A Comprehensive List Of All The Computer Games You Played At School

While scrolling through Reddit today, as I am wont to do, I stumbled across an image posted by a user named Thebuder89 and it made my brain do a full-blown backflip. It was a picture of a CD-ROM for the classic educational game, Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo.

It ignited an inferno of memories from the days when classroom computers contained all sorts of educational delights. They were fun as hell back then, probably because we were dumbasses at the time, but I bet if you played them now they'd blow real hard, save for a couple.

So come on a magical journey as we remember some of the classics of schoolyard gaming, starting with the aforementioned talking car.

Putt-Putt

The Putt-Putt series is made up of a heap of games, but in terms of what you'd consider main titles, there are seven in total. They were point-and-click adventures in which you play a car named Putt-Putt, taking on different objectives like saving a zoo, for example.

I could have sworn Putt-Putt was named after the sound a stupid car would make, kinda like Brum, but according to Wikipedia, "his name was given to him by his father, who enjoyed to play mini golf". What the fuck?

Freddi Fish

The Freddi Fish games were made by Humongous Entertainment, who also created the Putt-Putt games above, so it handles in a very similar manner.

Freddi Fish and his small green pal, Luther, embark on adventures specific to the title of the game, much like their anthropomorphic car cousin. One such adventure is titled The Case of the Hogfish Rustlers of Briny Gulch, which almost sounds like it's a porno.

I also have an issue with a fish being named Luther.

Lemmings

The first time I ever played Lemmings was on a school computer in year 3 and it was the fucking best. Heaps of tiny green-haired idiots just marching mindlessly towards death, waiting for you to save them by instructing the one in front to build some goddamn stairs over a bottomless pit.

I don't know why this was on the school computers because it wasn't all that educational, but it whips ass so who fucking cares?

Zoombinis

Everyone remembers Zoombinis. They were little blue blobs with feet you had to guide to a safe land known as Zoombiniville (lazy name, but we'll let that slide) by solving a series of puzzles.

The first title, Logical Journey of the Zoombinis, was released in 1996 and seemed to make its way into every school in the country. We all seem to have collective memories of that goddamn Pizza Pass level.

Bugdom

Bugdom, in which you play a bug, is a platforming game that's by no means educational, but somehow came pre-loaded onto every Mac in my primary school.

The bug also wore a tiny pair of sneakers on two of its eight legs. Do with that information what you will.

The Magic School Bus

The Magic School Bus started as a book, became an animated TV series (which was rebooted in 2017), then hit computer monitors as an educational video game.

I don't remember playing the series at school, but I definitely remember smashing that shit at home when I was a kid. There were tons of games, each one exploring a different topic, but the human body and solar system ones were the best because stacking like a thousand Earths inside Jupiter and playing pinball in Arnold‘s heart was fucking mad.

Encarta 95

The Encarta series was the closest thing we had to Wikipedia before Wikipedia was a thing. It's not really a game, but more of an interactive encyclopedia found on most school library computers.

I wouldn't say it was "fun," but pissing off the mean library lady by playing howler monkey sounds at full volume and passing it off as school work sure was.

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?

Another mainstay of the school computer, the Carmen Sandiego games tasked you with finding a woman named Carmen Sandiego by following a series of clues.

From memory, finding old mate was incredibly tricky, but then again, I was like 8 and therefore, an idiot.

Reader Rabbit

I don't remember playing any of the Reader Rabbit games, but the concept is pretty simple. You are a rabbit and you read. I refuse to say more.

Mobile Casual Gamers Are 200 Million Strong but Largely Ignored

Perception is reality when it comes to marketing, and perception is challenging to alter once it is formed. For example, even though 203 million Americans will play mobile games regularly in 2018, most Americans do not identify themselves as gamers. Industry data proves that people of every age, demographic and household income play mobile games. Interestingly, over 20 percent of gamers in a recent study were older than 55. While 60 percent of women in another study said they play mobile games daily, 72 percent of women do not consider themselves gamers, even though 59 percent of them play at least 10 times per week.

Let's face it, the popular concept of a gamer (read: a teenager blowing up zombies in his parents' basement) is antiquated. Many advertisers have at least partially held back exploring mobile games as an advertising medium because the gamer image turns them off. However, in 2018, the majority of mobile games played are actually casual games: puzzles, word games, quiz games, brain teasers, etc. In other words, brand-safe and family-friendly. Mobile games are so successful that they now eclipse Hollywood's global box office revenue at $50 billion versus $40 billion.

Additionally, monster hits such as Pokémon Go, Words With Friends, HQ and others have begun to change perceptions. The industry is also remarketing itself to brands, coining the term "moca"—a combination of "mobile" and "casual"—to better represent a person who casually plays mobile games. The term originated from Jun Group as a way to rebrand mobile games for the new generation.

Pulling back the curtain on mobile games reveals an environment ideal for brand advertising. For example, the popular coloring book app Recolor surfaced with millions of daily active players who spend 10 minutes a session on average and generate over 68 million app sessions per month. Over 60 percent of Recolor players earn a household income of over $75,000, according to Facebook Analytics.

The success of casual game apps explains why they were predicted to be a more than 50 percent increase (to $655 million) in brand ad spend on mobile games over the past three years. Ninety-three percent of that spend went to video ads, and as brands continue to pull their video spend from unsavory sites and sites with uncontrollable content, they are beginning to see games as a safe and immersive way to reach their customers.

Despite this recent uptick, spend in the category still pales in comparison to the billions of dollars spent on social networks. Leading industry organizations like the Mobile Marketing Association are working to change that. A recent white paper on mobile games illustrates the opportunities in-game ads present for brands. The reality is that 25 percent of all apps downloaded from iTunes and Google Play are games, making games by far the number one app category. Mobile games typically represent 20-40 percent of the most popular apps in iTunes and the Google Play store. Mobile games are so popular that people spend on average three times more time with them than they do chat apps, as reported by comScore.

Also of interest to advertisers is the fact that people report feeling more engaged, relaxed, focused and happy with mobile games as compared to with social media. And people who are in an upbeat and positive mood are 40 percent more receptive to digital ads. Conversely, the mood of a social media goer may be less savory. Studies have revealed feelings of depression and anxiety, especially among millennial audiences—likely not the most receptive of moods for brand messaging.

So, while adopting a new term like moca to describe people who casually play mobile games is not a silver bullet for everything that ails digital advertising, it does go a long way to help change advertisers' perception of the space. It helps to refocus the conversation on an exciting source of brand-safe and high-performing ad inventory. Moca gaming reflects a growing pastime for hundreds of millions of Americans from all walks of life. Expect to see more people identify themselves as mocas in 2018—and look for advertisers to scale their spending accordingly.

The art of making non-violent video games for children

Before video games age ratings were really in force, the whole thing had a bit of a Wild West feel to it, with many parents often clueless about the types of virtual experiences their offspring were having.

Now that our generation has grown to be the age our parents were when we first fired up a console or PC, many of us have children of our own and appreciate that perhaps exposing younger ones to that sort of thing isn't particularly ideal.

Indeed, with gaming becoming a decidedly more mainstream pastime, kids are getting into it at a much earlier age.

But when violent shooters and action games seem to garner so much attention from those too young to play them, it's more important than ever for there to be gaming options for kids and families that don't revolve around violence. Having become a parent recently myself, it's safe to say that the idea of one day introducing my son to video games has inspired as much trepidation as it has excitement.

British studio Outright Games was established with a family-orientated ethos. The developer and publisher is exclusively dedicated to making kid-friendly titles, in many cases partnering with well-known brands and licenses.

Crayola Scoot is their latest project, combining elements of Splatoon and the Tony Hawk games with a Jet Set Radio look. I chatted to Outright's Chair of the Board of Directors, Nick Button Brown, about the importance of their mission and the challenges therein.

Nick's two decades in the industry include stints at Crytek and EA, and as well as his current role at Outright he is also the Chair of the Games Committee at BAFTA.

What was the inspiration behind Crayola Scoot? How closely did you work with Crayola on it?

"Crayola have been very supportive. Fundamentally what we wanted to do when we got to this was couch co-op. You'll feel this as you start to try and play games with your own child. The idea of being able to sit together and play something together. You need to be able to help them, to have that shared experience.

"I used to play the early Lego games with my kids, and the point is that you can both do things together, and not only can you do things together, you can help the other person out,and it feels very co-operative and very supportive. That feeling of couch co-op is very much why we developed Scoot.

"We wanted four players on the same screen at the same time. We want you to be sitting alongside each other, and you can helpful and supportive or you can be rude to each other and bantering, but the point is that you're having that shared experience.

"It's gotta be that safe play. The reason you want that couch co-op is you want to know who you're playing with. But you also do want to talk around it. You don't necessarily want strangers who may come in and say things you don't want your kids to hear.

"That's why we focused on couch co-op, and I wish more games would do couch co-op. It works so well for a family. I'm sharing this from my experience, I've loved sitting down with both my kids, and playing a game with them. We're talking, we're having fun."

What were your favourite games growing up when you were your children's age, and would you let them play the same sorts of games growing up?

"I'm old enough so that it was a bit more deregulated back then, I grew up in the Spectrum and Atari days. There wasn't the variety of games back then.

"I wish everyone would understand about age ratings and take a little more responsibility. I am very careful about what my kids play!"

Are the current PEGI and ESRB video game rating systems doing enough?

"I think the ratings are good, you get a good amount of information. I do think it's up to the parents and the retailers. There are things that we as an industry can do. We don't market inappropriately aged games to the wrong age group. I think that's pretty important. I would love to find more things we can do to protect [children].

"I love some of the steps the platform holders take, the kid accounts that automatically limit the age of the content and then you have to unlock the console if you do want them to play [games for] an age group that is not appropriate for that age. So you have that freedom, but it is a conscious decision. That's really positive.

"Retailers do keep an eye on it. I'm sure there are occasions where the wrong ones are sold...I wish the parents would look more! The number of my friends that have come to me and asked me whether they should get this game for their kids and it's not the right age rating, and I'll then go in and explain that age rating system to them. But I can't talk to everyone in the country, much as I'd like to!"

Are the big publishers - EA, Ubisoft etc - seeing non-violence in video games as an avenue to pursue, or is it more independent game producers leading the charge?

"You see more independents doing things. They're looking to more interesting, individual things. The child market isn't as big as the all age groups market, so the big publishers are going to spend more time dealing with the all age market. But they do want to produce different types of games, a variety of gaming experiences.

"We're at such a creative stage of of the industry, where people are coming up with such wonderful things things. Minecraft was an indie. It's now big, but it's the most fantastic family and kids game."

Speaking of Minecraft, how difficult is it to create something that is non-violent and suitable for kids and families, but isn't a derivative of something like Minecraft or a mobile game?

"Making any game is difficult, but it's trying to get that balance between making it interesting enough and making it play right for the right level. You're making it for 5 - 11 year olds. It's a very different way in than if you're making it for 18 - 24 year olds.

"Even simple things like localisation and languages, you can't necessarily do written translations on-screen because you're assuming people in other countries can read English, so you have to do much more voice localisation."

So making it more visual, a more simplified control layout, that sort of thing?

"It's how you learn the game. You've got to take the time to be able to pick up the controls, and maybe take a little more time explaining what they're doing, maybe not assume so much in-built knowledge.

"In games we do have a tendency to assume that everybody has played a first person shooter, so that when you go into a first person shooter all you're really doing is explaining how it's different to the last one you played. When you're making kids games you can't make those assumptions."

How has the industry and gaming changed for you over the years? Is it taken more seriously as an artform?

"I've been involved with BAFTA for a few years now. I think games are a wonderful, creative art form and a wonderful way of telling individual stories. I've spent a long time in games and see the way this sort of storytelling and involvement has matured.

"We can tell deep stories, heartfelt tales of dealing with [things like] psychosis. At the same time we can make something like Scoot, where you're skating around and painting the parks and it lovely and colourful, and it's just trying to be fun.

"I think it's great that all those things can exist at the same time."

Chinese video game shines as eSports make Asian Games debut

Nowadays, one can proudly represent one's country on the world stage by playing video games.

An audience of millions watched China's team participate in the Asian Games first-ever eSports global tournament.

Teams from around the world competed in the game Arena of Valor, developed by a Chinese company. The use of a Chinese game promoted the country's soft power around the world.

As eSports become more recognized and popular around the world, China's thriving game industry will reap the benefits.

Rising China

China's national team won at the first eSports championship on Monday at the Britama Arena in Jakarta during the 18th Asian Games.

The team beat Thailand, Vietnam and Chinese Taipei and won the Arena of Valor event undefeated.

This is the first time that eSports has been part of the Asian Games. Six electronic games have been included in the tournament, namely 2018 Pro Evolution Soccer, StarCraft II, Hearthstone, League of Legends, Clash Royale and Arena of Valor.

The games cover different genres and are on different platforms, including computers and mobile phones.

Even though eSports remain a non-medal event in this Asian Games, 18 countries participated, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

"I heard that eSports would be officially recognized in 2022 with medals for the winners," head of Indonesia eSports Association (IeSPA) Eddy Lim said, Xinhua reported.

International appeal

Among the six video games in the Asian Games, Arena of Valor is the only one from China. It was independently developed by TiMi Studio Group under the Chinese internet giant Tencent.

The game has a version targeting Chinese gamers and an international version, which have different elements that cater to different markets and users, a spokesperson from the development team of Arena of Valor told the Global Times on Sunday.

The domestic version of Arena of Valor has more than 100 million players, but the Asian Games are not only for Chinese people, so the international version is obviously more proper for the game in terms of influence and players, an insider from China's game industry told the Global Times on Sunday. He asked to be anonymous.

The international version of the game was released in Southeast Asia in 2016, and is available to 90 percent of mobile game players. More than 10 million people are active in the game outside China currently, the game developer said.

"The game was designed to be an eSport," he said. "Now the game has built a competition system with a campus and community as its base, and the global contest as the apex."

"The fair gameplay, and lack of gore, nudity and violence, has made Arena of Valor suitable to be part of the Asian Games," he said.

In March, Tencent received an invitation from the Asian Electronic Sports Federation, and Arena of Valor was selected for the Asian Games in April.

"We are proud to witness this historical moment, as eSports in the Asian Games will bring more opportunities to the industry," said the spokesperson.

Waste of time?

In China, electronic games have always been controversial, as many players are labeled as "internet-addicted" and "time wasters."

"The Asian Games showed that eSports, or simply playing video games, can be an official sport," the game insider said.

With this official endorsement, the whole game industry will benefit. "We will see more games. Traditional game companies and new ventures will enlarge the game industry," he said.

The game industry insider noted China's official CCTV television network broadcast the eSports events of the Asian Games, which will help grow the industry and lead to more players.

In September 2016, eSports gaming and management was listed as an official university major by the Ministry of Education. One year later, at least 22 universities offered the course.

Sales revenue in the Chinese games market reached 105 billion yuan ($15.4 billion) in the first half of this year, up 5.2 percent year on year, according to a report on China's gaming industry released at the 16th China International Digital Interactive Entertainment Show held in Shanghai, Xinhua reported.

China is one of the world's largest gaming markets and had 530 million gamers during the period, an increase of 4 percent year on year.

Computers To Help Navy Recruit Unmanned Systems Operators

Can a video game help the U.S. Navy find future operators for its remotely operated, unmanned vehicles (UxV), popularly called drones?

To find out, the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute and Adaptive Immersion Technologies, a software company, are developing a computer game to identify individuals with the right skills to be UxV operators. The project, sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), is called StealthAdapt.

“The Navy currently doesn’t have a test like this to predict who might excel as UxV operators,” said Lt. Cmdr. Peter Walker, a program officer in ONR’s Warfighter Performance Department. “This fast-paced, realistic computer simulation of UxV missions could be an effective recruitment tool.”

Since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began, UxV have played ever-larger roles in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and other missions. Consequently, there’s an increasing need for well-trained UxV operators.

In recent years, the Air Force established its own formal screening process for remotely piloted aircraft operators, and the Marine Corps designated an unmanned aviation systems (UAS) career path for its ranks.

The Navy, however, doesn’t have an official selection and training pipeline specifically for its UxV operators, who face challenges unique to the service. For UAS duty, the Navy has taken aviators who already earned their wings; provided on-the-job, UAS-specific training; and placed them in temporary positions.

However, this presents challenges. It’s costly and time-consuming to add more training hours, and it takes aviators away from their manned aircraft duties. Finally, the cognitive skills needed for successful manned aviation can vary from those needed for unmanned operators.

StealthAdapt is designed to address this issue. It consists of a cognitive test, personality assessment and biographical history assessment. The cognitive exam actually is the game-based component of the system and takes the form of a search-and-rescue mission. Each player’s assignment is to rescue as many stranded friendly forces as possible, within a pre-set time limit, while avoiding fire from hostile forces.

If that’s not stressful enough, players must simultaneously monitor chat-based communications, make sure they have enough fuel and battery power to complete missions, memorize and enter authentication codes required for safe rescue of friendlies, decode encrypted information and maintain situational awareness.

“We’re trying to see how well players respond under pressure, which is critical for success as an unmanned operator,” said Dr. Phillip Mangos, president and chief scientist at Adaptive Immersion Technologies. “We’re looking for attention to detail, the ability to multitask and prioritize, and a talent for strategic planning—thinking 10 moves ahead of your adversary.”

To maintain this pressure, players complete multiple 5- to 10-minute missions in an hour. Each scenario changes, with different weather, terrain, number of friendlies and hostiles, and potential communication breakdowns.

After finishing the game portion, participants answer questions focusing on personality and biographical history. Mangos’ team then crunches this data with game-performance metrics to create a comprehensive operator evaluation.

Last year, over 400 civilian and military volunteers participated as StealthAdapt research subjects at various Navy and Air Force training centers. Mangos and his research team currently are reviewing the results and designing an updated system for validation by prospective Navy and Air Force unmanned operators. It will be ready for fleet implementation this year.

Mangos envisions StealthAdapt serving as a stand-alone testing and recruitment tool, or as part of a larger screening process such as the Selection for UAS Personnel, also known as SUPer. SUPer is an ONR-sponsored series of specialized tests that assesses cognitive abilities and personality traits of aspiring UxV operators.

Warren Duffie Jr. is a contractor for ONR Corporate Strategic Communications.

Hezbollah Creates New Computer Game Called 'Holy Defense'

"Holy Defense” is not your average computer game.

Instead of defending the US from invasion or some other democratic cause, the heroic character in this game is a Hezbollah fighter defending Shi’ites from Islamic State.

In an age when terrorist groups are getting more and more tech savvy, Hezbollah has developed a 3-D computer game to capture the minds of its youth, while showing them a good time.

According to a report by IDC Herzliya’s International Institute for Counterterrorism’s Jihad Monitoring Group, which was obtained exclusively by The Jerusalem Post, the game was launched on February 9.

It is designed for children and teenagers to stand in as a Hezbollah fighter and relive real-life battles that occurred in Syria and Lebanon against ISIS.

Like any solid computer game, it consists of multiple levels, which include a diverse range of tasks that players must perform.

Instead of Super Mario rescuing Princess Toadstool from the monstrous Bowser and his evil army of Koopa Troopas, players must defend the grave of Zaynab, a Shi’ite holy site in Damascus, against ISIS. They need to purge areas of ISIS fighters in order to stop the firing of rockets.

Another level requires assassinating a senior ISIS commander responsible for the transfer of suicide bombers to Lebanon.

Instead of stopping Mortal Kombat X’s villains Shinnok and Quan Chi and their army of undead revenants, the climactic level, “The Battle for the Homeland,” is about defending Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold in Lebanon, said the report, authored by Dr. Michael Barak.

A fascinating spin that corresponds less to the real-life narrative is an assignment focused on freeing kidnapped civilians held by ISIS.

In reality, most of Hezbollah’s combat against ISIS had nothing to do with saving kidnapped civilians, but, rather, took place in Syria and was carried out to prop up the Assad regime.

The Assad regime started to lose control of areas in 2011, after it started to barrel-bomb and otherwise attack its own Sunni civilian population.

Hezbollah has not intervened to protect Syrian noncombatants from the Assad regime.

All of this is part of the only slightly veiled true brainwashing focus of the game.

IN ITS INTRODUCTION, “Holy Defense” states: “The game is not merely a game but, rather, a story that seeks to document one of the sacred stages of defense against the expansion of takfiri elements [referring to Islamic State supporters as apostates from Islam] and against the American-Zionist plan. It is intended to document the many victims who fell in battle.”

“Computer games,” the report said, “are an inseparable part of Hezbollah’s propaganda campaign, as well as of... Hamas and Islamic State.”

Hezbollah seeks “to convey a message to the youth about the threats facing their community and the enemies against whom they must fight... to foster their identification with the organization’s goals” and to present “the organization as a defender of the community.”

Kids’ enjoyment of the game amplifies the messages and engenders a sense of belonging.

One of the insidious goals of the game is to lay the groundwork for recruiting the younger generation.

Hezbollah hopes to convince young Shi’ites in Lebanon and elsewhere that it is “the spearhead in defending the Shi’ite community in Lebanon and holy Shia sites in Syria.”

According to Hezbollah, the West is “constantly working to blur the cultural and religious identity of Muslim youth... such as through encrypted chat programs, social networks and games that seek to ‘destroy our values and cause us to ignore our main problems.’” This game is its response to those concerns.

According to Lebanese researcher Badia Salman, the game “also serves as a tool to justify Hezbollah’s activity in Syria after receiving a wave of criticism, both in the Shi’ite community in Lebanon and abroad, for its involvement in the Syrian civil war.”

Hezbollah previously published computerized war games about fighting the IDF after Israeli forces withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 and after the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

To market the new game, Hezbollah posted video clips on the subject and uploaded them to YouTube, Twitter and Facebook and even published a dedicated website for the game.

Hezbollah’s gaming fans can install the game on computers and mobile phones or buy it on a $5 disc through two Hezbollah distribution centers.

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.

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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.