By yuan kevin shi on October 10, 2019
The attacker who killed two people in a shooting at a German synagogue livestreamed the assault on Twitch, a video service owned by Amazon. It was one of the first violent attacks streamed on the service, which is best known for letting people watch others play competitive video games.
Twitch said it found and took down the video with “urgency” and said it was “shocked and saddened by the tragedy.” But the video is reportedly 36 minutes long.
Twitch said only about five people saw the livestream, but 2,200 viewed the finished recording of the video for the next half-hour before Twitch took it down. The video has also spread to other corners of the internet.
Twitch has faced other complaints in the past – largely from female gamers who say they have been harassed, echoing an undercurrent of sexism that has long been an issue in gaming culture. Twitch has policies in place against hateful conduct and harassment and asks users and streamers to report inappropriate conduct.
Internet companies have pledged after each attack to work on preventing such livestreams from happening again, including by advancing artificial intelligence to catch such videos. Bloch-Wehba is skeptical that those efforts alone will entirely halt the problem.
For more information:
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By Anant Sidhu on October 10, 2019
Sony officially announced that the PlayStation 5 would be coming out in the near future. Also, Xbox came out with a bit of a teaser calling their new Xbox: Project Scarlett.
It’s tough to compare the two because they are so early in the stages of announcements but there are some comparisons that we can look at. First of all the names, not surprising that PlayStation has kept it simple with the PS5. While, Xbox went with something completely out of the blue with Scarlett. Its no surprise tho because Xbox did make a bit of a turn when they went from Xbox 360 to Xbox One.
They are both releasing in the holiday season of 2020. Just like XB1 & PS4 the two gaming titans are going to go head to head during the biggest shopping window of the year. I wonder how much they will cost upon release this time….($US699?) Considering that the previous were released in 2013 and they cost $399 (PS4) and $499(XB1).
If you’re into specifications (even though they are not complete) take a look at this chart: 
For more comparisons check out this link:
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/ps5-vs-xbox-scarlett-major-differences-games-specs/1100-6470431/
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By kayla robertson on October 9, 2019
Last week it was revealed that Facebook is testing publicly hiding ‘like’ counts in Australia. Metrics will still be available on the creator’s side but not to the view of the general public. A similar test was recently completed by Instagram this past April. Instagram is owned by Facebook.
The goal of these initiatives seems to be to reduce the pressure of public perception, which would create higher user engagement levels and allow people to post more freely. Sites like Facebook and Instagram collect and corporatize user data for sale through things like tailored advertisements, so consequently, user engagement is vital to their business models.
Similarly, Youtube has added a new setting enabling users to auto-delete their search and viewing histories after a period of time. Users have been able to manually delete history, but this allows for a setting of auto-delete after a specified period of time or to eliminate history tracking altogether.
Both actions may positively affect the general health and wellbeing of users. Facebook and Instagram ‘like counts’ are commonly thought to result in social pressures and negative self-perceptions. YouTube projects and recommends future content based on user history when one reaches the end of a given video. YouTube users may experience better wellbeing through the viewing of more varied recommended content. It is thought that viewing multiple perspectives can help to develop one’s empathy and critical thinking skills.
These stories also highlight a push towards more anonymity online. These actions naturally lead one to believe users are craving more privacy from their peers, friends and followers. This push may exist as a chilling effect. More and more often, headlines include a person’s user generated content (usually in the form of old or deleted tweets). We are seeing online content coming back to negatively impact people, which results in much more of a general understanding that uploaded content is uploaded forever. This may make users less likely to engage online due to fear of judgement by both current and future friends, followers, peers and/or employers.
Do you think these measures may impact user health?
Why do you think there is a need for increased anonymity online?
Sources:
https://www.tubefilter.com/2019/09/27/facebook-hiding-likes-reactions-viewcounts/
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/26/tech/facebook-hiding-likes/index.html
https://www.tubefilter.com/2019/10/02/youtube-auto-delete-search-viewing-histories/
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By Andrija Maksic on October 9, 2019
A Montréal law firm has filed a lawsuit against Epic Games, the producer of Fortnite.
The basis of the lawsuit: The game Fortnite allegedly was created to intentionally make their players addicted. The lawsuit claims that the brain releases the happiness hormone dopamine when a player is playing for a long time. This can be compared to the addiction of cocaine. The lawyers accuse Epic Games of hiring psychologists who studied the players’ brains in order to create a game that is most addictive to the players.
Video game addiction is recognized as an official disease by the World Health Organization (WHO). According to the claimants’ attorneys, Epic Games has not warned about the dangers and risks of this disease and should for this reason pay the affected persons. The children’s parents claim that they would never have let their children play or or that they would have been more vigilant if they had been adequately informed about the dangers of addiction.
The situation is comparable to a court decision where a tobacco company was fined for not warning its customers about the dangers and risks of its products.
The firm is currently looking for other Fortnite addicts to join the class-action lawsuit. The outcome of the court decision can therefore be expected with excitement.
For further information:
Andrija
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By Chris Park on October 8, 2019
https://kotaku.com/blizzard-suspends-hearthstone-player-for-hong-kong-supp-1838864961
A Hearthstone player came out in support of the Hong Kong protests recently during a stream. Blizzard removed him from a competition, suspended him for a 12 years from competitive play, and rescinded his prize money for supposedly violating its official competition rules for the tournament. In my opinion, the rule itself reads more like an exit clause for when players engage in offensive or illegal acts, and it seems questionable as to whether a political statement is (or should be) caught under the rule.
It is noteworthy that Blizzard is partly-owned by a Chinese company and has a huge Chinese following. At the risk of sounding partial, it is disappointing to see one of the biggest video game companies whose mission statement is “Every Voice Matters”, kowtow to an oppressive regime. This is also interesting because right now the NBA and South Park are also embroiled in identical incidents, and both of those entities came off as more democratic and pro-Freedom of Expression, even though the NBA’s stance on this issue has been milquetoast at best.
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By Jon Festinger on October 3, 2019
Video and slides above. A note on my slides…to make them fit the upload capacity of the servers I had to do some pruning of non-essentials including the “Last Year This Time” part of “News of the Week”. You will of course be able to see the missing pieces in the video and am happy to provide the missing slides to anyone who needs them.
Jon
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By Anant Sidhu, Chris Park, West Pryde on October 1, 2019
Hello class
We are presenting on loot boxes tomorrow and wanted to give you some contextual articles that could help you prepare for our presentation.
These are some optional readings. Please have a look at them, they are short. We will be touching on the history of loot boxes, the updates in the media about loot boxes and the laws governing loot boxes and gambling in various countries.
Thanks,
Anant Sidhu, Chris Park, West Pryde
A Video Game ‘Loot Box’ Offers Coveted Rewards, but Is It Gambling?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/business/loot-boxes-video-games.html?fbclid=IwAR0ixm9m31LpTFfMZU4NuHPLPIZ8zD5WkH9TQGWxa41lzW8NU47QpIjJUDI
The evolution of loot boxes
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-evolution-of-loot-boxes/?fbclid=IwAR24aHL6iPyycB46lbkmjVmc2fEvlLzhGYCDEI-rAZYgpJVuzngVVYqwZ5E
Hooked on Loot Boxes
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-02-28-hooked-on-loot-boxes?fbclid=IwAR1mSb4lY8uEZvMrxB1gJrgBxgLacST_Lt2-CtrsTD8Xd0WZQpAidQzgnYo
Star Wars Battlefront 2’s Loot Box Controversy Explained
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/star-wars-battlefront-2s-loot-box-controversy-expl/1100-6455155/
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By anna-lisa tie on September 26, 2019
News of Google Stadia has been met with a mix of enthusiasm and skepticism. On one hand, there’s definitely appeal in the prospect of being able to play games on any device with access to Google Chrome without having to purchase a console. In addition, Google Stadia seems to be taking a step forward in terms of facilitating closer connections in the gaming community, allowing streamers and developers to share playable scenes with Stadia users and developing the Crowd Play feature for YouTubers to play games with their viewers, including those who don’t have the game themselves.
However, with the emergence of cloud gaming, different kinds of challenges arise:
- One issue that tends to be raised quite a lot is the concern about the internet connection required for streaming video games. Latency problems can be detrimental to playability and player experience, particularly for competitive multiplayer games that rely on precise timing of movements. That’s not to mention potential consumers without a high-speed internet connection in the first place, or those who have sporadic connection.
- Game preservation has also been a worry among the gaming community. In the case of traditional console gaming, the game is stored on a hard drive and the player can still pick it up at a later time even if the game is removed from sale. Cloud game requires the players to relinquish control of their gameplay history, as it is the cloud streaming platform that retains the code. In the case of Google Stadia, this raises the concern that if games are removed, users who have paid will no longer be able to play and complete the game. Though it is noted that Google responded to this question in June this year, saying they wouldn’t remove games no longer on sale from players’ Stadia libraries.
- As for the Crowd Play feature, little has been said about exactly how the queuing system will operate. How much control will content creators have to screen prospective viewers/players queuing to join their gameplay? Could YouTubers be in danger of internet trolls hijacking their livestreams and being disrupted by abuse in chat comments?
Overall, while cloud gaming has its perks, it also poses a number of additional challenges and implications for the future of gameplay and community engagement in the video game industry. It’ll be interesting to see how platforms like Google Stadia fare in the near future.
Check out these links for more info:
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