Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Speeches and Hiking

    Hey everyone!  Yesterday was a pretty exciting day.  First of all, I had to give a speech for my Communications 265 class.  The speech had to be between 5 and 7 minutes with at least 3 sources and be informative about something.  I decided to do a brief history of gaming!  Step 1:  Look the part!  I wore my green Legend of Zelda shirt with some new pants from christmas, along with the retro shades from my latest Loot Crate!  Of course, I added my Evenstar necklace from Comic Con.  I also used all my handhelds as a visual aid like I did in the Pokemon Tag video, so I stuffed them all in my Creeper from Gaming Con and headed off!



The exact speech I gave is as follows:

            "Gaming.  What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear that word?  For some of you, you might picture a dark, packed arcade stuffed to the brim with kids popping endless quarters into cabinets.  Some of you might imagine sitting on a couch with controller in hand either alone or with a friend embarking on vast 100 plus hour journeys.  However, most of you probably think to the likes of Flappy Bird and the Candy Crush Saga in your pocket on the go.  Gaming has changed vastly since its creation in the mid 20th century, and the big question is, where will it be headed next?
Gaming truly began as early as 1940 with the creation of the simple computer game “Nim,” in which a player attempts to avoid picking up the last match, according to museumofplay.org.  For the sake of brevity, I’m going to skip ahead to some of the most iconic advancements in the gaming industry, beginning with the so called “Golden Age of Video Arcade Games” according to bmigaming.  Engadget.com reports how in 1971, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney collaborated for the first time to create Computer Space, the first ever arcade cabinet.  These two were then hailed as “The Team That Pioneered Video Technology” according to arcade heroes.com.  A year later, they formed the well-known company Atari and released the hit game Pong, which propelled the gaming industry forward in a way never seen before.  Other classics such as Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, and Frogger were soon to follow.  Cabinets were produced by companies ranging from the popular Namco, to Atari, to companies whose names have been lost in time like Taito, Cinematronics, and Midway Manufacturing Company.  The golden age lasted only until about 1985, but many arcades still survive across the world and still bring in piles of quarters.  According to page 103 of Mark Wolf’s book The Video Game Explosion, by 1981, the arcades had already raked in $5 billion and in 1982, arcades had reached their peek with nearly 10,000 arcades.  The profits fell from there, pulling in only a few more billions before the industry shifted to a whole new medium.
            1985 marked the death of the arcade industry, but the birth of the Nintendo Entertainment System (or NES) which sold over 6.30 MILLION consoles according to this image by geekwire.com.  The early days of this transitional period are marked by the classic fight between Sega and Nintendo with the release of NES vs. the Sega Master System and Atari 7800, then the Super Nintendo vs, the Sega Genesis, the Nintendo 64 against the Sega Saturn and the newly emerged Playstation by Sony.  Then came the 6th generation of gaming: the Nintendo Game cube, Sega Dreamcast, Playstation 2, and the newly formed Xbox.  Now, we have the 7th generation: The Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360. This struggle is expertly shown here by UCLA’s Digital Humanities 101 site.  The 7th generation of consoles have sold over 245 million consoles in their lifetimes according to vgcharts.com, with most consoles pricing over $200.   What you once had to make a journey to the arcade for, you could now do on your couch with a friend or 2, or even 3!  And now with the 8th generation Wii U, you can have up to 7 of your friend locally and with the Xbox One, and Playstation 4, dozens online.   And, lying underneath the big name consoles, there are hundreds of PC and Mac games as well as “Indie games” such as Super Meat Boy, Braid, and Minecraft.  The market that had caved inwards to two small teams has suddenly exploded outward again with new developers still emerging every day!  Console gaming is still going strong, but there’s a new competitor for the title of gaming sensation.
            Mobile gaming began as early as the late 1980s with the release of the Nintendo Game Boy in 1989 and the Sega Game Gear in 1990 (pg 107).  Since then we’ve been graced with the likes of the Gameboy Advanced SP, PSP, PS Vita, Nintendo DS and so forth up until the most recent New Nintendo 3DS and 3DS XL.  What most of you are likely more familiar with however, is the booming industry of mobile games for smartphones.  This time last year, the creator of the hit game Flappy Bird was reportedly making as much as $50,000 a day according to multiple sources including bgr.com.  Statista reports that as of October 2014, Clash of Clans alone was making nearly $1.39 million daily, with the Candy Crush Saga right behind it in second, generating $1.1 million each day.  Based on revenue alone, it’s clear there is at least high interest in the mobile gaming industry where nearly anyone can make a game and maybe make millions.
            In conclusion, the gaming industry has evolved from a packed arcade scene to an at home experience and finally to an on the go adventure.  The industry, while still strong in the console gaming department, has expanded to include the mobile games that are so addicting.  Where will it go from here we can only guess, but it’s obvious that mobile gaming has made it’s place in the industry and will be sticking around for a while.  Thank you."  

         I had to do the entire speech from memory with only a week to prepare but in doing so, I think I did pretty well.  I'll put the citations at the bottom of the page and you can see the graphics I used and such.  All the pictures I used were from those site.  They're really good reads so givem a glance!

      After that, my day was still not over as I had a Geology field trip up to the mountains just a few minutes outside of town!  We first observed some of the rocks alongside the highway and saw how erosion effected the granite.  I took home a chunk of granite that I might post a picture of  if I remember.  Then, we went to another section of the mountains--a walkable path.  I was too focused on not dying while walking to take pictures until after but we found some interesting rocks.  And, we also hiked up just past these rocks to La Cueva, a rock shelter that was home to a hermit, Giovanni Maria Agotini, in the 1860s.




Not my picture, but this is the cave!
       So, after that I got to go home and rest.  I did have one conversation that kind of upset me so I was pretty gloomy for the rest of the night, but I thought you guys should enjoy my day with me!  See you all soon!  





DON'T FORGET!  This weekend is the Valentine's Day stream!  You can start sending in pictures and such NOW!  Just remember to send them with #MePlusFree!  See you all then!   


40 Years Of Arcade Games - Part 1 (1972-1989) - Arcade Heroes. (2012, June 27). Retrieved February 7, 2015, from http://arcadeheroes.com/2012/06/27/40-years-of-arcade-games/
D'Angelo, W. (2013, January 29). 2013 Year on Year Sales and Market Share Update to January 19th. Retrieved February 7, 2015, from http://www.vgchartz.com/article/250703/2013-year-on-year-sales-and-market-share-update-to-january-19th/
Ellis, T. (2014, June 10). Can Nintendo reverse a decades-long sales slide? - GeekWire. Retrieved January 29, 2015, from http://www.geekwire.com/2014/can-nintendo-reverse-decades-long-slide/ 
Graph: Console Wars through the Generations. (2012, January 1). Retrieved February 7, 2015, from http://dh101.humanities.ucla.edu/DH101Fall12Lab4/graph---console-wars 
Smith, C. (2014, February 11). Here’s the real reason Flappy Bird was removed. Retrieved February 7, 2015, from http://bgr.com/2014/02/11/why-flappy-bird-was-removed/ 
Smith, M. (2014, July 9). The world's first video game arcade machine is a glittery fiberglass wonder. Retrieved February 7, 2015, from http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/09/worlds-first-arcade-videogame/
The History Of Video Arcade Games : Who Invented Video Games ? | Visual History Of Video Games, Video  Arcade Games and Computer Game. (n.d.). Retrieved February 7, 2015, from http://www.bmigaming.com/videogamehistory.htm
Top grossing iOS gaming apps as 2014 | Statistic. (n.d.). Retrieved February 7, 2015, from http://www.statista.com/statistics/263988/top-grossing-mobile-ios-gaming-apps-ranked-by-daily-revenue/
Video Game History Timeline. (n.d.). Retrieved February 7, 2015, from http://www.museumofplay.org/icheg-game-history/timeline/
Wolf, M. (2008). The Video Game Industry. In The Video Game Explosion: A History from PONG to Playstation and Beyond (pp. 103-107). Westport Conn.: Greenwood Press. Crash

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