Episode 133 – Game Brains

Episode 133 – Game Brains was recorded on Friday, the 18th of February 2016. Does playing video games make you smarter?  Michael and Michael answer this question with a resounding “maybe”, as they go through a tour of several interesting links, from Google’s DeepMind computer playing Go, to Volvos starting up without keys, to toys that think and 3D printing going back to 1964 with plastigoop. We hope you enjoy the show! Selected links Can Video Games make you Smarter? — https://youtu.be/OOsqkQytHOs Luminosity — http://www.lumosity.com Gmailification — http://techcrunch.com/2016/02/17/google-launches-gmailify-a-way-to-use-gmails-best-features-with-non-gmail-accounts/ Mailbox — https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mailbox/id576502633?mt=8 Airmail — https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/airmail-your-mail-with-you/id993160329?mt=8 Google Now — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Now Connected Toys and the Serious … Continue reading

Good news on a lost episode and intro to Tiny Tycoons

We have some good news for our podcast listeners — while there was not a recording this past Friday, an episode thought to be lost has been found! There needs to be some cleanup, and that will take place over the next few days. So in the meantime, let us remind you that we are interested in your feedback and are eager to hear your suggestions on topics that you would like us to cover. In the meantime, there is one topic that we’ve been very interested here over at Games At Work, and that deals with location-based computing, coupled … Continue reading

Episode 22 – Play for Free on Free to Play

Phaedra and Michael M discuss free to play game economics — both from the game designer and the game player perspective as well as how this changes when the game is focused on individual paying players vs larger enterprises as the target market.  With micropayments for in-game purchases being the revenue source for free to play games, Phaedra mentions that at the recent Game Developers Conference that free to play games can be more profitable than $50 boxed games.  Michael shares that he likes to avoid such in-game purchases, hence the title of the show.  🙂   Cross genre gameplay … Continue reading