Steve Anderson : End Game
Steve Anderson
The Video Store Guy
| The video game industry has gone from a mole hill to a mountain in no time flat, Chris DiMarco is your Sherpa as you endeavor to scale Mount “Everquest”

Longview IoT Boosts Energy and Wireless Efficiency

Some of the biggest challenges slowing down the adoption of IoT are security, efficient battery usage and optimized wireless communications.One company has...

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Hallmark's Simple, Inexpensive Way to Boost Customer Satisfaction

In an effort to boost margins, companies often push more users to automated solutions such as FAQs, chatbots, voice bots and anything...

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Huawei Places the World's First 5G VoNR Video Call

Huawei recently completed the world's first voice over NR (VoNR) call. The voice and video call service was made using two Huawei...

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IGEL Advances Future of Work

IGEL is a provider of a next-gen edge OS for cloud workspaces. The company’s software products include IGEL OS, IGEL UD Pocket (UDP) and Universal...

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Tata Communications and Cisco Collaborate on SD-WAN

Tata Communications and Cisco have extended their partnership to enable enterprises to transform their legacy network to a customized and secure multi-cloud...

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How to Win the 50-Year-Old China Trade War

Today and this week in-fact is historic - the left and right in the U.S. agree that we have a major trade...

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Extreme Elements Enables The Autonomous Enterprise

Extreme Networks just announced Extreme Elements which in-turn enables the autonomous network and subsequently the autonomous enterprise. In a dynamic webinar, Dan...

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Video Games & Television: Closer Than Ever

March 12, 2015

It wasn't so long ago we were all looking at the connection between "Defiance" the video game and television show with something like concern. After all, we knew that video game conversions of movies didn't work out so great, and the converse was just as sadly true. But there's been something of a push on of late, and it comes by combining a couple news stories together to get what may be a trend.

First, there's word of the new trailer for "Dead Rising: Watchtower," a movie that will be available for viewing on Crackle, Sony's generally lesser-known streaming video service, starting March 27. Featuring Jesse Metcalfe, Dennis Haysbert--otherwise known as "that guy with the voice from the insurance commercials"--and even Rob Riggle, this one focuses on what looks like an area where Zombrex suddenly stops working.

New Jersey Instructors Considering More Video Games in Classrooms

March 10, 2015

Video games in classrooms aren't technically a new idea, but they have been one somewhat limited in scope. While most 80s kids--and even some 90s kids--remember their time of "Oregon Trail" and the like, the idea of a wider-scale gaming approach in the classroom is tough to follow. But there are some considering it, particularly out in New Jersey, as related from a recent article in The Daily Targum.

Ph.D candidate and instructor Erica Lucci advanced the concept, noting that video games actually have the ability to teach in a wider scope than standard methods of textbooks and rote learning, and it's not so much the play that has Lucci's attention, but rather the designing of said games. Though the play can certainly help as well; just ask former first grade teacher Joel Levin, who created MinecraftEdu, a type of rebuild of Minecraft focused on helping students do research more capably.

Joel Burgess Talks Horse Armor, A Failure That Keeps Bethesda Going

March 9, 2015

It's easily one of the the lowest points of all downloadable content (DLC) points out there; more specifically, it's the Horse Armor found as part of Bethesda's "The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion." But recent word from Joel Burgess--Bethesda senior level designer--who had a hand in the development of horse armor recently talked about the DLC item in question, and noted that, while horse armor wasn't a great move overall, it meant greater moves to follow.

Burgess offered up some remarks while at the Game Developers conference, and talked about how the "Elder Scrolls" series has always been known for its ability to mod the games, going as far back as 1996 and the release of "Daggerfall". Indeed, Burgess pointed out that "Morrowind" came with an editor built right in in a second disc on the release, so modding was clearly important. That philosophy carried on into the release of DLC in general, which was a comparatively new concept in the console market that only really started with the last generation of consoles.

So when the idea came for DLC for 'Oblivion', no one was really all that sure what to put into play; sure, some games were doing gun packs or cash packs, but with Bethesda, it was whole new branches of gameplay like "Shivering Isles" and "Knights of the Nine," both excellent examples of add-ons that provided more story for the user's dollar. But horse armor came before all that, and offered up an example of what people didn't want in a field where no one was really all that sure of what to offer up.



Some Real Surprises in Xbox One Gaming to Come

March 5, 2015

While scanning the news feeds of late for something interesting to talk about, an odd trend developed in terms of future releases, particularly for the Xbox One. Specifically, there were a lot of titles coming up, and I was downright shocked at the sheer array of titles on hand here. These weren't just simple titles, either, but some really impressive stuff, and some things I didn't even expect to see coming.

First was the revelation that a lot of indie titles—particularly “Shovel Knight”--were poised to come out in rapid fashion. While some of these were comparative unknowns, some—like “Shovel Knight” and perennial favorite “Mighty No. 9”--were much bigger names just waiting for a shot at our systems. While there wasn't a lot of word in terms of release dates for these impressive little nuggets, the fact that they were recently getting shown off at the Game Developers Conference suggested that arrival would likely be sooner than expected.

But that was just the start.



World of Warcraft Gold Soon to Mean Something

March 4, 2015

Long ago, I was a World of Warcraft player, back even before the days of the Lich King. I had a level 44 dwarf hunter, I believe it was, who went by the name of Glongg, and roamed the fields and countrysides with his bear, Grylls. No one ever thought that was funny, a fact that to this day makes me at least a little sad. But eventually, I left the World of Warcraft life behind when I got to thinking that the game was little more than a part-time job that not only wasn't I paid to do, but also had to pay for the privilege of doing in the first place. However, Blizzard may have come across a clever idea that improves the perspective a bit: letting people pay for their subscriptions with the gold they earn in the game itself.

More specifically, users will be able to buy what's known as the WoW Token, a system that can be purchased using either in-game or real money, and then in turn can be used to cover subscription costs.

Valve's First VR Game: Job Simulator?

March 3, 2015

...you know, I left “World of Warcraft” when it became too much like a part-time job that no one paid me to do, so why in the world would Valve bring out its first game for its new VR system, a co-development with HTC known as the Vive, and call it “Job Simulator”? The answer might just surprise you.

“Job Simulator,” developed in part by the folks at Owlchemy Labs, has a startling premise: if you've been reading your “Forbes” or other business mags lately, you might well be familiar with the idea that robots might one day, in the grand words of “South Park”, “terk” our “jerbs”. Translated into more familiar English, that means “they took our jobs”. Hit YouTube up and you'll see a host of videos on the topic, many funny, and some taking way too much time.

Why Watch E-Sports? The Answer Might Surprise You

March 2, 2015

The e-sports phenomenon has been growing by leaps and bounds, and though we haven't heard too much about it lately, it's still carrying on, offering up a new and unique experience in gaming. But why do people turn to e-sports? That's a question Eventbrite wanted an answer to, and as such, it went out to get said answer with a survey. What it discovered, meanwhile, might prove a bigger surprise than expected.

The biggest reason that e-sports fans turned to e-sports, according to the Eventbrite study, was on the strength of the community.

Day One Game Updates Annoy More Than Expected

February 26, 2015

For the longest time, one of the great things about console gaming was that a game was ready to go, out of the box, and would continue to be so until there was some kind of update. New content, a few fixes, things like that; for the most part, these were welcome, and they didn't really slow down the game much. But these days, we're seeing a lot more day one updates going out, and that's starting to hamper a lot of people's gaming fun. It's getting sufficiently bad that, according to reports, even Sony's not happy about it.

Day one updates are nothing new.

Valve Planning to Join VR Race With SteamVR?

February 25, 2015

We've heard a lot coming out of the virtual reality (VR) stakes of late, with Facebook's Oculus entry taking up a lot of the bandwidth and a host of other competitors from Google to Samsung and beyond looking to get a slice of this long-pent-up market. Now, there's one more product looking to step in, and it's one that should make Facebook terrified, not to mention the rest of the field: Valve's SteamVR.

The new reports suggest that Valve will be showing off the SteamVR system at the upcoming Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, which is said to be a departure from earlier reports in which Valve insisted that no such new hardware was in the works. Of course, given that Valve was holding virtual reality demonstrations as it was back at the Steam Dev Days show in January 2014, it wasn't exactly out of line to suggest that Valve had something up its collective sleeve.

But the actual release of the product is said to be something of a mixed bag in its current form, with the system working spectacularly well by some accounts, but being entirely too bulky to be of much use. The system reportedly requires a full-room setup to produce the fullest effects, and that may well be a pretty big barrier to entry for a lot of users.

Naturally, this is still early-stage stuff; no one else in the market has much risk of Valve taking first-mover advantage and getting its system on shelves first.





Online Cross Platform Gaming: Is It Time?

February 24, 2015

So while looking around for news recently, I spotted a bit that really caught my attention out at IGN. Essentially, it was an opinion piece calling for the removal of the various borders that separate gamers, and allow players who own the same game on different systems to actually play against—or with, depending—each other. That's been enough for some to suggest that it's time to break down those barriers, regardless of the difficulty inherent in such a task.

Even as the IGN post called for the demolition of such barriers, it seemed to quickly recognize just how difficult such a thing would be to actually accomplish. We all know that online gaming is a rapidly growing phenomenon, and one that isn't likely to lose ground any time soon.

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