Wednesday 18 May 2011

The seduction secrets of video game designers | Technology | The Observer

Video games, we have been led to believe, are about wasting time. It is a misunderstanding that players and game makers have railed against for 40 years. While movies and television are endlessly analysed and debated in the mainstream media, games are characterised as troubling, irresponsible or banal, the fatuous byproducts of the digital revolution.

But a growing number of theorists and designers disagree. This is, after all, an entertainment medium that worldwide makes $50bn a year, a medium in which an estimated one third of UK adults indulge. An emerging school of thought, drawing on cognitive science, psychology and sociology, suggests that our growing love of video games may actually have important things to tell us about our intrinsic desires and motivations.

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Thursday 5 May 2011

Opera Dragonfly v1.0 browser development and debugging tool » SitePoint

Definitely worth checking out the new Opera development tool.

Thankfully, every mainstream browser provides a set of development tools. You may use Firebug in Firefox, IE’s Developer Tools, the webkit inspector or Opera’s Dragonfly. However, you may be unaware that Dragonfly is a beta product. Like many developers, I used it now and again but found few compelling features to drag me away from Firebug. Until today.

May 5, 2011 marks the release of version 1.0 … and I’ve been converted! Dragonfly is amazing. You’ll be familiar with most of the features, but Dragonfly offers more tools, feels slicker and looks better than its competitors.

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous