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Cow Clicker
''Cow Clicker'' is an incremental social network game on Facebook developed by video game researcher Ian Bogost. The game serves as a deconstructive satire of social games. The goal of the game is to earn "clicks" by clicking on a sprite of a cow every six hours. The addition of friends' cows to the player's pasture allows the user to also receive "clicks" whenever the player's cow is clicked. A premium currency known as "Mooney" allows the user to purchase different cow designs and skip the six-hour interval between clicks. In the wake of a controversial speech by Zynga's president at the Game Developers Choice Awards in 2010, Bogost developed ''Cow Clicker'' for a presentation at a New York University seminar on social gaming in July 2010. The game was created to demonstrate what Bogost felt were the most commonly abused mechanics of social games, such as the promotion of social interaction and monetization rather than the artistic aspects of the medium. As the game un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ian Bogost
Ian Bogost is an American academic and video game designer, most known for the game ''Cow Clicker''. He holds a joint professorship at Washington University as director and professor of the Film and Media Studies program in Arts & Sciences and the McKelvey School of Engineering. He previously held a joint professorship in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication and in Interactive Computing in the College of Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he was the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts Distinguished Chair in Media Studies. He is the author of ''Alien Phenomenology or What It's Like to be a Thing'' and ''Unit Operations: An Approach to Videogame Criticism'' and ''Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames'' and the co-author of '' Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System'' and ''Newsgames: Journalism at Play''. His Atari 2600 game, ''A Slow Year'', won two awards, Vanguard and Virtuoso, at IndieCade 2010. Bogost has released m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Educational Software
Educational software is a term used for any computer software which is made for an educational purpose. It encompasses different ranges from language learning software to classroom management software to reference software. The purpose of all this software is to make some part of education more effective and efficient. History 1946s–1970s The use of computer hardware and software in education and training dates to the early 1940s, when American researchers developed flight simulators which used analog computers to generate simulated onboard instrument data. One such system was the type19 synthetic radar trainer, built in 1943. From these early attempts in the WWII era through the mid-1970s, educational software was directly tied to the hardware, on which it ran. Pioneering educational computer systems in this era included the PLATO system (1960), developed at the University of Illinois, and TICCIT (1969). In 1963, IBM had established a partnership with Stanford University's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cookie Clicker
''Cookie Clicker'' is an incremental game created by French programmer Julien "Orteil" Thiennot in 2013. The user initially clicks on a big cookie on the screen, earning a single cookie per click. They can then spend their earned cookies upon purchasing assets such as "cursors" and other "buildings" that automatically produce cookies. Upgrades are also available and can improve the efficiency of clicks and buildings, among many other mechanics that allow the user to earn cookies in different ways. Though the game has no ending, it has hundreds of achievements, and users may aim to reach milestone numbers of cookies. The game has a dedicated fanbase. Though the original version was coded in one night, ''Cookie Clicker'' is regularly updated. It has been widely described as addictive, and has been credited with playing a role in the emergence of idle gaming. Gameplay At first, the player clicks on a large cookie on the far left side of the screen, earning one cookie per click. Wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virtual Goods
Virtual goods are non-physical objects and money purchased for use in online communities or online games. Digital goods, on the other hand, may be a broader category including digital books, music, and movies. Virtual goods are intangible by definition. Including digital giftsSales of virtual goods boom in US news.bbc.co.uk, 10:32 GMT, Thursday, 22 October 2009 and digital clothing for avatars, virtual goods may be classified as services instead of and are usua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Operant Conditioning Chamber
An operant conditioning chamber (also known as a Skinner box) is a laboratory apparatus used to study animal behavior. The operant conditioning chamber was created by B. F. Skinner while he was a graduate student at Harvard University. The chamber can be used to study both operant conditioning and classical conditioning. Skinner created the operant conditioning chamber as a variation of the puzzle box originally created by Edward Thorndike. While Skinner's early studies were done using rats, he later moved on to study pigeons. The operant conditioning chamber may be used to observe or manipulate behaviour. An animal is placed in the box where it must learn to activate levers or respond to light or sound stimuli for reward. The reward may be food or the removal of noxious stimuli such as a loud alarm. The chamber is used to test specific hypotheses in a controlled setting. Name Skinner was noted to have expressed his distaste of becoming an eponym. It is believed that Cla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laboratory Rat
A laboratory rat or lab rat is a brown rat of the subspecies '' Rattus norvegicus domestica'' which is bred and kept for scientific research. While less commonly used for research than mice (see laboratory mouse), rats have served as an important animal model for research in psychology and biomedical science. Origins In 18th century Europe, wild brown rats ran rampant and this infestation fueled the industry of rat-catching. Rat-catchers would not only make money by trapping the rodents, but also by selling them for food or, more commonly, for rat-baiting. Rat-baiting was a popular sport, which involved filling a pit with rats and timing how long it took for a terrier to kill them all. Over time, breeding the rats for these contests may have produced variations in color, notably the albino and hooded varieties. The first time one of these albino mutants was brought into a laboratory for a study was in 1828 for an experiment on fasting. Over the next 30 years, rats were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indie Game
An indie game, short for independent video game, is a video game typically created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A) games. However, the "indie" term may apply to other scenarios where the development of the game has some measure of independence from a publisher even if a publisher helps fund and distribute a game, such as creative freedom. Because of their independence and freedom to develop, indie games often focus on innovation, experimental gameplay, and taking risks not usually afforded in AAA games, and may explore the medium to produce unique experiences in art games. Indie games tend to be sold through digital distribution channels rather than at retail due to lack of publisher support. The term is synonymous with that of independent music or independent film in those respective mediums. Indie game development bore out from the same concepts of amateu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Freemium
Freemium, a portmanteau of the words "free" and "premium," is a pricing strategy by which a basic product or service is provided free of charge, but money (a premium) is charged for additional features, services, or virtual (online) or physical (offline) goods that expand the functionality of the free version of the software. This business model has been used in the software industry since the 1980s. A subset of this model used by the video game industry is called free-to-play. Origin The business model has been in use for software since the 1980s. The term ''freemium'' to describe this model appears to have been created only much later, in response to a 2006 blog post by venture capitalist Fred Wilson summarizing the model:Give your service away for free, possibly ad supported but maybe not, acquire a lot of customers very efficiently through word of mouth, referral networks, organic search marketing, etc., then offer premium-priced value-added services or an enhanced versio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
FarmVille
''FarmVille'' is a series of agriculture-simulation social network game developed and published by Zynga in 2009. It is similar to '' Happy Farm'' and ''Farm Town''. Its gameplay involves various aspects of farmland management, such as plowing land, planting, growing, and harvesting crops, harvesting trees and raising livestock. The sequels ''FarmVille 2'' and ''FarmVille 3'' were released in September 2012 and November 2021. The game was available as an Adobe Flash application via the social networking website Facebook and Microsoft's MSN Games. It was previously available as a mobile app for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad for a brief period in 2010. The game was free-to-play; however, to progress quickly within the game, players are encouraged to spend ''Farm Cash'' (in ''FarmVille'') or ''Farm Bucks'' (in ''FarmVille 2''), which are purchasable with real-world currency. ''FarmVille'' was thus one of the first major freemium games. After launching on Facebook in 2009 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Game Developers Conference
The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is an annual conference for video game developers. The event includes an expo, networking events, and awards shows like the Game Developers Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival, and a variety of tutorials, lectures, and roundtables by industry professionals on game-related topics covering programming, design, audio, production, business and management, and visual arts. History 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, and Carol and Ivan Manley. 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, Sara Reeder, Dave Menconi, Jeff Johannigman, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edge (magazine)
''Edge'' is a multi-format video game magazine published by Future plc. It is a UK-based magazine and publishes 13 issues annually. The magazine was launched by Steve Jarratt. It has also released foreign editions in Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. History The magazine was launched in October 1993 by Steve Jarratt, a long-time video games journalist who has launched several other magazines for Future. The artwork for the cover of the magazine's 100th issue was specially provided by Shigeru Miyamoto. The 200th issue was released in March 2009 with 200 different covers, each commemorating a single game; 199 variants were in general circulation, and one was exclusive to subscribers. Only 200 magazines were printed with each cover, sufficient to more than satisfy ''Edge''s circulation of 28,898. In October 2003, the then-editor of ''Edge'', João Diniz-Sanches, left the magazine along with deputy editor David McCarthy and other staff writers. After the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Facebook Credits
Facebook Credits was a virtual currency that enabled people to purchase items in games and non-gaming applications on the Facebook Platform. One U.S. dollar was the equivalent of 10 Facebook Credits. Facebook Credits were available in 15 currencies including U.S. dollars, pound sterling, euros, and Danish kroner. Facebook was hoping eventually to expand Credits into a micropayment system open to any Facebook application, whether a game or a media company application."Facebook Hopes Credits Make Dollars." The New York Times. Retrieved January 5, 2011. Facebook deprecated Credits in favour of users' local currencies. Facebook Credits went into its alpha stage in May ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
