Posts tagged with cvga

Yesterday, the archive hosted an English 298 class entitled "The Games We Play." Students played a number of our games that were puzzle-oriented (most of them also included utopian/dystopian themes), and then presented what they learned as they discussed how their game incorporates the concepts of work and play.

Here is our list of the most popular games for the month of May. A Wii U game makes the list, with one very enthusiastic player putting P3P for the PSP on the list as well. Our arcade cabinet has also seen more play over the past few weeks.

Since the announcement of Micrsoft's next generation Xbox One gaming and entertainment console earlier this week, we've received several inquiries about our thoughts on how it's announced features, particularly the cloud computing and DRM aspects, will affect how we deal with it in the archive. Below are my (Dave's) initial thoughts:I've been following somewhat the information about the Xbox One since its announcement earlier this week. While we don't have many details yet, what I've read so far gives me cause for concern as to how we'll be able to work with the new system in the Computer & Video Game Archive.As far as offloading game play to the cloud and requiring an Internet connection to function, this offers a challenge that is in many ways similar to dealing with MMORPGs like World of Warcraft. If the online experience is part of the game, how do you replicate that experience when the online component is no longer available? (And in the case of WoW, even if you have the game and have a server on which to run it, is it really the same experience without several million other players interacting? Ten or twenty years from now it will be essentially impossible to experience WoW.)There is a history of manufacturers not supporting their old gaming platforms; e.g. in 2010 when Microsoft stopped supporting the original Xbox on Xbox Live. If you want to play Halo 2 online multiplayer on your Xbox? Sorry, you can't. And that's for a game that's less than 10 years old.But I can take a game and game system from 30 years ago, plug them in and they still work and play fine. Even for companies that are long defunct. Will the same be true in even 10 years for games for the Xbox One?I'm also concerned about new DRM restrictions, such as requiring a game to be installed and tied to a specific user account. This also presents challenges to us (not to mention to the First-Sale Doctrine...) Though we've been dealing with this sort of thing with PC-based games for several years now and I'm sure we'll deal it, it doesn't fill me with warm fuzzy feelings.Still, with both of these issues, the proof of the pudding is (as they say) in the eating. We'll have to wait until more details are available before evaluating if the Xbox One will be a system that we can support for archival purposes. Or if we're just tilting at windmills.

Here are the top games played in the archive during the month of April. As classes and exams are ending, it appears that Smash has been popular enough to make it back on the list. Banjo Kazooie has also been surprisingly popular over the past month or so.

Here is our list of top games played during the month of March. The Xbox 360 dominates with FPS and sports games, and the Wii U is still getting plenty of love from a few very dedicated players.

The generous donor of our Arcade Legends machine, Joshua A. Bilmes, has been highlighted in the library's newsletter. A lover of classic games, he is also the president of the JABberwocky Literacy Agency, where he represents authors of science fiction and fantasy, and is the author of the blog Brillig.

Please mark your calendars for March 25th-April 6th and join us as we highlight some of the motion-related consoles and games available at the CVGA by hosting a Motion Gaming Tournament. This tournament will include the following games:Sports Champions: Gladiator Duel for the PlayStation 3 Move Fruit Ninja Kinect for the Xbox 360 Kinect Antigrav for the PlayStation 2 EyetoyExcite Bots for the Wii Dance Dance Revolution X for the PlayStation 2 Dance PadThe event will be a silent tournament that takes place over the course of two weeks (March 25th-April 6th). Participants can come in anytime the archive is open during these two weeks and play the games whenever their schedules allow. Prizes (Amazon gift cards!) will be awarded after points are tallied up at the end.Anyone affiliated with the university (excluding tournament officials) may can sign up by providing avalid UMICH ID, name, uniqname and email, and may sign up in person at the archive desk,via email at video.games@umich.edu, or by phone at 763-6533. See the full tournament rules here.

Here is our list of top games played in the archive during the month of February. The usual suspects top the list, with Mario becoming popular again now that we have the Wii U. Smash also makes an appearance, despite being played only on Fridays.

Here is our list of the top 10 games played in the archive for the month of January. Sports games make up a good portion of the list, with favorites like League of Legends and Mariokart making an appearance. We also see the emergence of a PSP game and the Arcade Legends cabinet, which has garnered interest ever since we got it last year.

Here are the top games played in the archive for the month of December. The sports games show a clear lead, with various versions of Call of Duty close behind. League of Legends also makes another appearance on the PC front.