Reader Interaction: Electronic Gaming

10 Comments

1. Daniel Solis on 26.01.2010 at 21:56

   I can see a merger of the two worlds, honestly. Once the (no doubt) high price of the tablet comes down to mere mortal budgets, I could see some companies producing special sets of “active” game pieces to be used on the tablet surface, pretty much just like in this demo videos:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec4fYs2FtNo&feature=player_embedded
   http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/10/d-and-d-microsoft-surface/

   Of course, this all still depends on the size and form of the product, which is as of this comment still unknown.

2. Matthew Frederick on 26.01.2010 at 23:04

   I don’t expect them to take the place of physical boardgames in my life, but there are some games that would be so much more fun if some of the computation was taken care of for you. Through The Ages, Die Macher, Planet Steam, are just three of many examples.

   Plus there’s the combination types of things like Daniel pointed to, along with other technologies like thin and cheap LCD bits, blocks that know they’re in proximity, etc. Lots of cool possibilities.

3. Bill In Upstate NY on 27.01.2010 at 06:37

   I can see a high solitaire value and/or a record-keeping/game aid function.

   Internet play, too.

   Not sure I would want to huddle around a tablet and play games.

4. Ray Smith on 27.01.2010 at 07:16

   A big draw to board games for me is the physicality of actual playing pieces and the social interaction among players. The tablet format is no more appealing to me than playing online, iPhone, etc. — which is nil.

5. Jeff Myers on 27.01.2010 at 12:52

   I think that the possiblity of having an interactive gaming table is very exciting. However, I would primarily be interested in using it for face to face gaming. I’m not sure how much the actual bits of a game matter to me, but I have yet to find any lasting social satisfaction from online gaming.

6. Robert C Kalajian Jr on 27.01.2010 at 17:40

   After seeing the release of the iPad, I was left a little disappointed. Nothing new…nothing innovative. If this had come out 6 months after the iPhone it would have been a big deal. Lack of cameras, multitasking, split screening, etc… make it a half-assed product in my opinion.

   Should still be good for gaming ports. I would love to see multiplayer-on-one-device for Hive, Zooloretto, etc…, but the other features I listed before would have make it a MUCH cooler device for gaming.

7. Matthew Frederick on 27.01.2010 at 17:54

   I don’t mind the new device at all. In fact, I think the iPod Touch and iPhone are _great_ for boardgames except for one thing, their screen size. This fixes that problem.

   Here’s my dream scenario for the current hardware: iPad in the middle of the table with the shared game information. Each player manipulates and plays the game with it. In addition, each player has an iPod Touch or iPhone, with everything wired together via P2P bluetooth. Your iPhone/iPod contains all of your _personal_ information: your cards, your hidden points, whatever. You manipulate your smaller device to enter bids, secret orders, whatever. Put it all together and you’ve got a pretty damned cool game experience, in my opinion.

8. Matthew Frederick on 27.01.2010 at 17:55

   And to be even more clear, it’s exactly what I started work on today, downloading the new SDK minutes after the announcement.

9. Peter Kelley on 27.01.2010 at 20:08

   I am really looki forward to the evolution of this. I don’t think the Apple tablet is quite the machine for it though. I think we should be looking more at something like the Microsoft surface. Imagine a world where pieces and dice are detected by RFID tags and their positions recorded on the table. Imagine morphing boards. Imagine secret information being kept on phones and PDAs that interact wirelessly with the main table. Imagine mechanics that can rely a lot more on the passing of time. Imagine downloading board games and buying deluxe pieces for that tactile experience.

   There is so much scope here for the hobby to go in an entirely new direction limited only by the availability and market penetration of the relevant hardware.

10. Wally on 29.01.2010 at 17:06

    Although I think the iPad is really cool and getting us closer to living in a Star Trek future, I don’t think it would replace my gaming habits. The joy of board games for me is having face to face interactions with friends. It is what drives me to play the games. I also love seeing the physical components of the games. It is just more fun than playing on a computer.

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