Online gaming on mobile devices

In the past people would only use the internet on their mobile devices to download songs, ringtones, screensavers and themes. I remember back then when there are magazines that have one full page dedicated to downloading or buying stuff for our phones. Which is something similar to this

I wish I could find one from a magazine that I used to purchase. How it works is each item has a special code listed beside it. To get it, you'll have to send an SMS using a correct format including the code to the agency. Something like this <5424> A, send to 33390, and your purchase will be charged to your telco bill.

In the early days, games on mobile devices were mainly played alone or with 2 players by sharing the phone together, never more. When internet packages were slowly being introduced to the public, multiplayer games started appearing. With the internet, players around the globe get to compete with each other to beat others high score.  

My earliest multiplayer games were Fun Run. A grotesque platform racing game which you can play with friends through an internet connection while using your own mobile device. It was fun playing it real time together with friends. One person would drop a trap on the race course and when others are hit by it, we all get the same reaction and trash talk each other. It's really fun. 

Other than that there are also games that were previously only playable on PC which is now available on mobile too. Players can continue where they left off and play it while on their daily commute to school or work or even during lunch time. 

Another great example is Pokemon GO. A virtual reality game where players are required to go outside into the real world to catch Pokemons. This game requires internet connection to play. During it's initial release, a few positive outcomes of the game that I noticed were families visited malls together during weekends just to play Pokemon GO. I've seen middle-aged men and women playing it too! Because of the hype, even housewives are joining in with the fun. Prior to this, they only use their internet connection on their phone for social media purposes and to connect with family. It's so weird and actually nice to see grown men and women enjoying the game as much as us youngsters do even though the only Pokemon they know is Pikachu. 

Huge gaming companies are also slowly introducing mobile games for users. Minecraft was previously only playable either on PC, Xbox, and Playstation. Mojang AB, creator and developer of the popular sandbox block game introduced Minecraft Pocket Edition on Google Play for US $6.99 on August 16, 2011. It has garnered so much attention that this game is usually on the Top 10 charts on the app store and Google Play top paid game charts. 

Players can create servers and share it with other players to join only if they are using the same internet connection. Me and my sister would spend hours exploring the world and building beautiful homes on top of trees and underground. 

There are also online servers which are created by other creators for players to join and play mini-games. Players can earn in-game credits by winning these mini-games and spending them on better gear such as better armor and weapons to increase the chances of survival. Players can also create their own world and build cities or buildings and share it online with other players to play in. 

That is all for now. I may keep updating this blog to help me generate more ideas for my essay. But for now I'll be signing off! 

Have a Merry Christmas!

References

Brackebush, J. (2016). How mobile is overtaking desktop for global media consumption, in 5 charts - Digiday. [online] Digiday. Available at: http://digiday.com/publishers/mobile-overtaking-desktops-around-world-5-charts/ [Accessed 18 Dec. 2016].

Leitner, L. (2012). How Smartphones Change the Way We Live | mysms blog. [online] Blog.mysms.com. Available at: https://blog.mysms.com/how-smartphones-change-the-way-we-live.html [Accessed 18 Dec. 2016].

Minecraft.gamepedia.com. (n.d.). Pocket Edition – Official Minecraft Wiki. [online] Available at: http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Pocket_Edition#Success [Accessed 18 Dec. 2016].

Mojang, (2015). Minecraft: Pocket Edition Trailer 2015. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-fMtNOS_gU [Accessed 18 Dec. 2016].

Snider, M. (2012). Wii U, mobile games will be headliners at 2012 E3 expo. [online] USATODAY.COM. Available at: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/gaming/story/2012-05-31/e3-2012-preview/55334690/1 [Accessed 18 Dec. 2016].

More research

Constantly having to juggle 4 subjects with assignments on their own is exhausting. I have barely any ideas to write about my essay and I have yet to come up with a framework AHH! I'm the type of person who would always ditch their ideas immediately and start off on a new one if it looks bad instead of working through it and right now, I'm thinking if this topic is really the right one to write.

How the evolution of mobile devices impact designers.

"With the newest evolving mobile technology and related user behavior, mobile designs have also become an ever fluctuating field. Thus, in order to create an intriguing and worthy mobile presence, it is imperative to keep the latest mobile design trends in mind." (Creative Beacon, 2015)

There is a wide variety of sizes of mobile devices today, from the large screens of tablets, laptops and e-book readers to the small screens of smartphones, according to jgeorge, having the appropriate UX is important to make sure that designs respond nicely according to the screen size. An example is websites without mobile versions of them makes it hard to view. Jgeorge mentioned that to resolve this issue easily, designers have come up with two different design approaches which are Responsive Design and Adaptive Design.

  

Responsive Design - Websites responds to the size of the browser at any given point. Providing an optimal viewing and interaction experience such as easy reading, minimum panning and scrolling, while using it across different platforms.

Adaptive Design - "Adaptive websites adapt to the width of the browser at a specific points. In other words, the website is only concerned about the browser being a specific width, at which point it adapts the layout." (Graham, 2015)


Responsive design shows how fluid it is the design changes when the size of screen changes as well whereas Adaptive is not as fluid and it takes a certain time for it to adapt to the screen size.

References

Creative Beacon. (2015). How Evolving Mobile Devices Impact Designers - Creative Beacon. [online] Available at: http://creativebeacon.com/how-evolving-mobile-devices-impact-designers/ [Accessed 16 Dec. 2016].

Editorial, S. (2011). Responsive Web Design: What It Is And How To Use It – Smashing Magazine. [online] Smashing Magazine. Available at: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/01/guidelines-for-responsive-web-design/ [Accessed 16 Dec. 2016].

En.wikipedia.org. (n.d.). Responsive web design. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsive_web_design [Accessed 16 Dec. 2016].

Graham, G. (2015). The Difference Between Responsive and Adaptive Design | CSS-Tricks. [online] CSS-Tricks. Available at: https://css-tricks.com/the-difference-between-responsive-and-adaptive-design/ [Accessed 16 Dec. 2016].

Schwarz, D. (2016). What is Adaptive Design? (And is it Different from Responsive Design?. [online] SitePoint. Available at: https://www.sitepoint.com/adaptive-design-different-responsive-design/ [Accessed 16 Dec. 2016].

Brainstorming

Digitization has had a particularly profound impact upon the creative sector, which includes the industries of book publishing, print publishing, film and television, music, and gaming. (Acker et al., 2015) So to focus on how mobile devices actually play a part in the creative industry I will be breaking it into several aspects of it.

1. Jobs

Mobile devices created many new jobs for those in the creative industry. Other than that, designers can easily look for freelance or any job openings using a mobile device easily. 


2. Convenience

People working with the use of mobile devices.
Source : http://www.rd.com/health/wellness/things-creative-people-do/

Because of mobile devices, as a designer, it has certainly helped us a lot. We are always available and easily contacted. "Whether through a phone call, text, email, social media or some other form of communication, we're always at the beck and call of those we know so long as we have a mobile device with us." (Matteson, 2014) We can easily edit any designs while on the go, discuss details and information with our clients anywhere, we can send work progress to clients for approval and the list goes on and on! 


3. Extra income/exposure

Artists can utilize mobile devices to help them gain more exposure by selling their designs online on websites such as Etsy, Society 6, Zazzle, NeonMob and many more for extra income. Not only that, there are artists who stream designs or artwork that they are working on to fans online. Viewers can get a glimpse on their work-in-progress stuff. People can then share these videos as references thus giving the artists more exposure as well. 

Patreon is a crowd-funding platform popular with YouTube content creators, musicians, and webcomic artists. It allows artists to obtain funding from their fans or patrons, on a recurring basis, or per work of art. (En.wikipedia.org, n.d.) Patreon also has apps which makes it easier for Creators to manage their account easily.

How Patreon works. 
Source : https://www.patreon.com/sakimichan

What other ways do mobile devices help in the creative industry? Comment down below and give me your opinions.

References

Acker, O., Gröne, F., Kropiunigg, L. and Lefort, T. (2015). The digital future of creative Europe: The impact of digitization and the Internet on the creative industries in Europe. [online] Strategyand.pwc.com. Available at: http://www.strategyand.pwc.com/reports/the-digital-future-creative-europe [Accessed 14 Dec. 2016].

Brunn, K. (2015). What Are the Different Types of Designers? UI Design, Interface Design, Web Design. [online] Hiring | Upwork. Available at: https://www.upwork.com/hiring/design/what-type-of-designer-do-you-need/ [Accessed 14 Dec. 2016].

Chan, S. (n.d.). [image] Available at: https://www.patreon.com/sakimichan [Accessed 14 Dec. 2016].

Clarke, N. (2014). ONE YEAR ON PATREON – PROS AND CONS. [Blog] Neil Clarke. Available at: http://neil-clarke.com/patreon-pros-and-cons-one-year/ [Accessed 14 Dec. 2016].

En.wikipedia.org. (n.d.). Patreon. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patreon [Accessed 14 Dec. 2016].

Grieves, A. (2013). All growth in the creative industry is digital? Discuss. [Blog] Available at: https://www.digitalcatapultcentre.org.uk/all-growth-in-the-creative-industry-is-digital-discuss/ [Accessed 14 Dec. 2016].

Matteson, S. (2014). 10 ways mobile devices are changing society - TechRepublic. [online] TechRepublic. Available at: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/10-ways-mobile-devices-are-changing-society/ [Accessed 14 Dec. 2016].

Reader's Digest, (n.d.). [image] Available at: http://www.rd.com/health/wellness/things-creative-people-do/ [Accessed 14 Dec. 2016].

Scherman, J. (2016). 8 Types of Graphic Design Jobs You May Not Know About ... Yet. [online] Rasmussen.edu. Available at: http://www.rasmussen.edu/degrees/design/blog/8-types-graphic-design-jobs-you-may-not-know-about/ [Accessed 14 Dec. 2016].

Staff, C. (2015). 15 great places to sell your design work online. [online] Creative Bloq. Available at: http://www.creativebloq.com/career/sell-design-online-912746 [Accessed 14 Dec. 2016].

And the winner is..

First of all, I apologize for the lack of entries as I couldn't make up my mind on which topic to write. So after thinking about it thoroughly I have decided to choose the 3rd topic which is ''How did mobile devices change the way people use the internet? Consider its consumer impact and relate them to a specific creative industry / profession.'' 

Mobile devices is a general term for any type of handheld computer, which is created to increase productivity by making it more portable to bring it around anywhere. You can perform tasks that are usually done on a computer right at the palm of your hand! Some examples of mobile devices are tablets, smartphones, e-readers and also handheld gaming consoles. 

My initial aim for this topic is to discuss how mobile devices which later on contributed to the boost of mobile games and apps, helped those in the creative media industry. Because of the evolution of mobile devices, more functions and capabilities appeared which led to new job opportunities appeared such as UX/UI designer, motion graphics designer, app developer, and many more.  Recently, the VR (Virtual Reality) or Augmented Reality function became available to most handheld devices, making way to more jobs as mobile app developers need to hire designers specializing in virtual reality.

Evolution of mobile devices.
Source : http://mobileworldcapital.com/103/

To wrap this up, I will be researching more on how mobile devices plays a role in the creative media industry. 

References

Balis, J. (2015). 3 Strategic Questions the Media Industry’s Future Depends On. [online] Harvard Business Review. Available at: https://hbr.org/2015/10/3-strategic-questions-the-media-industrys-future-depends-on [Accessed 13 Dec. 2016].

Barber, L. (2016). One huge hint that Snapchat's working on a VR device. [online] Cityam.com. Available at: http://www.cityam.com/248789/one-huge-hint-snapchats-working-vr-device [Accessed 13 Dec. 2016].

Mobile World Capital Barcelona. (2013). Evolution of mobile devices from the 80's to the present - Mobile World Capital Barcelona. [online] Available at: http://mobileworldcapital.com/103/ [Accessed 13 Dec. 2016].

Faisal, S. (2014). MOBILE APPS: GENERATING ECONOMIC GAINS FOR CREATIVE MEDIA INDUSTRIES IN ONTARIO. 1st ed. [ebook] Ontario. Available at: http://www.omdc.on.ca/Assets/Research/Research+Reports/Mobile+Apps-+Generating+Economic+Gains.pdf [Accessed 13 Dec. 2016].

GCFLearnFree.org. (n.d.). Computer Basics: Mobile Devices - Page 1. [online] Available at: http://www.gcflearnfree.org/computerbasics/mobile-devices/1/ [Accessed 13 Dec. 2016].

The White House. (n.d.). Net Neutrality: A Free and Open Internet. [online] Available at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/net-neutrality [Accessed 13 Dec. 2016].

First Impressions

First of all, welcome to my blog. This blog is dedicated to my degree course about Internet Cultures. We were presented with the brief which contains 6 topics that we could choose from. In this post, I will be trying to brainstorm any ideas that I could write about for any of the topics. Right, let's get started.

1. Investigate a major controversy that unfolded online. Discuss its relevance to creative professionals. 

The controversy that first popped into my head was major fashion brands stealing designs from designers. One of the cases was Zara stealing the artwork of Tuesday Bassen, an independent artist based in Los Angeles. Tuesday found out about it from her followers on Instagram. Baffled by this news, she decided to investigate it herself firsthand and saw her designs being used when she visited one of the stores. She took action immediately after this. Zara's legal team decided to just shrug it off with the excuse of Tuesday not being "famous" enough. There are other cases as well of plagiarism of lesser known artists, which is sad. I've seen people claiming that since they have paid for a certain artwork, they have the right to do whatever the f*** they want. Such as removing the artist's watermark and printing it on t-shirts and totes to sell them. What the heck. 

2. Cyberspace is vital for protecting and spreading democracy. Explore this idea and question it's effectiveness. 

I'm not very confident with this topic and I will put this topic aside. 

3. How did mobile devices change the way people use the internet? Consider its consumer impact and relate them to a specific creative industry / profession.

I had a lot of ideas when I first read this topic. I think this topic will be my final choice. In the age of technology, there are so many things to talk about that currently has an impact on the creative industry. Mobile devices, apps were introduced because of smartphones and there are different kinds apps that are useful for people in the creative industry. I've used an app called NeonMob that allows you to collect these "packs" that contain cards/artwork by designers. They're like blind boxes. You never know what you're gonna get. Some of the collectible cards are rated as common, uncommon, rare, very rare and extremely rare. Users can collect and trade their cards to complete their collection. Artists, on the other hand can create their own packs to be sold on the website for users to collect. There are a lot more apps to talk about but I have to choose a specific creative industry to focus on. I will need to do more reading so I can elaborate more on this topic. 

4. Compare and contrast how two different communities or social groups use a specific social media platform. Which of the two groups has more to gain from it and why?

This is a complex topic. The most obvious way to write about this is probably comparing the younger generation and the older generation. There are of course other types of communities or social groups that I could use as an example, but in order to get better results from it I have to put myself in both side's shoes. I am not considering this topic to write.

5. Malaysians are so uncreative that they cannot even make 'dank' memes. Argue for or against the statement. 

“Dank Memes” is an ironic expression used to mock online viral media and in-jokes that have exhausted their comedic value to the point of being trite or cliché. In this context, the word “dank,” originally coined as a term for high quality marijuana, is satirically used as a synonym for “cool.”

So dank memes actually mean cool memes or cool memes that are outdated? I don't know. I don't even use this word very often but I'll settle for it being known as "cool meme". What does the topic mean? Malaysians can't make memes that are funny enough to be recognized and used globally or we just can't make good memes? Is there a ''dank-o-meter'' to measure how 'dank' our memes are? This is very confusing.

Well in my opinion, Malaysians have made their own 'dank' meme, well most of them are political satire and others are just very bad puns that uses some Bahasa Malaysia terms or other languages and slangs used in Malaysia. Like when Pokemon Go finally arrived at Malaysia and people had fun renaming Pokemons with Malaysian inspired names. What makes Malaysian memes special is that a lot of them are only #relatable to us Malaysians. There are Malay memes, Indian memes, Chinese memes, Hokkien memes, Hakka memes and many others. This could be a very fun topic to write, I might consider this. Check out Malaysia's very own 9gag for some 'dank' memes.

6.  Identify a figure who is generally known to have played a major role on the internet. Evaluate if his/her contributions are justified or mythologized.

Oh my, this topic. Where do I start? There are so many social media influencers that I look up to! From PewDiePie, Tyler Oakley, Hannah Hart, Anna Akana, Domics, Cranbersher, Ariana Grande and much more. The Shorty Awards website is a great place to discover people who have been contributing to the online community. The Shorty Awards honor talented agencies, brands, and industry leaders behind the best and most innovative work on social media channels, campaigns, websites and applications. Ther are people who support and defend the rights of the LGBTQ community, people who encourage loving yourself more, ending body shaming, someone who encourage kids to stand up to their bullies, people who highlight the issues of whitewashing in the film industry and many others. This is a very vast topic that can be expanded in many ways.

References

Facebook.com. (2016). MGAG | Facebook. [online] Available at: https://www.facebook.com/mymgag/ [Accessed 22 Nov. 2016].

Kirkhope, T. (2012). How the internet is transforming democracy. [online] The Independent. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/how-the-internet-is-transforming-democracy-8411474.html [Accessed 22 Nov. 2016].

Lim, J. (2016). These Malaysian-Inspired Names For Pokémon Characters Are Just Too Accurate!. [online] SAYS.com. Available at: http://says.com/my/fun/pokemon-puns [Accessed 22 Nov. 2016].

Puglise, N. (2016). Fashion brand Zara accused of copying LA artist's designs. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2016/jul/21/zara-accused-copying-artist-designs-fashion [Accessed 22 Nov. 2016].

Welcome to my blog

Why hello there! You just stumbled onto my academic blog! This blog will be served as a place to document my thoughts and researches based on the topic that I'm going to write for a subject of mine called Internet Cultures for degree. 

Forgive me if the flow of my posts are not quite fluid as usually while I'm typing about a certain topic, random thoughts of it will appear and I will just throw it into my posts. 

At first I was kinda confused as some of the topics have nothing to do with design which made it a problem for me as in the previous semester it was about art history so we have to relate it to historical facts and theories so it was quite easy to do research. Maybe these topics are also easy and I just haven't done enough reading yet. Anyhow, hope my blog is able to get some interest from you!

Happy reading~