Gaming and Culture

I'll be the first to admit that I'm a hardcore gamer. I play games as often as possible. But for the most part, I play those games on consoles. But over the past couple days, I've started playing some Twitter-based games on the Web. Many of them aren't very good, but I found three titles that I really enjoyed playing.

Because of that, I've decided to share those with you in this roundup. Each title is offered on its own site, but requires your Twitter credentials to work. Whenever you achieve things within a game, it notifies your Twitter followers. The experience is fantastic. Let's check them out.

Twitter-based gaming

140 Mafia: If you're a fan of "The Godfather," you might be attracted to 140 Mafia. Although it doesn't follow that movie closely, it does a great job of keeping you engaged in the title.

When you sign up for 140 Mafia, the game gives you the option of choosing what can be sent to your followers from the title and what cannot. I liked having that option. From there, you find out that you've been asked by "The Godfather" to start your own mafia crime family. You need to recruit other Twitter users into your family, while engaging in criminal activities to build your coffers and notoriety.

140 Mafia determines your effectiveness based on your attack ability, your energy, your ability to defend yourself, and a few other metrics. To build those up, you'll need to go on missions that involve illegal activities, like burglary or theft. The point of the game is to build a big, strong mafia family that you can control. It's no simple task and it will take a while. I should also note that the more followers you have, the greater the chances that you'll be able to succeed at this game, since a key component is to recruit other Twitter users.

Overall, 140 Mafia is a really fun game. It won't get your blood pumping like Grand Theft Auto, but it should help you pass the time.

140 Mafia allows you to create a mafia family and run it.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 has some inspiration from Twitter.

(Credit: infinity Ward)

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 might have been designed by a capable team of Infinity Ward developers, but the company had some help: Twitter followers.

Infinity Ward Community Manager Robert Bowling told Develop Online in a recent interview that during the development of the highly-anticipated release, the developer called on Twitter users for help.

"During development, if we are sitting in a design meeting and we are arguing about something, no matter what it is, I can just turn to what is now 60,000 people and post the same question," Bowling told game developer news site Develop Online. "'Do we think players will like this?' well why don't we ask 60,000 of them and get a good representation of what we think they may like?"

But it was the next statement that might cause gamers participating in social networking to rejoice. Bowling told site that Twitter was "fantastic throughout development" and he "would recommend many, many more people adapted that into their design schedule."

Bowling also said that Infinity Ward didn't ignore any responses to its design questions. He said that developers "listened to all" of the suggestions, but filtered out those that didn't match the company's "design philosophy." Suggestions that asked for more gore, for example, ran against the company's design philosophy, Bowling said.

Regardless of whether or not Infinity Ward incorporated every idea into Modern Warfare 2, Bowling told the publication that now more than ever, gamers are getting closer to the development process.

"The average gamer is so much closer to the people who make the games than they ever were before," he told the publication. "And as a result of that they are so much more developer-aware. No longer is it an Activision game, but an Infinity Ward game, or a Treyarch game or a Bungie game. And gamers know where to go to offer their feedback."

Oh, how things have changed. When I was younger, I sent several snail-mail letters to developers asking for design tweaks in some of my favorite franchises. I never heard back. And it seemed that my plea had fallen on deaf ears.

Today, things are different. The developers of one of the most highly anticipated games to be released in 2009 were listening to gamer suggestions on a social network? Amazing. Let's hope for more of it.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft was expected to release Twitter, Facebook, and Last.fm apps for the Xbox 360 as part of a system software update that went out back in August. It was decided that the apps should be delayed for a fall release, but CNET got a sneak peek of the apps on Wednesday from Ron Pessner, Microsoft's general manager of games for Windows Live.

The company is still mum on an exact release, despite marketing materials on the U.K. Xbox.com site briefly pointing to a November 17 debut. Pessner confirmed that the new apps were indeed set for November release, but he could not provide a hard date. In the meantime the company is releasing a public preview ahead of time for a select group of users who sign up to be a part of the beta test (you can sign up here).

What we saw of the three apps was impressive but in many ways extremely limited compared with their desktop counterparts. Microsoft has had to shoehorn the three Web apps into a system with a control scheme that does not implement a mouse, keyboard, or Web browser. Instead, all three make use of the Xbox 360 controller and the on-screen keyboard, or an attached USB keyboard (or Microsoft Chat Pad accessory which you can buy for $30).

This lack of the usual top-to-bottom controls found on each service's Web sites changes each experience considerably from what users are familiar with on their computers and mobile devices. This is made even more noticeable by the fact that the Xbox 360 still does not have a built-in Web browser. Never before has this been an issue, but stop and think for a second: are Twitter and Facebook as useful, or as interesting if you can't click on any of the links? We don't think so.

That said, there are some definite things to look forward to when the software update drops next month. Read our early impressions after the jump.

If you have been trying to tweet Michael Jackson over the last few weeks without even a squeak of success, might I sing you a song of hope?

A remarkably forward-thinking psychic has decided to hold a seance on Twitter. A "Tweance," if you will.

According to the Sun newspaper, Jayne Wallace, who claims to have been a psychic since she was (at least) 7 years old, will be available to every member of the world's tweeting population on October 30, between 10 a.m. and noon British Miserable Autumn Time (that's 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. PT).

Your rapt attention span and your rapid powers of cogitation will have noted that the date and time enjoy a chilling proximity to Halloween, the night when many dead people may rise from the grave and dance in unison to Michael Jackson's "Thriller."

Does he love Guitar Hero 5? Ask him.

(Credit: CC J Deamer/Flickr)

You have the chance, on this suspiciously auspicious Halloween eve, of picking a deceased star and a question you would like to ask that person, then waiting for your reply from on high--or, who knows, perhaps even from the infernal below.

You will be excited to the point of cardiac incarceration to hear that the Tweance's Twitter page is already active. Be ready with a question the whole world will want answered.

Perhaps you would like to discover whether Guitar Hero 5 makes Kurt Cobain, well, turn over in his grave. Or whether Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy have philosophical disagreements.

Perhaps you might want a TwitPic submission of a smiling James Dean or a confirmation of your suspicion that Che Guevara is hanging with a rather conservative crowd these days.

Or you could be one of those strange people who wonders whether John Lennon and Florence Nightingale might occasionally make out when the afterlife authorities aren't looking.

Whatever your feelings about those who have famously left us, the Tweance is unquestionably your chance to confront your deepest curiosities.

Now that Halloween is reaching its socially networked nirvana, history may now enjoy a radical revision.

Social networking is on the rise, both on and off the job, leaving companies uncertain how to monitor their use by employees, reports new survey.

More than 50 percent of companies questioned said they have no policy to address the use of social networking by employees outside the workplace, according to a survey released Wednesday by the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics and the Health Care Compliance Association.

Typically, companies shy away from restricting an employee's actions off the job. But businesses are concerned about employees who use social networking and reveal private details or post inappropriate pictures that could embarrass the company.

Some organizations, such as the U.S. Marines, have already banned their recruits from using Facebook and Twitter. But the survey found that many businesses aren't sure what to do to restrict or monitor such usage.

Of the companies questioned in the survey, 34 percent said they have a general employee policy that addresses all online activity, including the use of social networking, both on and off the job. Only 10 percent said they have a policy specifically geared toward social networks.

(Credit: Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics)

More than half of the individuals said their company has no active system to monitor employees using social-networking sites. Around 32 percent said their company acts only when an issue is discovered.

(Credit: Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics)

Of all those surveyed, 24 percent said an employee in their company had been disciplined for inappropriate behavior on a social network, while 37 percent did not know. The percentage was higher in the nonprofit sector, noted the survey, with 33 percent reporting an employee incident versus only 13 percent in the for-profit sector.

"Business clearly hasn't caught up with what its employees are doing online," said Roy Snell, CEO of the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics. "The risks are twofold. First there remains the business risk of employees doing things online that may reflect badly on the company. The second is that, as business develops policies and procedures in this area, there are going to be a lot of people finding that what they have long done is no longer acceptable at work. During the adjustment period there is likely to be a great deal of friction created."

To conduct the survey in late August, the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics and the Health Care Compliance compiled responses from 798 people in both profit and nonprofit organizations, as well as government agencies.

Technical problems have been plaguing Xbox.com on Thursday morning, affecting users' account management and access to the Xbox Marketplace.

According to the official Xbox Live status page, "Users may experience difficulties with account recovery, account management, Marketplace functions, and/or making purchases. We are aware of the problem and (are) working to resolve the technical issues."

And on Twitter, Xbox Live's director of programming, Larry Hryb (otherwise known as Major Nelson) has been posting updates.

Larry Hryb, director of Xbox Live programming, twittered on Thursday that there are ongoing problems with Xbox.com and Xbox Live billing.

(Credit: Twitter)

"As some of you may already be aware, we've been having billing issues for the last few hours," Major Nelson tweeted. "This may impact your ability to manage your account, buy points, use existing points, redeem tokens, and other similar actions."

He added, "We're actively engaged with the billing team on resolving this."

And elsewhere on Twitter, many people are reporting the problems. Their comments range from Twitter user weclock's complaint, "Is there someplace where I can check on the status of the Xbox Live servers? I can't reach Xbox.com or Xbox Live" to user iheartrobots' commiserating, "Glad to know I'm not the only one that can't get onto Xbox.com."

Microsoft did not have an immediate corporate comment.

It sounds, however, as if the company is well aware of the issues and will most likely have them resolved before too many players get overly frustrated at not being able to get their "Halo" on.

CNET News reporter Daniel Terdiman wearing a bowler hat in Austin, Texas, during the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) festival. His chapeau was a dead ringer for one being worn around town by players in a project called 'The hat game.'

(Credit: Chris Taylor)

AUSTIN, Texas--"Is that the hat, Mr. Terdiman?"

My inquisitor was Alice Taylor, a prominent British video game journalist and, like me, an attendee at the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) festival here this week. But the bowler Taylor--whom I know through professional and social circles--had spotted on my head and was asking me about was most definitely not the hat she thought it was.

And she was hardly the only one seeing this black chapeau resting atop my dome and thinking that it was something other than a stylish headpiece. In fact, all day Monday, strangers and friends alike had been coming up to me after spying it on my head and asking me about it.

"Excuse me, sir, but I do believe you have my hat," one eager forty or fiftysomething SXSW male volunteer with salt-and-pepper hair had rushed over to say to me in the halls of the Austin Convention Center earlier that day.

"No, I don't," I told him confidently. After all, I knew for a fact that my bowler actually belonged to my friend Chris, a local, who had lent it to me for the day. After a moment of the gentleman looking confused, a group of his fellow volunteers burst out laughing, and one woman said to me, "You're going to get asked that a lot."

Indeed. And that's just exactly what I had planned.

It turns out that an outfit called Arts Council England had sponsored a group of UK companies to come to SXSWi to showcase the state of interactive and creative work being done these days in Britain and as a visceral way of doing so, had commissioned a small games company called Simon Games to create what became called "The hat game."

This was one of a number of so-called pervasive games that companies or small independent teams had sprung on SXSWi this year. Others involved companies like Zappos, FreshBooks, Iridesco, and SocialBomb, and tasked players with things like trading cards, snapping pictures of Robert Scoble, and playing a geek tech version of bingo.

"The hat game" revolved around a bowler hat embedded with a GPS chip, and the idea was that somebody would be wearing the hat around Austin, tracked live on the Internet, and when someone privy to what was going on would see them, they would come over and inquire, "Excuse me, sir (or madam), but I do believe you have my hat."

Discovered, the bowler wearer would hand it over, photographs and e-mails would ensue, and eventually the person who had managed to hold on to it the longest would be declared the winner.

When I told Chris about that, he said he had a bowler and I should wear it around the conference to see what trouble I could get in. I certainly do love a little culture jamming and gaming of games, so with a big mischievous grin crossing my face, we both knew I had to do it. And write about it of course.

That explains why, not long after the salt-and-pepper gentleman suggested that I had his hat, another fellow, this time much younger and with a thick British accent, approached me and said, "Would I be close in asking for your hat?"

At least that's what I think he said. He spoke too softly to understand fully.

A spin-off of "MooseHunt"

Being SXSWi, where serendipity rules, I found myself in line for lunch Tuesday next to Alex Fleetwood, a pervasive games festival organizer from England who had helped out with the creation of "The hat game." I couldn't resist explaining that I had spent the previous day gaming the project, and asked if he could tell me more about it.

Fleetwood, who created the Hide&Seek festival in England, got me in touch with Simon Johnson, from Simon Games, and we sat down a little later to talk about the project.

Johnson--fully informed that I was hacking his game--explained that the basic mechanics of "The hat game" had been lifted from a game, called "MooseHunt" that he and his business partner had created for IGFest, another street and pervasive games festival in the UK. He said that for that project, his partner walked the 80 miles from his home to the town where the festival was being held in a moose suit.

Like the hat, the suit had a GPS chip in it and could be tracked on the Internet. Players could send a text message and get an online map of where the moose was at any given moment, and if they managed to find him and take a picture of him before he took a photo of the player, they would win.

So, looking for a way to create a game for SXSWi that would borrow the mechanics of "MooseHunt," but that involved something small that could be easily passed around between people, Johnson and his partner settled on the bowler hat.

Over the course of the three days that "The hat game" was played, it was always possible to load the game's Web page and see where in Austin the hat had gone. According to Johnson, the very first person who found the hat--Johnson began the game wearing it around--was a teenage Austin girl. Having acquired the bowler, she promptly got in a car and drove off for parts far from downtown, where SXSW is being held.

"We had no expectation that anyone outside the festival would be involved at all," Johnson said, "so it was great to see that kind of (local) involvement."

He said he asked the girl how she had found out about the game, since she wasn't in any way connected to SXSW. She told him her uncle, who lived far from here, had heard about the project and had called her, telling her that since she lived in Austin, she should keep an eye out for someone wearing a bowler.

And, of course, if she spotted it, to say, "Excuse me, sir, but I believe you have my hat."

Johnson said that over the three days of the game, about 12 people had had possession of the hat for some period of time, and that one had it three times. He explained that one man had spent $35 on a taxi to follow a woman wearing the hat, eventually knocking on doors on the street he was sure she had ended up on. He got the hat.

This woman, named Erica, won 'The hat game' by holding on to the bowler for four hours, seven minutes and 39 seconds.

(Credit: Arts Council England)

The winner, meanwhile, a woman named Erica, managed to hold on to the bowler for 4 hours, 7 minutes and 39 seconds. And several others had it for more than two hours.

But back at the Convention Center, I was walking around, innocently wearing my own bowler--okay, not that innocently--when out of the corner of my eyes I saw a woman see the hat on my head and spring into action. I moved forward, and she followed, eventually circling in front of me and saying, "Is it over?"

"Is what over," I said.

"Excuse me, sir, but I believe you have my hat," she said.

To which I replied, shaking my head, "I'm afraid not."

The woman grimaced, embarrassed.

My plan was to wear the hat all day, especially at the Convention Center, where I knew that there would be the highest probability people would see it and make the connection. But even there, only the tiniest fraction of conference attendees knew what was going on. That's because knowledge of "The hat game" was spread mostly through word of mouth, although a BBC reporter had done a story on it on Saturday that included a video and which had risen to a top spot on the BBC's Web site. That, in fact, was where I had first come across it.

At the end of the day, the plan was for me to go to one of Monday night's parties, where Chris was a volunteer, and return it to him. It was to be as simple as that.

A few more times though, I was approached, and each time, I had to tell the rather excited person asking me for the hat that, no, it wasn't theirs.

Finally, evening came and I made my way to the party. And being SXSWi, where, as I mentioned, serendipity rules, Chris was working the door when I arrived. I walked towards him and caught his eye.

Without missing a beat, Chris said, "Excuse me, sir, but I believe you have my hat."

Indeed I did. I took it off and handed it over.

Correction: This post initially misstated the company providing the tracking technology being used to provide security and safety for NFL personnel. The company is US Fleet Tracking.

The NFL has been using Twitter to spread the word about the latest and greatest happenings in Tampa during Super Bowl week. The feed is just one of a number of technologies being used at the Super Bowl that are little known or seen.

(Credit: Twitter)

At its core, football represents the polar opposite of technology: A bunch of large men run around a field, battling for position and the control of a small pigskin ball.

Of course, the production of an actual NFL game requires lots of technology--from the headsets coaches use to communicate, to the computers used to calculate statistics to the HD cameras that record the contest for the viewing audience.

When it comes to the Super Bowl, one of the biggest sporting events in the world, technology has always played a very central role, and this year is no exception.

Indeed, as the NFL gets ready to put on the big game this Sunday in Tampa, Fla., between the five-time champion Pittsburgh Steelers and the perennial bottom-dwelling Arizona Cardinals, the league and its many partners will be rolling out a wide variety of technology, much of which has been used in the past, but some of which is all new.

And a good deal of that is behind-the-scenes tech that most fans never see, would never think of, or is new and niche enough that they will never even know it existed.

For example, even though Twitter has become a mainstay of the Web 2.0 world, it is still a mystery to most people. But the NFL decided to embrace the microblogging service, and has already rolled out its Super Bowl Twitter feed. There, an unknown number of people have been posting regular updates for the last few days about the goings-on in Tampa--the big press events, the behind-the-scenes developments, all kinds of football-related observations that fans may or may not appreciate.

"Midnight at the hotel bar, no celebs," a Wednesday night tweet began. "Oh wait...there's Donovan McNabb! I'm sure he's still shocked he's not preparing for Sunday's game."

"Wow," another began. "Sully and the crew of US Airways Flight 1549 will be honored during Super Bowl XLIII pregame! Very cool."

To be sure, a Super Bowl Twitter feed isn't the most advanced or glamorous thing in the world, but to the NFL, it's a way to share a little bit of the flavor of the excitement gathering around the game.

"Our digital media group has been working furiously to find new ways to help our fans experience Super Bowl week," said NFL.com spokesperson Joanna Hunter in an e-mail, "even if they can't travel to Tampa Bay to be there in person."

Yet there were just 1,940 followers for the Super Bowl Twitter feed as of Thursday afternoon, a tiny number when compared to the millions of fans who will watch the game on TV, and a sign that this technology is, even now, something that has risen to the attention of only the smallest number of people.

Another online innovation the NFL is touting is a system its SuperBowl.com site employed for the league's annual Media Day on Tuesday. Online viewers were able to select from five different cameras filming the event and watch the player they wanted to see speak.

Again, a small development, but one the league hopes enhanced the overall experience of its fans.

What viewers will see
While the Super Bowl game is the main event for football fans, watching the elaborate and expensive commercials made to air specifically during the contest has long been a favorite of even the most sports-averse.

This year should be no exception. But for the first time, TV viewers will be seeing two extremely technologically cutting edge ads, modern 3D commercials for SoBe drinks and for NBC's Chuck, as well as a 90-second preview of the forthcoming 3D Dreamworks film, Monsters vs. Aliens.

According to Steve Schklair, the CEO of 3ality Digital's technology division, 3ality Digital Systems--the company whose cameras were used to film the included live-action footage--all of the 3D spots will be possible to watch without special glasses, but will be much richer with pairs of 3D specs that are being handed out all over the country at retail outlets where SoBe drinks are sold.

Instead of the traditional green and red 3D glasses, these are yellow and blue and, Schklair said, different than the eyewear required to watch the new style of 3D films being shown in theaters around the country these days.

Schklair added that the value of showing 3D ads and trailers during the Super Bowl comes from the fact that research has shown that the retention rate for messages put out in 3D is far higher than for traditional 2D. Further, he said, the Super Bowl 3D ads will be a good test case for potentially running 3D trailers in movie theaters in the future.

The NFL and 3ality have a previous history, as well. In December, the NFL used 3ality's technology to broadcast a regular season game between the Oakland Raiders and the San Diego Chargers in 3D.

When it comes to TV, of course, the biggest piece of the Super Bowl puzzle is the broadcast of the game itself. This year, NBC has the coveted rights to the NFL championship, and, as it did with its recent coverage of the Beijing Olympics, the Peacock Network is putting huge resources into the project.

For the most part, viewers won't see many differences during the Super Bowl from NBC's regular-season Sunday night NFL broadcasts. One small innovation will be a new on-screen graphic.

"The biggest change...viewers will see is a slightly refined graphic look," Broadcasting & Cable reported, "as NBC will have individual player stats briefly pop onscreen to replace the 'score bug' in an effort to reduce on-screen clutter."

To put on its broadcast, NBC will have 200 crew at the game, and more than 450 total production and engineering staff in Tampa. And the effort will feature 52 high-definition cameras, 45 vehicles (including control trucks, mobile units, office trailers and a horse trailer), 24 digital video replay sources, eight digital post-production facilities (five Avid suites and three Final Cut Pro suites), 20 hand-held cameras, five robotic cameras, two RF hand-held cameras, one "cable-cam" camera that is suspended above the field, 50 miles of camera and microphone cable, 93 microphones, and much more.

"Specialty cameras for the Super Bowl include robotic units on the goalposts and in the hallways outside each team's locker room," Broadcasting & and Cable reported, "dedicated goal-line cameras, overhead Cable-cams and X-Mo ultra-high-frame-rate cameras from Inertia Unlimited that will be used to deliver incredibly detailed slow-motion replays. The X-Mo cameras will give frame-by-frame views of both the goal line, to gauge whether a touchdown has been scored, and the sideline, to see exactly where a player stepped out of bounds."

What viewers won't see
For the NFL, supporting all its efforts in Tampa is a very computing-heavy project. As such, the league has partnered with IBM and is using a series of four IBM BladeCenter S chassis, one at each of four venues the NFL has set up around Tampa: one for general media and PR, one for the league's offices, one for game-day media and PR, and one for credentialing and in-house security.

According to Jonathan Kelly, director of computing infrastructure for the NFL, the league chose the IBM blade servers because they offer a high degree of mobility--the blades are briefcase sized--and very quick set up.

Each chassis has two of the blades, which offers all-important redundancy, Kelly said.

"It's about time criticality and high availability," he said. "If one host goes down, the other immediately picks up."

The NFL is using a series of BladeSensor S chassis to power the computing at its four venues in Tampa during Super Bowl week. For the NFL, the blade servers allow quick setup, high mobility, and all-important redundancy.

(Credit: IBM)

For the NFL, the IBM blade servers are a clean break from what the league used in many previous years: large numbers of individual servers and computers, all of which took a lot of time to set up and and a lot of manpower to operate.

The blades run VMware's virtual platform and give the league the ability to run virtualized operations at each of its four venues in Tampa, said Joe Manto, the NFL's vide president of information technology.

In 2008, the league did run beta versions of the IBM blade architecture, but this year, it is standardizing on full production versions, and plans to roll them out after the Super Bowl for each of the 32 NFL teams.

And lest the players themselves not benefit from technology--or at least be involved with it--a company called US Fleet Tracking says it is helping to ensure the safety and security of the dozens of "key NFL and entertainment personalities" as they are bused from location to location in Tampa this week.

US Fleet Tracking's technology is being used to track the location and movements of the players, as well as Bruce Springsteen--the halftime performer--around the Super Bowl city. The idea is that by employing tracking devices, the NFL's Gameday Operations personnel can be kept aware of the precise location of all these people.

"Through real-time information updates, security officials can ensure that the proper authorities and escorts are always in the right place at the right time," a statement from the network provider, Kore Telematics, said. "Officials also have the ability to respond instantly if any vehicle leaves the expected route, becomes delayed or is subject to other unexpected events."

In the Gameday Operations area, then, NFL officials will be monitoring the players and other VIPs in real time on six 42-inch LCD TVs, and they will get updates on the locations of their charges every five seconds. Further, they'll be able to see precisely where the various vehicles they're watching are, down to accuracy of a quarter mile per hour and eight inches.

Whether dozens of highly-paid, young professional football players in a town full of parties and nonstop entertainment will want to have their movements tracked to within an accuracy of eight inches is another matter.

Still, with all this technology in place, the game will commence on Sunday, just as it has on 42 previous occasions, with the entirely low-tech flip of a coin, and the kicking of an inflated pigskin ball. When all is said and done, it's nice to know that behind the many layers of the very latest technology available, the Super Bowl is, at its roots, just a kids' game played by a bunch of men.

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