Playing This Old School Computer Game Can Make You Healthier

Whether it’s reading a trashy gossip mag or watching a YouTuber’s vlog about getting their nails done, every now and again we all need to escape from our own lives by becoming absorbed in someone else’s. Yes, it can feel like you’re wasting your life away, but God, it’s therapeutic! And if you ask us, there’s no better way to do that than with The Sims. The life simulation computer game (which turned 18 last month. Feel old yet?) was — and is — the ultimate way to disengage from real life. For those of you who actually spent your time outdoors growing up, the game essentially allows you to play God by creating an alternate universe with families and houses (PS. if you weren’t just creating your friends, family, mortal enemies and crushes, you were playing it wrong).

It all sounds a little unhealthy, right? But according to new research, it’s actually quite the opposite! New research has concluded that escaping with a virtual reality computer game can actually make you healthier, happier and more creative in real life.

The Sims can allow a person to escape social normality, its pressures and chronic stresses that are so prevalent in the real world, it allows the gamer to create a perfect reality in which they play the main character and have full control over the outcome. It is important to remember that immersing yourself in your imagination periodically is actually a very positive form of escapism and is considered important for our brain functions as it can expand our creativity. It allows the gamer to express a part of their personality that they may not have known if they hadn’t played. Albert Einstein once said ‘creativity is intelligence having fun’.

Our consciousness is very adaptable and allows us to create an opening to different paradigms of reality every time we focus on alternate versions of life through our thoughts. With the assistance of life simulation games such as The Sims, we can enhance our inner experience. Without escapism, we would simply burn out. It’s the main reason why we dream at night when we sleep as it’s our minds way of disengaging from the state of conscious living.”— Psychoanalyst Steve McKeown via UNILAD

The Sims is just the beginning of the virtual reality movement which is about to transform our lives as we know it. Obviously, it’s possible to overdo it with tools that allow you to escape from everyday life (especially if you’re under a lot of stress) and this isn’t a positive thing. McKeown says: “The more we escape the real world and spend more time in a world of fantasy the less we engage in actual social interaction.” So, while you shouldn’t feel guilty about indulging in games like The Sims every now and again, it’s important to ensure you’re getting enough IRL connection in your life.

IBM Builds Tiny Computer to Fight Supply Chain Fraud

On Tuesday, IBM unveiled a portfolio of "cryptographic anchors" that will serve as digital fingerprints to authenticate shipments. As a consignment makes its way from factory to ship to consumer, the anchor would create a verifiable blockchain record of the product's origins, contents and whereabouts. The company says that these technologies could cut the multi-billion-dollar problem of fraudulent goods in half.

"Almost everything has been copied," says Andreas Kind, manager of industry platforms and blockchain at IBM Research. "The total value of counterfiet goods was estimated in 2015 to be $1.8 trillion dollars."

As a leading example, Kind says, in certain parts of the world, 40 percent of the parts on the automotive aftermarket are actually fake. The modern world's long, trans-border supply chains contribute to this problem, making it hard to verify the origin and authenticity of goods.

In addition to online, secure cryptographic ledgers for business records and transactions, he said, "the trust has to reach into the physical world." Crypto anchors are designed to make this possible - to link cryptographic record systems with real objects in a manner that cannot be faked. The anchors (which could take many forms, from tiny computers to printed codes) would be embedded in the product and are designed to be un-clonable.

IBM says that the first of these "fingerprint" systems could be made available to clients in the next 18 months. Within the next five years, it hopes that technological advances could take many more of them to commercialization.

World's smallest computer

Among other "crypto anchor" products, IBM unveiled what might be the world's smallest computer, a chip tinier than a coarse grain of salt and and packing the power of a 1990s-era x86 processor. (The Verge notes that this would be just enough to run the vintage computer game Doom). It is powered by a tiny, integral solar panel and communicates with other devices by means of a single LED communications unit.

The device is intended to be embedded in products or packaging to serve as a tracker during shipment. IBM expects that it will cost less than 10 cents to manufacture each chip. "They’ll be used in tandem with blockchain’s distributed ledger technology to ensure an object’s authenticity from its point of origin to when it reaches the hands of the customer," said IBM's SVP of hybrid cloud, Arvind Krishna.

NVIDIA Achieves the Holy Grail of Computer Gaming Graphics

On Monday at the Game Developers Conference 2018, NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) announced RTX, a ray-tracing technology for real-time rendering, which will enable developers to achieve cinematic-quality in their video games. The graphics processing unit (GPU) specialist also announced its partnership with Microsoft for DirectX Raytracing.

This is a huge achievement -- and yet another reason to buy NVIDIA stock -- as ray tracing in real time has long been considered the Holy Grail among the computer gaming industry.

Here's what you should know.

NVIDIA RTX and the Microsoft partnership

NVIDIA RTX consists of a scalable ray-tracing technology running on Volta, NVIDIA's newest GPU architecture. The company partnered with Microsoft to enable full RTX support for applications that use Microsoft's new DirectX Raytracing (DXR) API, an industry-standard platform. NVIDIA's GameWorks software development kit (SDK) will add a ray-tracing denoiser module, enabling developers to take advantage of the new real-time rendering capabilities.

Ray tracing is a method for producing visual images within 3D computer graphics environments with more realism than traditional rendering techniques. The technology enables the production of lifelike lighting, reflections, shadows, and such. Ray tracing has been used for many years to pre-render scenes in movies. But until now, it's been "too computationally demanding to be practical for real-time, interactive gaming," according to NVIDIA.

Volta changed that. The GPU architecture, which launched last year in select products, such as NVIDIA's Tesla GPUs for data center, is much more powerful than predecessor Pascal. It allows ray tracing to tackle the massive computational loads associated with real-time rendering. Along with its advances in GPU architectures, NVIDIA also credited its progress in computer graphics algorithms for enabling it to develop RTX, a technology it's been working on for 10 years.

RTX should rev up NVIDIA's already strong gaming-related growth

NVIDIA stands to profit from its RTX technology as game developers adopt the technology to increase the realism of their video games. Higher-quality games, in turn, should rev up the already booming gaming market. Game market researcher Newzoo forecasts that the global video-game market generated revenue of $16.1 billion in 2017, up 10.7% from 2016, and projects that it will hit $143.5 billion by 2020, which translates to a 7.3% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). Moreover, there's good reason to believe that growth will exceed this estimate, as Newzoo significantly revised upwards its 2017 forecast near the end of the year. 

NVIDIA has been profiting handsomely from gaming's growth. In its fiscal-year 2018, the company's gaming market platform -- which sells GeForce graphics cards to PC gamers -- generated revenue of $5.5 billion, a 36% jump from the prior year, and accounting for 57% of its total revenue of $9.7 billion. The company's professional visualization platform also benefits from the growth in gaming, as this business sells Quadro GPUs to game developers, among others. In fiscal 2018, this platform's revenue grew 12% to $934 million, comprising nearly 19% of total revenue.

Management has said that gaming's main growth drivers include the rising popularity of esports, the increasing quality of video-game content, the sharing of game experiences on social media, and faster internet connections around the globe.

Something big just happened

I don't know about you, but I always pay attention when one of the best growth investors in the world gives me a stock tip. Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner and his brother, Motley Fool CEO Tom Gardner, just revealed two brand new stock recommendations. Together, they've tripled the stock market's return over the last 13 years.* And while timing isn't everything, the history of Tom and David's stock picks shows that it pays to get in early on their ideas.

Scottish computer game firms treble in just five years

The number of video games companies in Scotland has trebled from 35 in 2011 to 105 in 2017, with the combined turnover increasing from £36.9m in 2011 to £115.7m by 2015, figures released by the SNP show.

The party said support from government body Scottish Enterprise has underpinned the growth in the sector.

In an answer to a parliamentary question submitted by SNP MSP Ash Denham, Fiona Hyslop said Scottish Enterprise had invested £11.5m in 38 video game companies over the five years since 2011.

Ms Denham said: "Scotland's video games sector has been booming, with just a handful of firms when the SNP came into office growing into more than a hundred now.

"This sector offers high quality jobs and exports around the world - with Rockstar North in particular a global brand.

"Support from Scottish Enterprise has underpinned the growth in this sector as part of our wider efforts to grow domestic businesses and increase exports - with latest figures showing Scottish exports rising faster than the rest of the UK.

"To build on that success, it's essential that Scotland remains in the world's largest single market after Brexit."

The Struggle To Cram Game Of Thrones Inside A Video Game

It's not for want of trying. We've had three notable releases based on the series: a bad RTS, an average action game and an adventure series that was...fine. Nothing has come close to making the same impact on games as George R.R. Martin's saga has on other media, though.

To date, the best Game of Thrones video game experience hasn't been a standalone release at all, but a mod (casually known as AGOT) for Paradox's excellent Crusader Kings II, a PC strategy game that's as much about sex and intrigue as it is conquering armies.

CKII is notorious for its scope and detail, as players are able to fill the boots of any one of thousands of European nobles over a 700-year period. Between that and the tone you can see why the two properties are a good match.

And yet not even CKII has been able to contain the universe of Game of Thrones, whose epic journeys, warring factions and deep lore have been challenging the AGOT team for years now.

To get an idea of the struggles involved in trying to cram Martin's universe into a video game, I spoke with Matthew Clohessy, a man who has been on both side's of the project, first as a member of AGOT's core development team, and now as an employee of Paradox, the creators of Crusader Kings II.

"My role throughout most of AGOT's development has been general scripting and the implementation of various fun stuff that you see whenever you play", Clohessy tells Kotaku.

"In essence any decision you can click, event that pops up or piece of history that makes all the start dates lore accurate are things that there is a decent chance I have touched at some point or another whether it is implementing them, bug fixes or just a minor tweaks."

Clohessy worked on AGOT from 2013 until earlier this year, when he left the team to take part in an internship with Paradox while helping out on Jade Dragon, Crusader Kings II's latest big expansion. He's since moved from the UK to Sweden to take up a fulltime position at Paradox, where his experience with Westeros and CKII is being put to use as a Content Designer for the studio.

While we could have chatted about how amazing AGOT is, I've done that enough on this site, so instead I wanted to learn more about the ways in which Westeros couldn't be contained, even by a game that allows everything from Aztec invasions of Britain to incest to Horse Lords of Rome.

What have been the hardest things the AGOT team have had to try and stuff into Crusader Kings II's framework?

I would have to say one of the harder things in general is forcing certain characters to do things, like ensuring the members of the Kingsguard are always around the King. Same with the Night's Watch, it is playable, however it has many maintenance events to keep it working as the Night's Watch does in the lore, as the aim of CK2 has always been a dynastic game, and the Night's Watch does not care about dynasties when they elect their rulers.

The unique war system in the mod is also tricky, as it lets all the vassal lords become independent so as to choose sides, in a similar way to the War of the Five Kings. Once war ends the lords need to be remade into a vassal of their original lord, and sometimes that can go wrong.

Also the general tendency of characters to die a lot, be it through the player killing them or just randomness in the game, can break certain event chains. But that is also part of the fun, seeing what funny and interesting scenarios happen when a certain character dies and who rules what!

What are some of the compromises AGOT had to make when trying to carry ASOIAF's tone, history and themes into CKII?
There are some balance compromises that had to be made so that certain regions were not extremely strong compared to all the others.

We still do not have it perfect as some regions like Dorne -- who in the book's history managed to survive Aegon the Conquer's invasion with three dragons -- really struggles to do the same in AGOT, as there is no good way to model guerrilla warfare through the game's mechanics, so instead we had to try and buff them in other ways. But they are still easily defeated.

Other regions that are weaker as well include the Iron Isles, as there is no ship-to-ship combat in the game, so they have lots of ships but not many troops to actually ferry around with them.

The Wildlings are also a struggle to model accurately because they are extremely weak within the game's framework, as they are made up of very small lordships. If you do end up conquering them they have lots of revolts to free themselves, but these revolts have to be artificially increased in power so they are not just 300 men standing no chance against the Iron Throne.

How did you approach weaving the backstory of Westeros into the mod's starting points?
When placing the Lords and the titles they hold we always try to be as accurate as possible, but sometimes we have to switch things around to fit the mechanics of the game, or just to not make it ridiculously unbalanced to play. For example the Reach should have more troops than they actually do, but they already have a huge amount, so giving them even more diminishes some of the enjoyment from fighting against them.

Of course there are some errors here and there, or guesses we made about certain things that then had to be updated as more information was released, with the official World of Ice and Fire book (released in 2014) being a prime example, as it shed light on many historical areas of the lore that we had previously made guesses on, or gave us information about the far off lands of Essos and what unique cultures and religions they have.