Gaming and Culture

The NFL.com's war room feature will let users see a graphical representation of aggregated comments by fans of each of the NFL's 32 teams.

(Credit: NFL.com)

Update (9:12 a.m.): This story has been edited to reflect the fact that NFL Mobile Live is available only to Sprint users, as well as the league's plans for Twittering the draft.

For serious football fans, there is likely no bigger single event--except the Super Bowl--than the annual amateur draft. And as the NFL gets ready for two days of hysteria over where dozens of pro prospects end up, the league has deployed its deepest roster ever of social media tools to ensure that fans' thirst for even the most minute news is quenched.

There's no shortage on TV and on the Internet of expert sources weighing in on the draft-day needs of various NFL teams and their likely moves before, during and after the April 25 and 26 event. But many people are just as, or more, interested in what their fellow fans think about their favorite teams' decisions.

That's why, for the first time, the league has rolled out what it's calling fan "war rooms," essentially team-specific comment forums that are available via a map of the United States that shows each team's logo and the number of comments posted there.

And one thing is clear from the map: the teams with the biggest draft-day needs, in other words, the league's weaker franchises, have the most active forums. That helps explain why, in the wake of the Denver Broncos' much-publicized and highly-controversial recent trade of star quarterback Jay Cutler, its "war room" has far and away the most fan comments.

The aggregated comments feature is the newest NFL.com is employing for draft day, but by no means the only social media tool fans will have at their fingertips as they try to keep up with the flood of news that will peak during the draft itself but that NFL Online general manager Laura Goldberg expects will be heavy both before and after the league's 32 teams make their best stabs at improving their rosters by picking from the pool of eligible amateurs.

Another significant tool is NFL.com's Draft Tracker, an online system that allows fans to look for the latest information and analysis about prospects, positions, colleges, teams, and even draft rounds. So, Goldberg said, fans could see what is being said about all potential draftees from the University of Miami, or all quarterback prospects, or what specific teams are doing.

Once the draft is over, fans will also be able to issue grades for how they feel teams did. Experts' opinions on each team's performance are always hot topics, but now fans will be able to weigh in, and their collective votes will be averaged, Goldberg said, meaning it will be possible to see, in real time, what fans thought of any individual team's draft-day moves.

Goldberg explained that the NFL is also well aware of the popularity of social-networking sites, and as such, it has a new Facebook widget--already downloaded more than 100,000 times--that will update users with the latest draft-related news and video.

And the league is also promoting NFL Mobile Live, a WAP site that will allow any Web-enabled mobile phone on Sprint's network to follow the Draft Tracker. However, despite Goldberg's acknowledgment that the service would probably look best on an iPhone, she said that NFL.com has yet to release an iPhone app for the draft. That's because, she said, the league and partner Sprint are interested in reaching the broad cross-section of mobile device users, including those on BlackBerries, Android phones, and others.

For now, there is also no official NFL draft-related Twitter account, but Goldberg said that the league would be tweeting from the site of the draft.

At the Game Developers Conference on Friday in San Francisco, Georgia Tech professor and author Ian Bogost talked about the lessons that can be learned by game designers from the iconic Atari 2600.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)

SAN FRANCISCO--If you draw a straight line representing the evolution of video games from the Atari 2600 to the Nintendo Wii, one thing is clear: if you don't know your past, you can't know your future.

That was the central lesson of Georgia Tech professor Ian Bogost's Friday talk at the Game Developers Conference here, "Learning from the Atari 2600." Essentially, Bogost argued, it's not always necessary to reinvent the wheel; sometimes, instead of being discarded as so much arcane, the discoveries of the past are best adapted for the future.

Bogost and MIT assistant professor Nick Monfort recently published Racing the Beam, a book about the iconic Atari VCS, popularly known as the 2600. So Bogost's talk Friday was clearly drawn from the research for that project. And while his fondness for the 1970s-era video game console was evident, the point he was really trying to make was that the seeds of successful games--especially those enjoyed by large groups of diverse people--have very little to do with the latest and greatest technology and much more to do with mechanics that make for enjoyable shared experiences.

'Racing the Beam,' the new book by Ian Bogost and Nick Monfort, looks at the history and lessons that can be drawn from the Atari 2600.

(Credit: Ian Bogost and Nick Monfort)

For Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, a former carnival barker, the bloodlines that led to the 2600 were three things, Bogost argued: the fun-for-the-whole-family excitement of a midway, the shared competition of a game of darts played in a tavern, and the gather-around-the-TV sense of family time afforded by the den. At the same time, Bushnell wanted to repeat the success he'd had with coin-op arcade games like "Pong," but for the home.

What he was after was what Nintendo has also tried to build into its Wii: a feeling that people can have fun doing something together. That's why going to the movies is so much fun, or going out with friends to a bar: because it's something people can do together, in a social space, whether they're competing or not.

And it's about context, Bogost said. You can drink at home, but it's not as fun as doing it in a bar. Or you play pool in your house, but it's not the same thing as doing it with friends at the local tavern. And while no video game system can replicate being out in public, the right mix of game mechanics and tools can allow people to feel like they're in the middle of a social scene, even if they're in their living room.

"That's why Wii Bowling is the best game in the Wii Sports collection," Bogost said. "It really re-creates the experience and context" of real bowling.

"So what we see, I think in the (2600)," Bogost said, "is the adaptation of familiar subjects for familiar spaces."

He talked about the successes and failures of some of the games designed for the 2600, explaining that, for example, the original 2600 Pac-Man game didn't work because its designers didn't do a good job of adapting many of the atmospheric elements of the original arcade version. For example, it was missing the familiar music, as well as the animation of Pac-Man chomping and turning as he made his way around the maze.

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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Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane (left) talks about 'MLB Front Office Manager,' the new stats-based baseball video game that he is promoting for 2K Sports. Beane was chosen as the consultant for the game because he is known as one of the smartest GMs in the game, and an expert at getting the most out of a small-market team.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

OAKLAND, Calif.--For the countless of devotees of rotisserie and fantasy baseball, there's a whole new game in town.

On Tuesday, 2K Sports will release its MLB Front Office Manager, and for those addicted to the stat-heavy pastime of running fantasy leagues, being a Major League Baseball general manager may never get closer.

The new game--which is unlike any baseball video game I've ever seen--has perhaps the perfect pitchman, Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane. For those not familiar with him, the game probably won't mean much, since as the main subject of Michael Lewis' hit book, Moneyball, Beane has long been considered the most cerebral and efficient guy putting contending baseball teams on the field.

There is no end to the roster of baseball video games that pay homage to the complexities of building a team from the ground up. They have mechanisms for relying on stats to determine which players are best in different kinds of situations--and many have had the endorsement of real-life players and the blessing of big league baseball.

But MLB Front Office Manager isn't like any of them. That's because the game is really about the process of running a team rather than the play-by-play action in which gamers have to swing at pitches, try to dive in the hole for sharp-hit grounders, and master all kinds of joystick button combinations in order to steal a base or pick someone off first.

The new 2K Sports game puts all the focus on what it takes to get a major league team going, and operates on a calendar that begins the moment the World Series ends and commences from there. That's because that's how it really is for each of the real-world big league general managers.

Known for his wheeling and dealing, Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane--the celebrity spokesperson for the game--surreptitiously checks e-mail on his BlackBerry during a press event for the game at the Oakland Coliseum on January 22, 2009.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

By bringing in Beane as the game's celebrity spokesperson, 2K Sports is making a big bet that the baseball stat-heads out there will jump at the chance to impersonate Beane, instead of the more common video game proposition of taking on the role of big league players and swinging for the fences.

MLB Front Office Manager is all about trying to navigate the millions of little details that go into the operational side of running a baseball team. From scouting amateur players to drafting them to making trades to figuring out what to do when stars get injured to sucking it up after a losing season and trying again next year.

The structure of the game is to go through a 30-year general manager's career, trying to position yourself as a Hall of Fame candidate. And instead of playing out each individual contest in each season, pitch by pitch, this game is about making the behind-the-scenes decisions that put your team in position to outplay others in simulated game after simulated game.

The 'hub' of 'MLB Front Office Manager' is a screen which gives players access to all the information they need to run their teams, including new scores, player information, contract details, rosters and more.

(Credit: 2K Sports)

And that means that the action is entirely about figuring out how to run the front office--something that really hasn't been tried in a modern baseball video game.

"If it's possible, on an Xbox or PlayStation or PC, in a game to re-create the general manager's position," said Beane, "I don't know that you can find anything that duplicates it better than this. This is the ultimate fantasy player's outlet, because every decision, just like as with a real general manager, every decision costs something and is going to prevent you from doing something else. In most games, you draft anybody you want...This actually takes into account the depths of the game."

Part of the task of playing 'MLB Front Office Manager' involves choosing the attributes of your general manager. That includes determining his personal and professional background. The more emphasis he has on amateur scouting, the better he will be at developing a team from the ground up.

(Credit: 2K Sports)

Indeed, as with the day-to-day responsibilities of real-life baseball general managers, this game is all about resource allocation. Players have limited budgets and have to decide where, and how, to spend. Every dollar spent on a hot free agent is a dollar less to spend on bench depth, or scouts capable of finding future stars in the sandlots of the Dominican Republic.

"It's a thinking man's baseball game," said Edwin Loo, the game's producer at developer Blue Castle Games. "It's for all those people who play fantasy baseball (and who) spend hours making (their teams and making trades). That's who we made this game for. This game is for those hard-core baseball fans."

Some of the elements of the game involve daily briefs on happenings around the big leagues. Players will see trades made by other teams--simulated in a single-player run-through of the game, or for real in online league play.

They will also be able to examine their own teams' rosters, determine trades they'd like to make with other teams, and then attempt to make those trades.

Of course, as in real baseball, successfully pulling off trades is tricky business. And that's one of the areas where Beane's expertise came into play: helping the game's designers build in an appropriate level of difficulty for achieving things like trades. Otherwise, it would all be too easy.

"A lot of the time (I spent) was really figuring out what would be the verbiage when talking about trades," Beane said. "They aren't as easy as just calling this guy and saying, 'Will this trade work?' It can be a frustrating process, and you can't think of it as a linear process."

Beane said a big part of his job as a consultant for the game was in helping craft the exact language of communications players get from an omniscient faux-Beane that helps out during the course of play with tips and other emails.

(Credit: 2K Sports)

The game also offers regular e-mail communications--tips, in other words--from an all-seeing Beane operating behind the curtain. And the language of these communications was another time-consuming piece Beane's role in consulting on the creation of the game.

Beane--who admitted he is a big gamer himself, with a small obsession with games like Call of Duty and Age of Empires--said that he also put a lot of effort into helping to make sure that the game's rules adhered as closely as possible to that of the real big leagues.

Throughout the game, players will encounter situations where they have to use their brains--instead of just the quickness of their thumbs on joystick buttons--to succeed. Whether it's intelligently negotiating a young shortstop's contract, or putting enough emphasis on scouting to be able to draft well for next season, this is not your son's baseball video game. This is, as Loo said, a thinking person's game, and one that evolves slowly, and methodically.

During the event at the Oakland Coliseum, several actual Oakland A's players, including Cliff Pennington and Aaron Cunningham, got a chance to play 'MLB Front Office Manager.'

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

In fact, players have very little control over the actual play-by-play of each individual contest. Instead, they watch as the game's simulation engine runs through, say, a Red Sox-Tigers matchup. There are ways to control some of the action, but there is none of the hitting, pitching, or fielding involved in most baseball games.

That means this game is not going to appeal to a large, mainstream audience. It is definitely a niche title. On the other hand, there are millions of fantasy league and rotisserie players, and MLB Front Office Manager is clearly aiming at picking off their business. Whether that will happen is impossible to know at this point, but if one thing is for sure, it's that those who get a serious kick out of poring over baseball stats, transactions, standings and off season news could finally have a way to dive deep into the fantasy of being Billy Beane.

Of course, there is a cost to playing this game the way the designers want you to, given that it's supposed to be a 30-year career simulation.

"You choose the type of clothes you wear" as a GM, joked Beane, "and you choose who you are. Over 30 years, you lose your hair, and you put on weight as you do this job."

On the other hand, he said, the game is realistic enough, and teaches so much about the minutiae of running a baseball team that, "It wouldn't surprise me if the next generation of baseball general managers grow up playing this game."

In mid-December, Forbes.com concluded that pro skateboarder Tony Hawk is the world's third-most influential athlete, trailing only Tiger Woods and Lance Armstrong.

For those not all that familiar with skateboarding as a sport, this might come as a surprise, given some of the athletes he came in ahead of--football star Peyton Manning, basketball prodigy LeBron James, and NASCAR champion Dale Earnhardt Jr.

But to the millions of people who have played any of the 10 Tony Hawk video games, the Forbes honor surely came as no surprise. After all, those games have become one of the most successful video game franchises of all time, cementing the Hawk legend that began more than 20 years ago on the asphalt of Southern California. He retired from skateboarding nearly 10 years ago at the age of 31.

Skateboarding legend Tony Hawk has a new video game coming out soon, and is helping to promote a charity initiative called Regift the Fruitcake.

(Credit: Tony Hawk)

These days, Hawk, 40, is working on a new iteration of the game franchise, even as he promotes skateboarding and action sports in general, and puts much of his effort into his Tony Hawk Foundation, which has helped build nearly 400 skate parks in disadvantaged communities around the United States.

Hawk, along with celebrities like Nicole Richie, basketball player Yao Ming, and Fall Out Boy, is also promoting a new charity initiative being run by Facebook and PayPal, called Regift the Fruitcake, which hopes to leverage their fame to help raise money for needy causes.

Q: Explain Regift the Fruitcake?
Hawk: Through PayPal and Facebook we're raising awareness of charities and making it possible to spread the word to your friends by sending little videos created by celebrities and athletes, with each of them representing their own charities or the charities that interest them. The idea is that you receive a video and you pass it on and you donate in the process. It's the same idea as when you get a fruitcake for Christmas and you end up giving it away because it's not going to go bad, so to speak.

These are viral videos?
Hawk: They are and each one directs you to a specific charity or cause, and on Facebook and on regifitthefruitcake.com site you can track them and find out how many times they've been sent.

Are you involved in other kinds of viral or social media?
Hawk: I have a Web site called shredordie.com, which is focused on action sports and action sports videos and kids uploading user-generated content. I do a lot of celebrity interviews there, with guys like Lance Armstrong, and Michael Phelps, and Jack Black.

How important is the user-generated content?
Hawk: That's the meat of it. We want kids to come and upload and show off their stuff. It's also a hub for companies looking for talent to sponsor.

You describe yourself as a proud computer geek. How so?
Hawk: Well, beyond shooting my own video clips, editing them, and doing all the effects, I've been into computers since I was a kid. I bought the first Amiga when it came out and then graduated to Macintoshes when I could afford one.

Mac or PC today?
Hawk: Mac.

What is your computer set up?
Hawk: I've got a dual-processor desktop, an iMac in my office and the newest MacBook. Not the MacBook Air, because I wanted a hard drive.

Do you have an iPhone?
Hawk: I have an iPod Touch.

What are your favorite apps?
Hawk: You know, I'm afraid to admit it, but I play a lot of Yahtzee Adventures. My kids love Line Rider, and I play poker and blackjack and Scrabble.

It seems like the iPhone, because of its accelerometer, would be good for skateboarding games?
Hawk: You're absolutely right. I wish I could say more about that, but let's just say that we're going to incorporate that technology into our next game.

So there will be a Tony Hawk iPhone game?
Hawk: Not iPhone.

Will it be for PS3 or Wii?
Hawk: The next game we're doing is for consoles, which will be next year. I get in trouble when I say too much about it, but you're on the right track.

How do you work with Activision on the making of one of your video games?
Hawk: I play it. Basically, we start with an idea and then we start creating it. I'm there every step of the way so that nothing gets decided before it's too late, including things like characters and locations and tricks and challenges. I've actually always been there throughout the process, playing it and making suggestions and just keeping it authentic, because that's the most important thing to me.

How much of challenge is it to keep the games true to skateboarding?
Hawk: That's the thing. When I'm there, it's pretty instinctual. It's actually quite easy because if I see something, I intuitively know if it's legitimate or not, as opposed to seeing it after the fact and going, 'Well, maybe that works.' I go with my gut feeling on all of it.

Can you describe something that would feel legitimate to you versus something that wouldn't?
Hawk: This is something we're working on in our new game. If you're grinding on something, let's say it's a ledge or a rail, and the board is doing it a certain way, that would be a different trick. And some of the challenges that we're running into with the new game we're developing are, let's say, the guy is doing a certain grind and he wants to change to another grind. The body positioning can't be the same. Every grind has a signature body position that you have to get into and that's crucial to keeping it authentic. So you can't just have this guy standing there, just balancing his arms, and suddenly his board goes into a different kind of grind or slide. The real skaters just know that's not real.

So it's important that you be there to help the developers get that right?
Hawk: Yeah, literally last week, that's the exact thing I did. I had a meeting with them and I was talking about how this one grind didn't look right. And then they said, 'What would it look like?' I have a little skate park in my office, and I said, 'Let's go out here,' and we did it, and they shot video for reference and they had it.

Over the years, how has the process changed for you in terms of your involvement with the development of the games?
Hawk: Up until recently, it was easier because the whole development team was familiar with skating. They'd been working on skating games for nearly 10 years, so it wasn't like I had to explain what a switch-crook (a skating move) looks like. They'd just know. So it got a little bit easier, and I became more of an overseer and approving certain aspects of it. Now, I don't want to say we're starting from zero, but we are rebuilding the whole game, so I'm back to being fully immersed at every step of the way so I can make sure it's authentic when it comes out.

But you're not doing any of the development yourself?
Hawk: No, I don't write code.

How has technology changed skateboarding?
Hawk: I think the biggest change is the speed of information and how it travels and how widespread it travels. When you've got videos up on Web sites that are literally shot the same day, the whole skate community knows right away when new tricks are invented, or new techniques are available. Before, it was only through skate magazines, which would come out months after the fact and weren't nearly as widespread. So I feel like there is this sort of global evolution of skating now, whereas before it was very confined to say, Southern California, or just certain parts of the country.

So new moves are spreading right away?
Hawk: A kid in Italy or in Australia can go out and be inspired to learn a brand-new move the same day, and that evolves skating globally as opposed to just in certain geographic areas.

Does that change how skateboarding is seen by the population at large?
Hawk: I think the acceptance has come with the success of things like our video games, or the television coverage skating has received in recent years. It's much more accessible. It's obviously more of a legitimate option for kids, career-wise. And parents are encouraging their kids to skate, and that's really why I started our foundation, because I felt that skating is massively popular. More kids are skating than playing little league now, but they're just not provided for in terms of facilities. So these kids want to do something physical, and positive, yet the only place they can skate is the shopping mall parking lot, or in front of the library, and they're discouraged from doing that. But the same cities that are discouraging them aren't providing facilities for them. So I wanted to help bridge that gap and provide skate parks in low-income cities.

With video games, does it ever reach a point where the technology is at such a high level of realism that there's nowhere else you can go with it? Do you see that happening with skateboarding games?
Hawk: For sure, with our next release. I can guarantee you that it's as close to real skating as you'll ever come.

It's been a busy year for San Francisco Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum. Throwing a Major League-leading 265 strikeouts during 2008, his first full season in the league, he appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated, was selected to play in the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, and was recently named the 2008 National League Cy Young Award winner.

Now, he's set to appear on the cover of 2K Sports' video game Major League Baseball 2K9. Earlier this week, we visited 2K Sports' motion capture studios in Novato, Calif., about a half-hour north of Lincecum's home field, AT&T Park in San Francisco.

Inside, the motion capture technicians had Lincecum suit up in a different kind of uniform, a tight black body suit covered in reflectors, which will help them re-create Lincecum's unique movements in the virtual world. Take a look at one of Major League Baseball's youngest rising stars.

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San Francisco Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum throws a pitch during a motion capture session for the 2K Sports video game Major League Baseball 2K9. Lincecum is the cover athlete for the game and the 2008 National League Cy Young award winner. Click the image for a full gallery on the motion capture event.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)

NOVATO, Calif.--Sports Illustrated magazine called Tim Lincecum "the freak," and for the motion capture specialists at 2K Sports, getting a good computer model of baseball star Tim Lincecum's unique, and violent, pitching motion presented a special challenge.

Last month, Lincecum, a diminutive 24-year-old whom you would never pick out of a lineup as a superstar ballplayer, won the National League Cy Young award, given to the league's best pitcher. The same day, the San Francisco Giant found out that he'd been chosen as the cover athlete for Major League Baseball 2K9, 2K's hit baseball video game.

Lincecum was on hand at 2K's motion capture facility, about 30 minutes north of San Francisco, for a day of performance: dozens of individual pitching and batting moves that the technicians would lead him through, one by methodical one, all to be used in the new game and all so that the Lincecum character would look and feel like the real deal.

For me, this was not entirely new territory. I came here last May to cover a very similar event, the motion-capturing of Rick Nash, the cover star of NHL 2K9, 2K's hockey game. In September, I also spent an afternoon at Industrial Light & Magic, watching the technicians there put my colleague Kara Tsuboi through the paces of the motion capture experience that Robert Downey Jr. went through while he was filming the blockbuster Iron Man.

So while the specifics of mo-capping a baseball pitcher like Lincecum differ in some ways from what's required for a hockey star like Nash or a movie character like Iron Man, much of what went on Tuesday was familiar ground.

As with the Nash and the Being Iron Man events, Tuesday's activities began with Lincecum donning a spandex suit and technicians placing a series of reflective markers all over his body. These, explained Johnathan Rivera, an associate producer for 2K Sports, are designed to capture and reflect the light from 56 mo-cap cameras spread throughout the facility so that the computers can record the minute movements of the actor--in this case, Lincecum--as he moves around. This is then translated into a 3D model of his skeletal structure that is used as the base for his in-game avatar.

At 2K Sports, everyone talks about the so-called "signature style" that they build for the real-life stars of their games. Essentially, said motion capture coordinator Steve Park, this means finding the stars' unique and specific motions and movements, ones that would be very familiar to their fans, and building them into the games so that when the fans play the Lincecum character, for example, they recognize his explosive pitching motion and can easily distinguish it from the more pedestrian motions practiced by dozens of other, less stellar, pitchers.

Park admitted that much of what he and his team were doing Tuesday was the same as what I'd seen them do for Nash. But he explained that mo-capping baseball plays does differ in some material ways.

For one, each of Lincecum's moves--and he would perform dozens of them--was a quick set piece that took just seconds and which covered a very small, specific piece of ground.

A computer model of Lincecum during the mo-cap session.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET Networks)

To be sure, Nash's movements were also set pieces, and lasted just seconds, but they tended to be more free-form, one technician told me.

So the mo-cap team had set up a short pitching mound covered in markers that were meant to be used by Lincecum for specific foot placements for his myriad moves.

"The foot placement is actually pretty important for us," Park said, "for getting the right blend pose."

The blend pose, Park explained, is what happens when the technicians take different recorded motions and blend them together to create a single, smooth move for the game. Because much of what baseball players do looks very similar, even when differing in one way or another, it's crucial, Park suggested, to be able to create smooth blend poses.

It was important that Lincecum's many moves be spot-on, so that the end of one move would look similar enough to the beginning of another--say his wind-up blending into his follow-through--that they could be combined in the game without any jerky transition.

Hockey moves, said Park, are much more free-form and free-flow, and while building an NHL game also requires accurate blend poses, he added that it was much more important when shooting a baseball player that the player hit his foot placements precisely.

That's because, Park continued, baseball motions are very segmented and specific, whether someone is pitching, catching, or swinging a bat.

For Park and his team, having Lincecum be the cover star also was challenging for another reason: while they've done baseball games for years, Lincecum was the first pitcher they've featured. And that meant figuring out how to capture the pitching motion, something that is more important with a player like the Giants star, who, despite being stellar as a college player, scared off many of the pro scouts who watched him play.

"The quickness of Lincecum's small body is what scared off most scouts," wrote Tom Verducci in Sports Illustrated last July, "that and what has become something of a trademark, a tilting of his head toward first base in the early phase of his delivery. The scouts equated his body speed with violence. That assessment, however, is akin to watching the Blue Angels air show team and not seeing the precision because of a fixation with the implicit danger. Lincecum generates outrageous rotational power (see video below)--the key element to velocity--only because his legs, hips, and torso work in such harmony."

Or, as the magazine reported, "The normal stride length for a pitcher is 77 percent to 87 percent of his height. Lincecum's stride is 129 percent, some 7.5 feet."

So for some of the mo-cap technicians, the best part of bringing in someone like Lincecum was the opportunity to be able to build a digital model of "The Freak" in motion, something that they see as a very cool piece of digital data.

All of which is to say that even if the mo-cap guys at 2K Sports had had experience with a pitcher, Lincecum would still have presented a singular experience for them.

That said, Park explained that, in fact, pitching is actually easier to mo-cap than hitting.

That's because batters have very distinctive stances that begin with "waggles," or nervous tics they express with their bats, as well as differing stances that can be wide or narrow, depending on the player.

And because Lincecum does take the occasional turn at bat, the mo-cap guys had to film him hitting as well.

I asked Park how many other major league players they bring in for the creation of their baseball game, and he said that, in fact, the number is very small.

"Part of the problem is that our development cycle is actually during the baseball season," Park said, adding that the players are contractually prohibited from doing the kind of extracurricular work that Lincecum was doing Tuesday during the season. "I don't know what our goal is...but it's always a challenge for every sport."

This means that while 2K Sports will bring in a Lincecum or a Nash as their cover athletes, in order to capture their signature styles, most of the players in the games are actually represented by actors, guys who have played their respective sports at probably a high amateur level, such as college, and who can be trusted to look like they know what they're doing.

Back at the 2K Sports mo-cap facility, Lincecum has taken the "mound," and is now warming up for his session.

Soon, he's ready, and after a brief introduction in which Park explains to the gathered crowd what, exactly, is going on, Lincecum begins his series of moves.

Right away, though, he's having a bit of a problem with some of the reflective markers they've put on his baseball glove, which keep flying off during his violent motion.

That's not a problem for the third shot, though, one in which Lincecum is supposed to stand idle on the mound.

He does that, standing totally still, until the director yells, "Cut."

Lincecum grins and asks if it was a good take.

As the crowd laughed, the director fired back, "More emotion."

But once Lincecum continues with actual pitching motions, he continues to have problems keeping the markers on his glove, meaning that after each shot, a couple of techs have to run out and put them back on.

Finally, he's done with his pitching moves, and now it's time for him to pick up his bat for the hitting shots (see video below).

The biggest laugh of all came when the director announced that Lincecum was going to hit a home run.

"He's going to hit a home run, which is the first time in his life he's ever done that, including Little League," said Johnathan Rivera, an associate producer for 2K Sports.

"Thanks," Lincecum said sarcastically.

After all the shooting was over, I asked Lincecum--who, by the way, is a big video game player and is currently spending his free time with Gears of War 2--what it was like to be featured in Major League Baseball 2K9.

"It's a one-of-a-kind experience for me," Lincecum said. "That's stuff that kids dream about all the time...You see yourself in the game, and you're like, 'That's me. That's me out there, except in video game form.'"

As always, when video game industry research firm The NPD Group puts out its monthly numbers, each of the big hardware companies--Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony--find their own unique positive spin, regardless what the numbers show.

But with the July numbers, which were released Thursday, there's little question that Nintendo gets the biggest bragging rights.

That's because, according to NPD, Nintendo's DS handheld gaming machine and its Wii console far outsold any competition from Sony or Microsoft.

NPD reported that the DS sold 608,400 units in July, while the Wii moved 555,000 machines. No other gaming device even made it to 300,000.

These days, however, it's no surprise when the Wii leaves its competitors in the dust. Microsoft and Sony both find ways to claim next-generation console supremacy, but more and more you hear them taking the position that the Wii is not in the same category of machine as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Which, in all honesty, is probably a fair thing to say. But since both Microsoft and Sony originally lumped the Wii in with their own machines, it's a little disingenuous when they do make the argument.

For its part, Sony gets to spend at least a month crowing that the PS3 outsold the Xbox. According to NPD, the PS3 sold 224,900 units in July, while the Xbox did 204,800 sales.

It may not put the PS3 on the same level for lifetime sales as the Xbox--which is far ahead--but it provides Sony executives reason to believe that things could really be turning around for their beleaguered console.

Microsoft, on the other hand, took the opportunity of the NPD numbers release to tout some numbers it considers brag-worthy.

In a press release issued Thursday afternoon, Microsoft said that since the November 2005 launch of the Xbox 360, gamers have plopped down $10.4 billion on the platform in the United States, a 49 percent total share of what I assume it means is the next-generation console market for hardware and software.

Additionally, it said that the Xbox has achieved a record-setting attach rate of 7.9 games per console sold.

Still, Microsoft, which said last month at E3 that it was "declaring" that it would win the console wars, must be wondering what it means to watch the PS3 start to outsell it.