What do you see as the positives and negatives around copyright?

At this stage, the UK’s current copyright law is The Copyright Protection Act 1988 and it “allows the copyright owner to protect against others copying or reproducing their work.” (Copyright Licensing Agency, 2017). One of the biggest benefits of this is the idea of “Automatic Copyright” where anything published is instantly protected by copyright. This, however, creates a problem. Where everything is copyrighted, it makes it very difficult for anyone to create original work, or to avoid infringing on the copyright act when making something that they thought was their own. Another downside of this law is seeking the permission of the copyright holder to gain their permission for use. It can be very hard to find the copyright holder and could cost a lot of money. They might even say no, to which you have then spent a lot of time and money on something for no reward.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Copyright.svg

Another negative could be that it “can be expensive for the owner to enforce” (Schnotz, 2017). Say, for example, the owner’s work has been copied by a large business with a lot of money. They could find it difficult to take on such a company where they can spend a lot of money on lawyers to fight their case. An individual might not have this option and just have to accept what has happened. 

Is it possible to make anything new? 

Unfortunately, in today’s society, I don’t believe that it is possible for someone to create something new. What I mean by this is, I don’t feel that it’s possible to create something original as we are constantly being influenced by others work without even realising it. In video games,

However, in video games, it can be a little easier. Creating these games requires a large amount of programming, and the benefit of this is, there are lots of different ways to program a game. Different languages, different functions that do the same thing. It’s this code and the artwork that creates the “new game”. A great example of this is Flappy Bird. A game that exploded on the app market in 2013. With such a simple game, it was so easy for other developers to create “clones” of these games, without infringing on the copyright of the actual game. Just a simple search on the Google Play Store reveals many flappy bird clones: Blue Flying Bird, Happy Bird Pro, Flappy Bird.

Screenshot of Google Play Store after searching “Flappy bird”

With all work, it is hard to create something that is uninfluenced by anything. Although I don’t have a problem with this. I feel that it is good to be influenced by someone else’s work as it shows admiration. Act’s like the Creative Commons are brilliant for this as they allow for work to be used and adapted to create something new. Not only that, but it often supported by the original owner and they endorse the use of their work to create something they wouldn’t have thought of.

References

Copyright Licensing Agency. (2017). What is Copyright? | Copyright Licensing Agency. [online] Available at: https://www.cla.co.uk/what-is-copyright.

Schnotz, W. (2017). Pros & Cons of Copyright Laws. [online] Yourbusiness.azcentral.com. Available at: https://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/pros-cons-copyright-laws-5170.html.

Useful Links

https://play.google.com/store/apps/collection/search_results_cluster_apps?clp=ggENCgtmbGFwcHkgYmlyZA%3D%3D:S:ANO1ljKrca4

Behavioural modelling is an important part of NPC development for games. Should emotive modelling be part of that development?

Non-Player-Character development in a video game is vital for making a video game look and feel realistic and it’s down to how the NPC is designed that makes or breaks the game. Behavioural modelling is a research in “generating models of player behaviour and exploiting the models in actual play” (Bakkes, Spronck and van Lankveld, 2012). The idea of this Behavioural Modelling is paramount into making a realistic AI controlled NPC inside a video game. However, this part of the games design process only really focuses on the behaviour side of the NPC’s. In order for a really, in-depth non-player-character, emotive modelling is definitely something that should be considered, at least in my opinion. This would then let us change the emotions of the NPC’s and have their emotions affect the gameplay of the character.

Consider your favourite video game. If it contains AI-controlled agents how individualistic are they and their behaviours, and, how might you set about improving them?

I think that the Sims franchise is one that focuses a lot on the AI in the game, as this is to make the life simulator feel realistic. The most recent edition of the game, The Sims 4, introduces an “emotion” system that changes the sims mood, interactions and behaviour based on how they are feeling. From my own experiments, I’ve noticed that when the sim is sad, the sims walking becomes a lot more ‘sluggish’ and their face emotions are a lot more upset. I think that this works well in a game like The Sims as this really does make the player feel as if the actions they have, affected the sims on a much more personal level.

http://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/gamepacks/parenthood/

The autonomy of the sims can be adjusted in the settings, however, if turned to the max, you can simply watch the sims do their own thing and live their life as if they were in control themselves. I feel as though this is an excellent way of demonstrating the AI in this game. For example, the sim understands it’s needs and will act upon them in a sensible way. If the sim was hungry, they’d get food from the fridge and if there is no food in the fridge, they’d make some – something that us humans do every day. We don’t just make food when we already have some to eat.

http://www.carls-sims-4-guide.com/tutorials/sims.php

I also feel as though each sim is very individual. Yes, at their core, each sim needs to eat, sleep, socialise etc, but their traits affect this. A vegetarian sim isn’t going to go and eat a meat dish on their own, that is up to the player to decide, and a sim with a musical mind would pick up a guitar and practice. I believe that all these mechanics create a realistic AI character and there isn’t much that I could say that needs to be improved. I could still say that the emotions of the sim still don’t really make a huge difference in the overall experience so that is something that could be worked on. What I mean by this is that The emotions of the sim are very basic (happy, sad, angry, worried) but these are only the top level emotions of a character and to make a character seem even more realistic, we could look into deeper feelings like loneliness and depression or fear as these could really create a fully realistic AI human inside a video game.

Bibliography

Bakkes, S., Spronck, P. and van Lankveld, G. (2012). Player behavioural modelling for video games.

Useful Links

https://www.ea.com/en-gb/games/the-sims/the-sims-4/pc/features/play-with-life

Example of a key concept of HCI, reflecting on the Human, Computer and the Interaction.

In the most basic form, human-computer interaction is the way humans use different devices to interact with a computer. This could be as simple as pressing a button on a washing machine or clicking something on a computer screen with a mouse. So if we break this concept down into its 3 core elements, the Human is using multiple senses before even interacting with the mouse. For example, the human can see which button to press, as well as hear the button being pressed and of course, feel the button being pressed. The mouse has been designed in such a way, however, that we don’t need to look at the mouse to click it as it has been designed for us to naturally rest our fingers over the buttons.

There are many other interactive devices that are used to control the computer, some of which can make the computer more accessible. Speech recognition can help computer users with restricted arm movement as they can speak to the computer to control the computer.

Discuss the relationship between this and Games Design

When we talk about HCI in games design, it can open up lots more possibilities for the player to interact with the computer. In a simple way, the player could use a controller to move their character. However, with the advancement of technology, we have been introduced into concepts such as augmented reality and virtual reality.

Virtual reality creates a whole new way of interacting with the computer that would completely immerse the player in the game they are playing. This comes with its problems, however, as the developers would have to break the norm and create an efficient and easy to understand UI and controls so that the player won’t have to break the immersion of the game. If the player doesn’t understand how they are supposed to navigate a UI or control the character, they would just simply not play the game, or at least opt for a Non-VR experience where the controls are set out in a (mostly) comfortable and efficient way.

Playstation VR headset, Controllers, Camera

In a virtual reality game, the player would wear a headset and often have controllers in their hands. The player can move their head to see around the game’s environment and use the controllers to interact with the game. The controllers often support motion control as well, creating an even more immersive experience for the player. The player still presses buttons on these controllers for interacting with objects in the game, but the main control of the game is done via motion controls from the controllers and the head movement.

Behavioral modelling is an important part of NPC development for games. Should emotive modelling be part of that development?

At the moment emotive modeling is still in an experimental stage and I think that it can be improved with time because at the moment some games use it to communicate emotions to the user, but the emotive modelling isn’t perfect yet, in games such as undertale the characters seem to have emotions that change due to your actions, for instance killing one of characters brother leads them to try and kill you near the end of the game making it a lot harder to complete the game this makes the player aware that they have made the NPC annoyed and that they are trying to avenge their brother which is pretty human like.

Consider your favorite video game. If it contains AI controlled agents how individualistic are they and there behaviors, and, how might you set about improving them?

GTA V will be my example for this and I believe that they NPC’s react in different ways in different situations, for instance the public will run away if you pull out a gun where as people in cars will drive away or may try and run you over, in the same instance police officers will start to shoot at you, another example would be that if you try to steal from a shop in GTA V some of the shop keepers will actually pull out guns others will give you the money I find that interesting, essentially each NPC has there own reaction in different scenarios depending on who they are this makes the game quite realistic and the NPC’s very individualistic, There aren’t many things to improve with the GTA V AI although sometimes the reactions of citizens makes no sense, for instance sometimes you will fire a gun and people will run towards you instead of running away which makes no sense.

Select one or two examples to discuss the future of human-computer interaction.

One example of human computer interaction would be the phone, over the years phones have become thinner and bigger, to fit the hand of the consumer, the whole point of HCI is so that the computer is intractable and therefore needs to be usable and simple for the user to understand, it should also be obvious what thing does what in a sense because usability is much more important than the design of the product. I think as the years go on the phone will become subject to more and more changes to make it more usable and easier to hold, although most phone in the past couple years have been almost the same, for instance the Iphone 6 and 7 are basically the same but the 7 has no headphone jack which just makes the product harder to use because you need to have apple earphones to use it, just like you need an apple charger making apple more money, whether or not phones are going in the correct direction is up to the consumer but I thing Samsung are sticking to the basic phone and improving it in a better way.

Discuss the application of user research methods in games design. Reflect upon the role of the games designer in this context. Can we anticipate player behavior?

We can anticipate player behavior, this can be seen in a lot of FPS games and in GTA where if the user is pointing the general direction of an enemy the the guns sight auto locks onto the enemy making it a lot easier to aim at them, there is also cases of this in the witcher 3 where if you are riding a horse it will stay on track as long as you move forward, which is not the case in most games where you would just go off track if you didn’t pay attention to the game, which in a way makes the game less enjoyable in my opinion because things like fast travel and auto travel just make it so that the player cant explore, but instead is just taken from mission to mission without actually being able to emerge themselves in the world that the creators of the game put time into developing, overall i believe we can anticipate player behavior but some times its better to just let the player be.