conflict resolution mechanics, a typical Fighting Fantasy gamebook tasks players with completing a quest, with players then making choices in an attempt to successfully finish the adventure. A successful play usually ends with the reaching the final numbered section of the book. In some cases this can only be achieved by obtaining various story items, there were 59 books in the original series, beginning with The Warlock of Firetop Mountain and concluding with Curse of the Mummy. Jackson also wrote a self-contained four-part series titled Sorcery, Andrew Chapman and Martin Allen also wrote a two-book, two-player adventure titled Clash of the Princes. There were also several supplemental books produced that provided information about the Fighting Fantasy universe, including a comprehensive bestiary of monsters. Wizard Books acquired the rights to the Fighting Fantasy series in 2002, the majority of the Fighting Fantasy titles are set in the fictional medieval world of Titan, which consists of three giant continents. Other titles are set in fantasy, horror, modern day, regular contributors included Les Edwards, Terry Oakes, Russ Nicholson, Leo Hartas, Ian Miller, John Blanche, Martin McKenna, and Iain McCaig. In 1980, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone attended a Games Day and their first submission, The Magic Quest, was a short adventure intended to demonstrate the style of game. The Magic Quest was eventually accepted by Penguin Books, although the authors devoted a further six months to expanding and improving upon their original concept. The end result was The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, and after several rewrites, following the success of this title, Jackson and Livingstone began writing individually to create additional Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. In 1983, The Citadel of Chaos and The Forest of Doom were published, by Jackson, four more titles followed, Starship Traveller, City of Thieves, Deathtrap Dungeon and Island of the Lizard King. In 1984, a decision was made to more writers to continue the series, Steve Jackson, Andrew Chapman, Carl Sargent, Marc Gascoigne. Jackson and Livingstone, however, continued to be involved and approved all cover, covers were rarely consistent and due to printing errors and different markets many different versions exist. The Fighting Fantasy gamebooks published in the US by Dell/Laurel Leaf featured a new cover design, Jackson wrote a self-contained four-part series titled Sorcery
29.
Cliff Bleszinski
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He is known for his role in the development of the Unreal franchise, especially 1999s Unreal Tournament, and the Gears of War franchise. Cliff Bleszinski made his first non-commercial game at the age of 11 and his first commercial game was made at age 17, an independently developed point-and-click adventure game called The Palace of Deceit, Dragons Plight. Bleszinski created the game while he was a student at Bonita High School in La Verne, California and he sent a copy of the game to Tim Sweeney, the founder of Epic Games. Sweeney was impressed with the game and hired Bleszinski to work at Epic and his next game was Dare to Dream, a point-and-click adventure, released in 1993. Bleszinski worked on one of Epics first multi-person projects brought, 1994s Jazz Jackrabbit followed by 1998s Jazz Jackrabbit 2, and designed the first-person shooter game Unreal Tournament. In addition to his work on the Unreal series, Bleszinski served as designer on the Xbox 360 shooter Gears of War and its sequel. Gears evolved out of the development of what was going to be a game called Unreal Warfare, as Bleszinski explained in a speech at GDC2007 entitled Designing Gears of War, Iteration Wins, the game started out as another first-person shooter in the Unreal universe. Over time, however, influenced by the mechanic in Namcos 2003 game Kill Switch. On April 12,2010, he appeared on NBCs Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to promote Gears of War 3, Bleszinski is one of the creators of Epic Games Infinity Blade, released in 2010. It is the first mobile game that he designed, Cliff announced his departure from Epic Games on October 3,2012 after 20 years with the company, saying he had been making video games since he was a teen and wanted to take a break. After a 2-year hiatus, he announced a free-to-play, PC-focused arena shooter code-named BlueStreak created by Boss Key Productions, on August 26,2015, Cliff Bleszinksi revealed the first details about his upcoming free-to-play arena shooter, previously known as BlueStreak. The game, which is due out some time in 2016 and going to be published by Nexon, Cliff Bleszinski was offered an opportunity to work on the Silent Hill franchise by Hideo Kojima, vice president of Konami Digital Entertainment. I was flattered but declined, he wrote on Twitter, Bleszinski joined the board of advisers for Fig, a mixed crowd-funding/investment platform for video games, in May 2016. Cliff is married to blogger Lauren Bleszinski, one of his brothers is Tyler Bleszinski, a sports blogger who founded Athletics Nation and Vox Media. His father, whom Bleszinski describes as a very stressed-out guy, was an engineer for Polaroid, the nickname CliffyB was given to him derogatorily by some jock kid when he was a shy teenager, he then took it and developed a tougher persona around it. In 2008, he expressed a desire to retire the CliffyB moniker, Bleszinski has opened two bars in Raleigh, North Carolina, one in 2014, called The Station, and another one in 2015, The Raleigh Beer Garden
30.
Jon Hare
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Jon Jops Hare is an English computer game designer, game artist and musician. He is one of the two members and directors, with Chris Yates, of Sensible Software, one of the most successful European games development companies of the late 1980s and 1990s. Prior to that Hare was also co-designer and lead artist of all of Sensibles games including Parallax, Wizball, Microprose Soccer, SEUCK, Hare has been a voting member of BAFTA across all media since 2004 and works periodically for BAFTA as both a juror and a mentor. In 2006, Hare contributed a weekly politics feature to UK video game radio show One Life Left, Hare then became a director of development at Nikitova Games, a games developer with offices in Chicago, Los Angeles and London, and development studios in Kiev, Ukraine. They worked on projects for Nintendo DS and Wii, such as Showtime Championship Boxing. In July 2009, Hare joined Jagex as their Head of Publishing, in January 2010, Hare announced the launch of a new independent online games publisher, Me-Stars, a games network for browser and iPhone platforms. Following this grounding in higher education in 2014 he launched, in collaboration with Professor Carsten Maple, the launch event of BUGS at BAFTA featured numerous talks from games industry bodies and endorsements of BUGS from Ian Livingstone and Ed Vaizey MP, the then government minister for culture. Written by games journalist Gary Penn it was the first and, to date, only book about the games industry to feature in the BAFTA library. Since 2000 Hare has also written for and performed with a number of outfits including the Little Big Band featuring Jack Monck, Hares profile on MobyGames Hares 2016 Interview on Retro Gamesmaster Desert Island Discs style interview with Hare at GameShadow. com
31.
Peter Molyneux
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Peter Douglas Molyneux, OBE is an English video game designer and programmer. He created the god games Populous, Dungeon Keeper and Black & White as well as Theme Park and his new studio 22Cans currently works on Godus and the brand new hiking resource-gathering game, The Trail-A Frontier. Peter Molyneux began his career in 1982 by distributing and selling floppy disks which contained video games for Atari and he believed that including games on the disks would improve sales, and later concluded that the games were the main selling point. He created The Entrepreneur, a business simulation game about running a fledgling company. In those days you could call a game Space Blob Attacks Mars. I did a business simulation, Molyneux later said, Molyneux published the game himself in 1984 by duplicating hundreds of tapes on two Tandy Corporation recorders. After taking a space in a game magazine, he prepared for the games success, he later stated in an interview. I thought, You know, this box is just not big enough. Its just not going to fit all the envelopes, so I cut – and this is no joke – I cut a bigger letter box. However, the game received two orders, one of which Molyneux speculated was from his mother. Due to the failure, Molyneux retreated from game design. It suddenly dawned on me that this guy didnt know who we were, I suddenly had this crisis of conscience. I thought, If this guy finds out, there go my free computers down the drain, so I just shook his hand and ran out of that office. Using money earned from the program, Molyneux and Les Edgar founded Bullfrog Productions in 1987. The companys first game was a conversion of Druid II, Enlightenment, Molyneux recalled, I got in touch with a software company called Firebird and told them that I could program games. Of course I was bull-shitting, but they gave me Druid 2 to convert to the Amiga, youre very unlikely to get that kind of break today. Molyneux provided the concept for Populous, the first god game for the personal computer. Released in 1989, Populous was a success for Bullfrog
32.
Fantasy
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Fantasy is a fiction genre set in an imaginary universe, often but not always without any locations, events, or people from the real world. Most fantasy uses magic or other elements as a main plot element, theme. Magic and magical creatures are common in many of these imaginary worlds, in popular culture, the fantasy genre is predominantly of the medievalist form. In its broadest sense, however, fantasy works by many writers, artists, filmmakers. Fantasy is studied in a number of disciplines including English and other studies, cultural studies, comparative literature, history. The identifying trait of fantasy is the reliance on imagination to create narrative elements that do not have to rely on history or nature to be coherent. This differs from realistic fiction in that whereas realistic fiction has to attend to the history and natural laws of reality, an author applies his or her imagination to come up with characters, plots, and settings that are impossible in reality. Fantasy has often compared with science fiction and horror because they are the major categories of speculative fiction. Fantasy is distinguished from science fiction by the plausibility of the narrative elements, a science fiction narrative is unlikely, though seeming possible through logical scientific and/or technological extrapolation, whereas fantasy narratives do not need to be scientifically possible. The imagined elements of fantasy do not need an explanation to be narratively functional. Authors have to rely on the suspension of disbelief, an acceptance of the unbelievable or impossible for the sake of enjoyment. Despite both genres heavy reliance on the supernatural, fantasy and horror are distinguishable, horror primarily evokes fear through the protagonists weaknesses or inability to deal with the antagonists. Beginning perhaps with the earliest written documents, mythic and other elements that would come to define fantasy. MacDonald was an influence on both J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. The other major fantasy author of this era was William Morris, lord Dunsany established the genres popularity in both the novel and the short story form. Many popular mainstream authors also began to write fantasy at this time, including H. Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Indeed, juvenile fantasy was considered more acceptable than fantasy intended for adults, nathaniel Hawthorne wrote fantasy in A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys, intended for children, though works for adults only verged on fantasy. Political and social trends can affect a societys reception towards fantasy, in the early 20th century, the New Culture Movements enthusiasm for Westernization and science in China compelled them to condemn the fantastical shenmo genre of traditional Chinese literature
33.
Role-playing video game
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A role-playing video game is a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character immersed in some well-defined world. Many role-playing video games have origins in tabletop role-playing games and use much of the terminology, settings. Other major similarities with pen-and-paper games include developed story-telling and narrative elements, player development, complexity, as well as replayability. The electronic medium removes the necessity for a gamemaster and increases combat resolution speed, RPGs have evolved from simple text-based console-window games into visually rich 3D experiences. Role-playing video games use much of the terminology, settings. Players control a game character, or multiple game characters, usually called a party. Players explore a world, while solving puzzles and engaging in tactical combat. A key feature of the genre is that characters grow in power and abilities, RPGs rarely challenge a players physical coordination or reaction time, with the exception of action role-playing games. Role-playing video games typically rely on a developed story and setting. Players control one or several characters by issuing commands, which are performed by the character at an effectiveness determined by that characters numeric attributes. Often these attributes increase each time a character gains a level, role-playing video games also typically attempt to offer more complex and dynamic character interaction than what is found in other video game genres. This usually involves additional focus on the intelligence and scripted behavior of computer-controlled non-player characters. The premise of most role-playing games tasks the player with saving the world, there are often twists and turns as the story progresses, such as the surprise appearance of estranged relatives, or enemies who become friends or vice versa. To a lesser extent, settings closer to the present day or near future are possible, the story often provides much of the entertainment in the game. Because these games have strong storylines, they can make effective use of recorded dialog. Players of these tend to appreciate long cutscenes more than players of faster action games. While most games advance the plot when the player defeats an enemy or completes a level, for example, a player may make the decision to join a guild, thus triggering a progression in the storyline that is usually irreversible. New elements in the story may also be triggered by mere arrival in an area, the plot is usually divided so that each game location is an opportunity to reveal a new chapter in the story
34.
Mendelian inheritance
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Mendelian inheritance is a type of biological inheritance that follows the laws originally proposed by Gregor Mendel in 1865 and 1866 and re-discovered in 1900. These laws were very controversial. When Mendels theories were integrated with the Boveri–Sutton chromosome theory of inheritance by Thomas Hunt Morgan in 1915, between 1856 and 1863, Mendel cultivated and tested some 5,000 pea plants. From these experiments, he induced two generalizations which later known as Mendels Principles of Heredity or Mendelian inheritance. In 1900, however, his work was re-discovered by three European scientists, Hugo de Vries, Carl Correns, and Erich von Tschermak. De Vries may not have acknowledged truthfully how much of his knowledge of the came from his own work. Later scholars have accused Von Tschermak of not truly understanding the results at all, regardless, the re-discovery made Mendelism an important but controversial theory. Its most vigorous promoter in Europe was William Bateson, who coined the terms genetics, the model of heredity was highly contested by other biologists because it implied that heredity was discontinuous, in opposition to the apparently continuous variation observable for many traits. Many biologists also dismissed the theory because they were not sure it would apply to all species, Mendels findings allowed scientists such as Fisher and J. B. S. Haldane to predict the expression of traits on the basis of mathematical probabilities, an important aspect of Mendels success can be traced to his decision to start his crosses only with plants he demonstrated were true-breeding. He also only measured absolute characteristics, such as color, shape and he expressed his results numerically and subjected them to statistical analysis. His method of analysis and his large sample size gave credibility to his data. He also had the foresight to follow several successive generations of pea plants, finally, he performed test crosses to reveal the presence and proportions of recessive characters. Without his diligence and careful attention to procedure and detail, Mendels work would have had a smaller impact on the world of genetics. Mendel discovered that, when he crossed purebred white flower and purple flower pea plants, rather than being a mix of the two, the offspring was purple-flowered. When Mendel self-fertilized the F1 generation pea plants, he obtained a purple flower to white flower ratio in the F2 generation of 3 to 1, the results of this cross are tabulated in the Punnett square to the right. He then conceived the idea of heredity units, which he called factors, Mendel found that there are alternative forms of factors—now called genes—that account for variations in inherited characteristics. For example, the gene for color in pea plants exists in two forms, one for purple and the other for white
35.
BioWare
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BioWare is a video game developer located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in February 1995 by newly graduated medical doctors Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk, and Augustine Yip and they proceeded to make several other successful games based on original intellectual property, Jade Empire, the Mass Effect series, and the Dragon Age series. In 2011, BioWare launched their first massively multiplayer online role-playing game, Star Wars, BioWare was established in February 1995 by Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk, Trent Oster, Brent Oster, Marcel Zeschuk, and Augustine Yip. Their success in the field provided them with the funding they needed to launch a video game company. To make their first game, they pooled their resources, which resulted in capital of $100,000 and their first game, Shattered Steel, began its life as a proof-of-concept demo, similar to the MechWarrior games. This demo was submitted to ten publishers, seven of whom returned to the company with an offer, a publishing deal for Shattered Steel was eventually signed with Interplay Entertainment. BioWares first game was released the following year, Shattered Steels release was described by IGN as a modest success with decent sales. Two noteworthy points were the terrain and zone damage. A sequel to Shattered Steel was planned for 1998 but never realized, BioWares founders and staff were keenly interested in both computerized and pen-and-paper variants of role-playing games. Their next development project, therefore, was determined to be a role-playing game, when Interplay financed exploratory development, BioWare presented the publishers with a demo called Battleground, Infinity. Interplay suggested that the gameplay engine would be well-suited to the Dungeons & Dragons license which it had acquired from SSI. Accordingly, Infinity was reworked in line with the Dungeons & Dragons ruleset and this resulted in Baldurs Gate, which witnessed a development cycle of three years. During this time, the three continued to practice medicine. However, in the years of the project, the demands of development prompted Muzyka and Zeschuck to leave medicine. Augustine Yip decided to continue with his medical practice, Baldurs Gate sold more than two million copies after its release, nearly matching the sales of Diablo. Following the success of Baldurs Gate, the Infinity Engine was used for the games Planescape, Torment, the success of Baldurs Gate was followed by an expansion pack for the game, Tales of the Sword Coast. At this point, BioWare decided to return to the action genre, the companys initial thought was to develop a sequel to Shattered Steel, but eventually a sequel to MDK from Shiny Entertainment was chosen for development. MDK2 was released on PC, Dreamcast, and eventually PlayStation 2, MDK2 drew the same level of praise as its predecessor but, despite the success, BioWare returned to the Baldurs Gate series for their next project
36.
First-person (video games)
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In video games, the first person refers to a graphical perspective rendered from the viewpoint of the players character. In many cases, this may be the viewpoint from the cockpit of a vehicle, many different genres have made use of first-person perspectives, ranging from adventure games to flight simulators. The most notable genre to use of this device is the first-person shooter. Games with a first-person perspective are usually avatar-based, wherein the game displays what the players avatar would see with the avatars own eyes, thus, players typically cannot see the avatars body, though they may be able to see the avatars weapons or hands. A first-person perspective allows for aiming, since there is no representation of the avatar to block the players view. However, the absence of an avatar can make it difficult to master the timing, players have come to expect first-person games to accurately scale objects to appropriate sizes. However, key objects such as dropped items or levers may be exaggerated in order to improve their visibility, while many games featured a side-scrolling or top-down perspective during the 1970s and 80s, several early games attempted to render the game world from the perspective of the player. While light gun shooters often have a perspective, they are distinct from first-person shooters. It is not clear exactly when the earliest such first-person shooter video game was created, there are two claimants, Spasim and Maze War. The uncertainty about which was first stems from the lack of any accurate dates for the development of Maze War—even its developer cannot remember exactly, in contrast, the development of Spasim is much better documented and the dates more certain. The initial development of Maze War probably occurred in the summer of 1973, a single player made their way through a simple maze of corridors rendered using fixed perspective. Multiplayer capabilities, with attempting to shoot each other, were probably added later in 1973. Spasim was originally developed in the spring of 1974, players moved through a wire-frame 3D universe, with gameplay resembling the 2D game Empire ire. Graphically, Spasim lacked even hidden line removal, but did feature online multiplayer over the worldwide university-based PLATO network, Spasim had a documented debut at the University of Illinois in 1974. The game was a space flight simulator, which featured a first-person perspective. Another notable PLATO FPS was the tank game Panther, introduced in 1975, in 1976, Segas Road Race extended the car racing video game genre into three dimensions with a first-person perspective. It displayed a constantly changing S-shaped road with two race cars moving along the road that the player must avoid crashing while racing against the clock. In 1980, Segas arcade space shooter Space Tactics also allowed players to take aim using crosshairs, First-person light gun shooters would rise in popularity during the mid-1980s, with Nintendos Duck Hunt being a much-loved example
37.
ESports
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Most commonly, eSports take the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players. The most common video game genres associated with eSports are real-time strategy, fighting, first-person shooter, the genre of fighting games and arcade game fighters have also been popular in amateur tournaments, although the fighting game community has often distanced themselves from the eSports label. Other games with significant earnings include Smite, StarCraft II, Call of Duty, Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone, in 2013, it was estimated that approximately 71.5 million people worldwide watched eSports. The increasing availability of online streaming platforms, particularly Twitch. tv, has become central to the growth. Demographically, Major League Gaming has reported viewership that is approximately 85% male and 15% female, despite this, several female personalities within eSports are hopeful about the increasing presence of female gamers. South Korea has several established eSports organizations, which have licensed pro gamers since the year 2000, recognition of eSports competitions outside South Korea has come somewhat slower. Along with South Korea, most competitions take place in Europe, North America, despite its large video game market, eSports in Japan is relatively underdeveloped, which has been attributed largely to its broad anti-gambling laws. The global eSports market generated US$325 million of revenue in 2015 and is expected to make $493 million in 2016, the earliest known video game competition took place on 19 October 1972 at Stanford University for the game Spacewar. In the summer of 1980, Walter Day founded a high score record keeping organization called Twin Galaxies, the team was involved in competitions, such as running the Video Game Masters Tournament for Guinness World Records and sponsoring the North American Video Game Challenge tournament. During the 1970s and 1980s, video players and tournaments begun being featured in popular websites and magazines including Life. A video game tournament was included as part of TV show Thats Incredible. and tournaments were also featured as part of the plot of various films, in the 1990s, many games benefited from increasing internet connectivity, especially PC games. For example, the 1988 game Netrek was an Internet game for up to 16 players, Netrek was the third Internet game, the first Internet game to use metaservers to locate open game servers, and the first to have persistent user information. In 1993 it was credited by Wired Magazine as the first online sports game, large eSports tournaments in the 1990s include the 1990 Nintendo World Championships, which toured across the United States, and held its finals at Universal Studios Hollywood in California. Nintendo held a 2nd World Championships in 1994 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System called the Nintendo PowerFest 94, there were 132 finalists that played in the finals in San Diego, California. Mike Iarossi took home 1st prize, blockbuster Video also ran their own World Game Championships in the early 1990s, co-hosted by GamePro magazine. Citizens from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Games from the 1994 championships included NBA Jam and Virtua Racing. Television shows featuring eSports during this period included the British shows GamesMaster, the Australian gameshow A*mazing, which would show two children competing in various Nintendo games in order to win points. Tournaments established in the late 1990s include the Cyberathlete Professional League, QuakeCon, PC games played at the CPL included the Counter-Strike series, Quake series, and Warcraft
38.
Staffordshire University
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Staffordshire University is a university in Staffordshire, England. It has one campus based in the city of Stoke-on-Trent. In 1901, industrialist Alfred Bolton acquired a 2-acre site on what is now College Road, a. Pease, President of the Board of Education. A frieze over the entrance depicts potters and miners, in 2013, the Library Conference room in the Cadman building was renamed the Alfred Bolton room. Grants from the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust in 1924 were used to develop the ceramics library, by 1931 extensions to the Cadman Building ran along Station Road and housed the Mining Department. A grant was awarded from the Miners’ Welfare Fund to fund the building work, the new extension also housed the library, which by now had 35,000 volumes. By 1934 the college consisted of four departments, Engineering, Pottery, Mining, in 1939, new engineering workshops were occupied for the first time and the land opposite the Cadman Building was purchased. By 1950 Victoria Road changed its name to College Road and the now extended over 12 acres. The Mellor Building and Experimental Production Block were constructed for the North Staffordshire College of Technology by 1960, in 1977, the polytechnic absorbed a teacher training facility in Madeley, Staffordshire. The polytechnic developed traditional strengths of the component institutions, e. g. ceramics, computing, the mining department closed as result of the decline of coal mining in the 1980s. North Staffordshire Polytechnic was amongst only a handful of institutions in the UK to offer International Relations as a dedicated degree. The 1992 UK government Research Assessment Exercise placed the International Relations Department as the highest-rated in the institution, in 1988, the institution changed its name to Staffordshire Polytechnic. In 1992, it became Staffordshire University, one of the new universities, the university has two main campuses, four smaller campuses, and extensive links with National, European and Transnational academic institutions. The two main campuses and the Lichfield campus all have purpose built Business Villages and these have fully furnished small office spaces with internet access. In the 2012/13 academic year, the VC, Michael Gunn, as yet no definitive conclusion has been made and the ultimate result will based on many decisive factors including student feedback and financial viability. It is anticipated that the review will take a year to carry out, the university announced the result of their Estates Strategy on 30 January 2014 after the Board of Governors met at a special meeting to decide on it the night before. The decision was made to move the computing and entertainment technology courses to the Stoke-on-Trent campus by 2016, the main campus is in Shelton, Stoke-on-Trent, and primarily offers law, business, sciences, applied computing, engineering, arts, design, journalism and media production courses. These are split into two areas, one on College Road, and the other on Leek Road, a new Science and Technology facility was opened in 2012 as part of a major redevelopment adjacent to Stoke-on-Trent railway station
39.
IGN
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The website was the brainchild of media entrepreneur Chris Anderson and launched on September 29,1996. It focuses on games, films, television, comics, technology, the company is located in San Franciscos SOMA district in California, United States. Originally a network of websites, IGN is now distributed on mobile platforms, console programs on the Xbox and PlayStation, FireTV, Roku, and via YouTube, Twitch, Hulu. IGN was sold to publishing company Ziff Davis in February 2013 and now operates as a J2 Global subsidiary. com, PSXPower, Saturnworld, Next-Generation. com and Ultra Game Players Online. Imagine expanded on its owned-and-operated websites by creating a network that included a number of independent fansites such as PSX Nation. com, Sega-Saturn. com, Game Sages. In 1998, the network launched a new homepage that consolidated the individual sites as system channels under the IGN brand, the homepage exposed content from more than 30 different channels. Next-Generation and Ultra Game Players Online were not part of this consolidation, dissolved with the cancellation of the magazine, and Next-Generation was put on hold when Imagine decided to concentrate on launching the short-lived Daily Radar brand. In February 1999, Imagine Media incorporated a spin-off that included IGN and its channels as Affiliation Networks. In September, the newly spun-out standalone internet media company, changed its name to Snowball. com, at the same time, small entertainment website The Den merged into IGN and added non-gaming content to the growing network. Snowball held an IPO in 2000, but shed most of its properties during the dot-com bubble. In June 2005, IGN reported having 24,000,000 unique visitors per month, with 4.8 million registered users through all departments of the site, IGN is ranked among the top 200 most-visited websites according to Alexa. In September 2005, IGN was acquired by Rupert Murdochs multi-media business empire, News Corporation, IGN celebrated its 10th anniversary on January 12,2008. IGN was headquartered in the Marina Point Parkway office park in Brisbane, California, on May 25,2011, IGN sold its Direct2Drive division to Gamefly for an undisclosed amount. In 2011, IGN Entertainment acquired its rival UGO Entertainment from Hearst Corporation, ultimately, News Corp. planned to spin off IGN Entertainment as a publicly traded company, continuing a string of divestitures for digital properties it had previously acquired. Financial details regarding the purchase were not revealed, prior to its acquisition by UGO, 1UP. com had previously been owned by Ziff Davis. Soon after the acquisition, IGN announced that it would be laying off staff and closing GameSpy, 1UP. com, the role-playing video game interest website Vault Network was acquired by IGN in 1999. GameStats, a review website, was founded by IGN in 2004. GameStats includes a GPM rating system incorporates an average press score and average gamer score
40.
Ziff Davis Media
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Ziff Davis, LLC is an American publisher and Internet company. It was initiated during 1927 in Chicago, Illinois, by William B, Ziff, Sr. and Bernard G. Davis. Throughout most of Ziff Davis history, it was a publisher of hobbyist magazines, often devoted to expensive, advertiser-rich technical hobbies such as cars, photography. However, since 1980, Ziff Davis has primarily published computer-related magazines, Ziff Davis had several broadcasting properties, first during the mid-1970s, and later with its own technology network ZDTV, later renamed to TechTV, that was sold to Vulcan Ventures during 2001. Ziff Davis magazine publishing and internet operations offices are based in New York City, Massachusetts, on November 12,2012, Ziff Davis Inc. was acquired by cloud computing services company j2 Global of Hollywood, Calif. for $167 million cash. According to a late 2015 Fortune article, Ziff Davis comprises 30% of parent company j2 Globals $600 million annual revenue and is increasing 15% to 20% each year, analyst Gregory Burns of Sidoti & Company calculates that Ziff Davis is worth $1.9 billion. During 1923, Ziff acquired E. C, auld Company, a Chicago publishing house. Ziffs first venture in publishing was Ziffs Magazine, which featured short stories, one-act plays, humorous verse. The title was changed to Americas Humor during April 1926, Bernard George Davis was the student editor of the University of Pittsburghs humor magazine, the Pitt Panther, and was active in the Association of College Comics of the East. During his senior year he attended the convention and met William B. When Davis graduated during 1927 he joined Ziff as the editor of Americas Humor, Ziff, who had been an aviator in World War I, created a new magazine, Popular Aviation, during August 1927 that was published by Popular Aviation Publishing Company of Chicago, Illinois. Managed by Editor Harley W. Mitchell it became the largest aviation magazine, the magazines title became Aeronautics for June 1929 and the publishing companys name became Aeronautical Publications, Inc. The title was changed back to Popular Aviation for July 1930, the magazine became Flying during 1942 and is still published today by the Bonnier Corporation. The magazine celebrated its 80th anniversary during 2007, the company histories normally give the founding date as 1927. This is when B. G. Davis joined and Popular Aviation magazine started, however, it was not until 1936 that the company became the Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. Davis was given a minority equity interest in the company and was appointed a vice-president. He was later named president during 1946, Davis was a photography enthusiast and the editor of the Popular Photography magazine started during May 1937. During early 1938, Ziff-Davis acquired the magazines Radio News and Amazing Stories and these were started by Hugo Gernsback but sold as a result of the Experimenter Publishing bankruptcy during 1929
41.
Wired (magazine)
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Wired is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Francisco, California, several spin-offs have been launched including, Wired UK, Wired Italia, Wired Japan and Wired Germany. In its earliest colophons, Wired credited Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan as its patron saint, from its beginning, the strongest influence on the magazines editorial outlook came from techno-utopian co-founder Stewart Brand and his associate Kevin Kelly. From 1998 to 2006, Wired magazine and Wired News had separate owners, however, Wired News remained responsible for republishing Wired magazines content online due to an agreement when Condé Nast purchased the magazine. In 2006, Condé Nast bought Wired News for $25 million, the founding designers were John Plunkett and Barbara Kuhr, beginning with a 1991 prototype and continuing through the first five years of publication, 1993–98. Wired, which touted itself as the Rolling Stone of technology, a great success at its launch, it was lauded for its vision, originality, innovation and cultural impact. In its first four years, the magazine won two National Magazine Awards for General Excellence and one for Design. The founding executive editor of Wired, Kevin Kelly, was an editor of the Whole Earth Catalog and the Whole Earth Review, six authors of the first Wired issue had written for Whole Earth Review, most notably Bruce Sterling and Stewart Brand. However, the first issue did contain a few references to the Internet, including online-dating and Internet sex, the last page, a column written by Nicholas Negroponte, was written in the style of an e-mail message, but contained obviously fake, non-standard email addresses. Wired was among the first magazines to list the email address of its authors and contributors, associate publisher Kathleen Lyman was brought on board to launch Wired with an advertising base of major technology and consumer advertisers. The magazine was followed by a companion website HotWired, a book publishing division, HardWired, a Japanese edition. Wired UK was relaunched in April 2009, in 1994, John Battelle, co-founding editor, commissioned Jules Marshall to write a piece on the Zippies. The cover story broke records for being one of the most publicized stories of the year and was used to promote Wireds HotWired news service, HotWired spawned websites Webmonkey, the search engine HotBot, and a weblog, Suck. com. In June 1998, the magazine launched an index, The Wired Index. The fortune of the magazine and allied enterprises corresponded closely to that of the dot-com bubble, in 1996, Rossetto and the other participants in Wired Ventures attempted to take the company public with an IPO. The initial attempt had to be withdrawn in the face of a downturn in the stock market, the second try was also unsuccessful. Rossetto and Metcalfe lost control of Wired Ventures to financial investors Providence Equity Partners in May 1998, Wired was purchased by Advance Publications, who assigned it to Advances subsidiary, New York-based publisher Condé Nast Publications. Wired survived the bubble and found new direction under editor-in-chief Chris Anderson in 2001
42.
Gamasutra
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Gamasutra is a website founded in 1997 that focuses on all aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by UBM TechWeb, a division of Unite Business Media, the articles can be filtered by either topic or category. Gamasutra encourages professionals to publish blogs in order to share their expertise with other developers, analysis articles are popular reads as writers spark discussions on game design and the various trends of the industry. Many postmortems have been published, ranging from independent games such as Okabu and The Path to major studio projects such as Okamiden, there are currently over 150 collected post-mortems dating back as far as 1997. Learning from Past Post-Mortems” that details the most common mistakes that developers make as admitted in the articles, Gamasutra requires users who wish to publish articles on the website to work with the features director Christian Nutt, whether they have fleshed-out drafts, an outline, or a concept. The editorial staff offers help in shaping, polishing, and editing articles before publication, a broad range of topics can be selected given the audience, which consists of businesspeople, educators, and developers, both professional and aspiring. The articles are required to contain at least 1500 words, though the length tends to be 2500 to 3500 words. Gamasutra also requires a thirty-day exclusivity period from the date of publication, after which the writer is free to take the article elsewhere, users are also allowed to comment on articles, but there is a strict set of rules. Users are encouraged to post only constructive thoughts that add to the conversation, GameSetWatch is an alternative video game weblog and sister site of Gamasutra. com. It is dedicated to collecting curious links and media for offbeat and often ignored games from consoles old and new, as well as from the download, iOS. GameSetWatch was founded by Simon Carless in November 2005, GameSetWatch has remained up for readers but no new content has been posted since. The editors at the time Eric Caoili and Danny Cowan have taken different steps to help out at their sister sites, Cowan has gone to blog over at IndieGames. com and Caoili is at Gamasutra. IndieGames. com is Gamasutras sister site dedicated to reporting on indie games and it became the UBM TechWebs main method to deliver news about independent games after GameSetWatch closed. The IndieGames. com Podcast was started by Michael Rose and Tim in September 2010 and it is available to listen to online or download on the website or iTunes store. An episode is released every week with a guest indie developer hosting the podcast in addition to the two creators of the show, Tim was the independent owner and operator of the Independent Gaming Weblog which was shut down and sold to IndieGames. com in December 2007. Michael Rose is an editor and writer at IndieGames. com, the show has taken a hiatus since July 2012 and has no news of restarting as of yet. The interviews section of the site features interviews with indie game creators and developers, the interviewees answer a set of questions posed by the interviewer including questions regarding their inspirations and hardships. The page is split into three categories, desktop, console and mobile to organize the interviews by platform interests
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UBM plc
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UBM plc is a global business-to-business events organiser headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It has a history as a multinational media company. UBM is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE250 Index, the history of the companies that now make up UBM stretches back almost two hundred years. UBM businesses still publish many other titles that were launched in the 19th century, including Building magazine, launched in 1843 by Joseph Hansom, the company was founded in 1918 as United Newspapers by David Lloyd George to acquire the Daily Chronicle and Lloyds Weekly Newspaper. In 1929, the merged with Provincial Newspapers, an owner of regional papers in the north. The company continued for decades as a newspaper publisher, making acquisitions such as Yorkshire Post Newspapers in 1969. It acquired PR Newswire in 1982, in 1985, it bought Express Newspapers and continued to publish the Daily Express for some 15 years. It changed its name to United News & Media in 1995, sold its regional papers in 1998, in 2000, it sold the Daily Express to Richard Desmond and adopted the name of United Business Media. It went on to acquire Commonwealth Business Media for $152 million in 2006, in 2008, UBM moved its tax headquarters to Ireland, but in 2012, the company announced its intent to move its tax base back to the United Kingdom. In 2012, PA Group, the parent company of the Press Association, by 2015, UBM had rebranded itself as primarily focused on B2B events. Reflecting this,82 percent of its business in 2016 derived from events, MAI was part of a consortium which bid for the ITV south and south east area, which formed Meridian Broadcasting in 1991. In 1996, MAI merged with United Newspapers to form United News & Media, the resulting company owned the Daily Express newspaper, Meridian, Anglia, and a large shareholding in Yorkshire Tyne Tees Television, the owners of Yorkshire Television and Tyne Tees Television. The stake in Yorkshire Tyne Tees Television was sold to Granada, United News and Media later agreed to buy Scottish Televisions 20% stake in HTV and on 28 June 1997, HTV was taken over fully by UNM for £370 million. In 1999, plans emerged of a merger between UNM and rival Carlton, however these failed when it appeared that Meridian would have to be sold off as a condition of the deal. In 2005 UBM re-focused on two businesses, PR Newswire, a global news distribution business, and CMP, an international events, print. It disposed of NOP which was acquired by GfK for £383 million in 2005, in September 2006, NewBay Media acquired CMP Entertainment Media from United Business Media. On 1 July 2008, as part of a reorganisation of the structure of the Group, United Business Media Limited was created as a new holding company. UBML is UK-listed and incorporated in Jersey, in 2010 the principal holding company of the United Business Media group was organised into five operating segments, Events, TD & M, Data Services, Online and Print
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Eurogamer
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Eurogamer is a website and YouTube channel focused on video game news, reviews and other features. It is operated by Gamer Network Ltd. with headquarters in Brighton, East Sussex, the site primarily caters to a UK/Ireland audience, Gamer Network operates other sites using the Eurogamer brand that caters to other European countries. Most of its reviews are of European or PAL releases of the games, eurogamers current editor is Oli Welsh, who took over the role from Tom Bramwell in September 2014. The editor prior to Bramwell was Kristan Reed. biz editor Rob Fahey, Eurogamer founder Rupert Loman was interviewed in February 2007 by MCV magazine. He was also featured in the Sunday Telegraph on 19 August 2007, at the Games Media Awards, Eurogamer won the categories of Best Games Website – News, and Best Games Website – Reviews & Features in 2007. Deputy Editor Tom Bramwell won Best Writer in Specialist Digital Media, News editor Wesley Yin-Poole won Best News Writer in 2014. Rupert Loman was winner of Entrepreneur of the Year 2003 at the Sussex Business Awards and he was also selected as one of 30 Young Guns by Growing Business magazine in October 2008. At the Leipzig Games Convention in August 2006, Eurogamer launched their first non-English language site of the franchise, in April 2011, Eurogamer Netherlands and Eurogamer Belgium merged to form Eurogamer Benelux. Eurogamer Romania closed down in 2011, in November 2012, Eurogamer launched their first non-European site, Brasilgamer, and 2012–2013 also saw the launch of USgamer, Gamer Networks US flagship multi-format games website. Eurogamer has a site, GamesIndustry. biz, which reports on the global video games industry. In May 2008 the site launched the GamesIndustry. biz Network for industry professionals, Eurogamer has hosted the Digital Foundry channel since 2007. Digital Foundry evaluates video game hardware and software from a technical level, often comparing performances of the same game across different platforms
