Visit ‘GTA V’s’ Blaine County

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Grand Theft Auto V‘s Blaine County will have lots of outdoor and rural activities, along with a sending up of America’s rural culture in classic style. Also included are bonus Vinewood Stars and Opportunity For The Upwardly Mobile trailers.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=CAPeinIvs6U

https://youtube.com/watch?v=G7JJ3eewZi4

https://youtube.com/watch?v=q7zdnYg-XY4

Intel Mulling Budget Tablets

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The company’s new CEO, Brian Krzanich, has stated in his recent strategy  that the company is looking to put Intel chips inside tablet computers that will cost less than $100. Better yet, he’s looking to launch this strategy in time for this holiday season.

Companies have created reasonably cheap – but effective – technology for a similar price, but they’re usually by no-name manufacturers with no marketing backing. Considering that Datawind, makers of the Aakash 2 tablet, manage to make theirs for $50, Intel could easily reach the $100 price point. At least, that’s what Datawind’s CEO, Suneet Tuli, thinks about the business move.

When the tablets do arrive, they’ll likely be more of the smaller size, like the 7-inch models that have been somewhat popular on the market. It’ll be interesting to see if Intel can pull it off – and more importantly, how.

Source: QZ

Stay Positive, Win Matches

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Over the past few years, we’ve seen a few examples of teams behaving badly when it comes to eSports, giving off an attitude and vocally taunting their opponents. However, this may not be a sound strategy, as Riot Games has recently pointed out in a video.

In this nearly three-minute clip, Riot Games explains how positivity amongst team members is more productive than resorting to “trash talk.” “Sportsmanlike players win over 1.7 million more games than average players every day,” the narrator explains. When a team doesn’t have to deal with someone that’s “raging” or sporting an attitude, they’re likely to win an average of 54 percent of their games, compared to those that do sport attitude. Their number sits lower, at 46 percent.

The video also stated that there’s “a direct correlation between a team’s behavior and the gold they are capable of earning in a match.” This gold can be earned through killing enemies and taking down turrets, so obviously concentration – more on the game and less on gloating – can go a long way.

League of Legends is available now for PC.

Source: Ars Technica

 

The Web Goes Anime

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Ever wonder what popular websites would look like if they were redesigned as people Or, for that matter, anime-style characters Thanks to DeviantArt artist Jon-Lock, now you can.

The talented artist has managed to take companies like Chrome, Firefox, Instagram and other companies and personify them with sweet-looking futuristic style characters. A number of each site’s features have managed to make it into the character designs, which are really quite awesome.

We’ve included a few for you to take a gander at below.

Source: Kotaku

 

 

 

Scan The Room With Your iPad

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If you’ve been looking for a way to scan rooms, objects and more, your options are quite limited and expensive at the moment. That could change, though, thanks to the Structure Sensor.

A company called Occipital has launched a new KickStarter project for this 3D sensor, which works directly with Apple’s iPad line. Using it, “you can walk around the world and instantly capture it in a digital form,” according to the listing. “This means you can capture 3D maps of indoor spaces and have every measurement in your pocket. You can instantly capture 3D models of objects and people for import into CAD and for 3D printing. You can play mind-blowing augmented reality games where the real world is your gaming world.”

Our camera is actually axially aligned with the built-in camera,” said Jeff Powers, the founder of Occipital. “That’s important because we’re fusing the data from those two sensors. We’re also fusing the gyro and accelerometer that’s on board. In the iPad, you kind of have the rest of the story, but it was missing this active 3D sensing.”

This project should have no problem taking off. With 44 days still to go on the Kickstarter project, it’s already reached nearly double its initial goal, with over $196,000 raised and climbing. No doubt that Occipital will put those extra funds to good use, to make sure this scanner is top-of-the-line.

There’s no word on a launch date for the device, but we should know more in 2014.

Source: Kickstarter

 

Class Up That Game Library

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Gamers that aren’t too fond of particular game cover designs can now do something about it – by encasing them in special book covers that give them more of an artistic, book-like quality.

A New York-based Etsy shop run by JamesBit is offering a number of custom video game covers that look like books, complete with the name of the game title, the publisher, and a JamesBit books logo. They look good for any given game library, and vary in colors depending on what type of content the game possesses.

For instance, with Bioshock, it’s a bit grey-ish, indicating the dreary world you have to run through in the game. Red Dead Redemption, however, has a bright red cover resembling a bit of the Wild West.

You can order these covers for $6 apiece. Visit the store at the link below. They’re sold out at the moment, but more will be in stock soon.

Source: Etsy

 

This Week’s [a]list Jobs – September 18

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“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” — Confucius

This week’s [a]list jobs:

Zynga – Vice President of Global Brand Marketing, San Francisco

Microsoft Studios, Xbox – Creative Director, Los Angeles

Future US –  Executive Editor of Official Xbox Magazine, South San Francisco

[a]list daily is now your source for the hottest job openings for senior management and marketing in games, entertainment and social media. Check here every Wednesday for the latest openings. To see last week’s [a]list jobs click here.

Houser On ‘GTA’

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Grand Theft Auto V is set to take the gaming world by storm, with analysts predicting sales in excess of 20 million copies by the end of the year. With a combined marketing and development budget reportedly reaching $250 million — double that of 2008’s GTA IV — Rockstar is once again pushing the boundaries between Hollywood and interactive open world storytelling.

On the heels of celebrating the 10th Anniversary of GTA III (which is now available on tablets) and five years after the launch of GTA IV; Dan Houser, vice president of creative at Rockstar Games, looks back on the game franchise that has sold a reported 135 million copies to date in this exclusive interview.

What were your goals when transitioning GTA into a 3D open world game in 2002?

What we really always wanted to stand for is high quality games that are appealing and are not based on focused testing. Focus testing in 1999/2000 would never have predicted that a 3D gangster game was going to blow up. Then having done that, no amount of focus testing would say do it in the ’80s. So doing stuff that is true to yourself, as opposed to what the market thinks it wants, that’s definitely something that we’ve always done and hopefully other people have followed suit.

The Grand Theft Auto franchise has been lauded for its cinematic presentation. What do you think game developers can learn from Hollywood?

In general, good movies make more money than bad movies and that’s becoming more and more true of games, as well. There’s a general movement towards quality. Where Hollywood has become unstuck is when they haven’t focused on product quality. That’s something that happens in games, when they’re just trying to fill a hole and make a game because they think there’s an audience for it. That’s probably true of pop music and every other commercial medium, as well. Movies have intrinsic glamor to them that games lack because they don’t have stars, but that’s not something that games necessarily need. I think movies are brilliant at finding their own place in the world, but games are doing the same thing.

Games are 35 years old and about where cinema was at about 1920. The speed of evolution between 1895 and 1920 in the movie industry was really nearly as rapid as it’s been in games between 1975 and today. But it’s been insane how quickly games are evolving. Games will hopefully continue to evolve from here and continue to find their place in the world. But movies differentiate themselves from recorded music and books, and games should do the same from movies. 

What are your thoughts about the impact that Grand Theft Auto franchise has had on the convergence of music and video games?

We were part of a continuum. We definitely did our own thing creatively. We always thought music should be more than just badly written theme music. You began to see that with the birth of Playstation 1 with Wipeout, which was the first game that really pushed top quality pop music in the UK. That was huge. We wanted music that was to our own tastes and to our own style. We did experiments with radio stations on the earlier GTAs. With GTA III you had this move to DVD and suddenly you were able to create a whole soundtrack to people. The impact has been to show people that music can be more than just pop hits.

You can really find a way of bringing a world to life and introducing what unfortunately now is audiences a bit younger than us in some ways. We’re now in our late 30s and you can introduce 20-year-olds to some amazing music they’ve not heard of. When you look at some of the songs on our soundtrack on YouTube, you see comments from people saying they first heard it in our game. It’s a way that younger guys are consuming music for the first time.

Who’s behind the music in the GTA games?

That’s headed by Sam (Houser), who’s obsessed with music and lovingly works on every single track that goes in there. He and Craig Conner, who’s been the GTA music guy since ’97, will bicker about individual tracks on radio stations constantly. They’re both obsessed with it. It’s an enormous labor of love for us to do it. Music helps create this world that people are immersed in. With all of this stuff, hopefully, we’re showing that games are powerful and potentially important and interesting.

Rockstar released a boxed CD set for GTA: San Andreas. How have you seen video game music evolve since then?

I miss CDs. The first time we did that was the end of 2002. That was right in the heart of Napster and we were really starting to see the death of sold music. It was never a great money winner for us because of the time and the movement that was happening. I think a few years earlier it would have been a different story. Soundtracks at that point were just not selling, and haven’t since, because people just take the tracks they want from other places. We looked upon that not as a great piece of ancillary business, but a way of putting things that we loved into people’s hands. It was a way of exposing them to music. In some ways, now it’s even easier because you simply have to put up a play list on iTunes and they can get a hold of music that way. For those that want it, there’s no great risk to us. I don’t think we’re going to figure out the mysteries of the music business. Thankfully, it’s not our job to. But where games remain powerful to the music business is as a way of exposing the audience to a song or an artist or a composer.

How have you seen the game industry evolve over the past decade?

Since really PS2 and Xbox 1, anecdotally, I’ve just heard more and more stories of, “My dad is retired and he’s started playing 360, can you get him a copy of GTA early” There are more people playing Facebook games now. The audience has been gradually expanding. One of the things we wanted to try and do — and we did to some extent — is reach out to some older audience with LA Noire and go, “Hey, this game is a little bit slower. It’s definitely historically interesting. It’s more like interactive TV shows. It’s not twitch-based like some of those games. You might have a go with it and see what you think.” With content like that, you’re always trying to find a way of reaching different audiences. And even with the action games, we’re trying to constantly make them easier to play, and put different difficulty levels in them so the barely-skilled 18 year old with very short nerve endings can play at the hardest level possible. And those of us who are more afraid or whatever to begin with can play on the easiest level. The games are hopefully getting good enough as pure adventures, and they’re interesting enough to play, that it’s not just about shooting anymore.

GE ‘Brilliant Machines’

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GE is keen to emphasize how they’re building the infrastructure of tomorrow, and they’re doing it with these ads that have references to (and the original actors from) Back to the Future, Knight Rider, and The Matrix. We’re particularly fond of the one with Agent Smith and its clever tie-ins with both the theme of a connected hospital and references to the Matrix itself.