Gaming Experiments, Hacking, and Virtual Reality

February is turning out to be the month of revelations, and there are big things happening on the horizon. But first, let’s start with the news of the day!

A New Way to Game

A rather interesting gaming / social experiment is sweeping the web, allowing 80,000 people to play the same exact game at once. As in, the same game in a video game. A gamer with the tag of TwitchPlaysPokemon set up a social-media robot and began streaming Pokémon Red/Blue, a 1990s game played on Nintendo’s Game Boy, on Twitch.tv.

The game is tied to a chat room, where players send in chat commands that are tied to button commands, allowing the players to play the same game all at once.

Yup, Red has 80,000 people telling it to go up, down, jump, etc., all at once. Bet he’s pretty confused!

The movements are sporadic, obviously, but the experiment is proving interesting; in fact, some of the 80,000 players managed to capture several Pokémon during the first few days. However, as more and more people began to “play”, poor Red has spent most of his time running into walls or standing in one spot.

So what’s next? Well, it looks like TwitchPlaysPokemon, the “game’s” creator, is implementing features that will alleviate some of the confusion and cut down on trolls trying to mess with people truly attempting to play the game to win. Right now, there are two modes for the game, and the players in the chat get to vote on which way to play. Anarchy is the original version, where everyone sends commands at once. Democracy is the newer version, allowing players to vote on the character’s next move. Right now, the creator has it set to require a 75% agreement to switch between Democracy and Anarchy.

Ultimately, players are trying to defeat the Elite Four in the game, but as of now, their success hinges on whether or not they can agree. On anything.

Check out the stream at Twitch.tv.

Kickstarter Hacked

Kickstarter, the crowdfunding platform that has enabled the launch of over 50,000 different projects, was hacked last week, jeopardizing the information of some of the platform’s 5 million registered users.

Kickstarter was notified of the data breech late at night. The information accessed included usernames, email addresses, mailing addresses, phone numbers, and passwords; however, there is no evidence of any unauthorized activity as of yet, other than two specific accounts.

The people affected have been contacted, and every member of Kickstarter is highly encouraged to change their passwords on the site, as well as on any site where you use the same password. Kickstarter has since closed the breach and is working diligently towards bolstering their security. They maintain that no credit card information was leaked; in fact, the site doesn’t even store full credit card numbers. However, keeping an eye on your accounts is a good idea.

These things happen, of course, and Kickstarter has been relatively upfront about everything (despite waiting a bit long to mention this breach). Even if you aren’t a member there, this is a good reminder to change your passwords often and never use the same password across all of your accounts.

Sony Working on Virtual Reality?

Per usual, Sony is dropping breadcrumbs about future endeavors, and this time they seem to be hinting that they’re planning to make a PS4 compatible virtual reality headset similar to the much anticipated Oculus Rift.

President of Sony’s Online Entertainment, John Smedley, recently participated in an open question and answer session online. When asked if Rift support was planned for the upcoming EverQuest Next title, Smedley stated that his team would “support Oculus Rift in some way, shape, or form.”

So that sounds like they might ensure that the Rift is compatible with the PS4, right? Well, it could, but there’s an even more interesting idea. Given that Sony recently showed off their idea of a VR headset, buzz has been swarming with the idea that Sony was working on a headset of their own. Smedley didn’t promise anything (nobody ever seems to), but he did say, and we quote, “We’re hearing good things about 2 competitors [to the Oculus Rift]… one of which actually comes from Sony.”

Once again, bread crumbs, and nothing’s set in stone. But it sounds like Sony is setting the groundwork for some interesting announcements in the near future. And with the Game Developers Conference coming up in just a few weeks, in which Sony’s Tony Clark announced that users are in for a “massive” announcement, we can’t wait to hear more.

Stay tuned!