Interactivity + Web Media

This week's lecture was particularly interesting, because an avid web media user and gamer, the content of the lecture was particularly intriguing. Here are three concepts that particularly stood out to me:

1) Gamer demographics
I was really surprised by some of the statistics related to gaming. I never would have guessed that the average game purchaser is 39 years old, but thinking about it, it kind of makes sense; if the statistic is related specifically to the purchaser, parents are usually the ones who buy games for their kids. Which, as long as middle-aged parents aren't buying Grand Theft Auto for their 10-year-olds, is reasonable.

2) Alternate Reality Games
I'm a little unsure as to whether or not The Sims counts as an ARG. I don't think it does, but from the moment ARGs were mentioned in lecture I was pondering this for the rest of the session. Technically it does take place in an alternate world, but this world shuts down when the player signs off. Plus, there aren't really plot-based puzzles, and it doesn't technically take place in real time. A bit of a shame, really, since I've been an avid Sims gamer for over five years. Perhaps a slightly closer comparison could be made with the Nintendo title, Animal Crossing, which actually does run in real time and continues to progress even when the player isn't gaming. I haven't played the game in years but I think I still have the GameCube disc, so it might be interesting to pull it out and see what's happened in the world of the game since I last played...

3) HTML
Before the lecture, I understood what HTML was and had a basic knowledge of how it works, thanks to my experience on fan pages and message boards. However, I didn't really have a thorough knowledge - not to say that I do now all of a sudden, but I now realize there's more to learn. Essentially, my ability to code HTML doesn't reach much further than embedding content, such as pictures and YouTube videos, as well as basic things like bold, italics and underline. I learned, in very basic terms, how to code a website in high school through Dreamweaver, but clearly there is a lot more to know.