Meet MassDiGI at RISD Internship Connect: October 8, 2014 – Providence, RI
Join us at RISD Internship Connect at the Rhode Island Convention Center. Details here.
“Satellites and Startups” by Nick Allain, Spire – Franklin M. Loew Lecture Series at Becker College: September 15, 2014 – Worcester, MA
Satellites and Startups: How we went to space and why you should too
– Monday, September 15, 2014, 5:30 p.m. –
Join Spire’s Nick Allain for a first-hand look at how Silicon Valley’s space race is heating up and how satellites, the size of a large coffee, are changing the way we listen to signals from Earth. Nick will speak about what it’s like to join a space startup like Spire, the process of building a cubesats, and how you can get involved – and, maybe even get hired.
Nick, from Charlton, MA, is an alumnus of Becker College. He graduated in 2009 with a bachelor of arts in interactive media. He has spent time working in the game industry and higher education. He now lives and works in the Bay Area.
This special talk is co-sponsored by MassDiGI. Light snacks and refreshments will be available. Free and open to the public.
Location: Becker College, Weller Academic Center, Room 210, 61 Sever St., Worcester
Click here to download the event flyer.
Europe Innovation Partnership Mission: September 14-19, 2014 – Denmark, United Kingdom and France
MassDiGI will be joining Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s Europe Innovation Partnership Mission as a business delegation member from September 14-19,2014. The trade mission will visit Copenhagen, London, Lyon and Paris. Read the official press release here.
All the right notes – 8/26/14
Click here to read Renzo Heredia’s post about SIP ’14 on BetaBoston.
Boston Festival of Indie Games: September 13, 2014 – MIT, Cambridge, MA
Drop by our panel or visit our table (S64)! For more information on BostonFIG at MIT, please click here.
Panel Info:
When: 10:00am- 10:30/45am
Where: Classroom 2 – Stata Center Room 144
What: “Game Devs: The Next Generation”
Description: Games, the final frontier. These are the continuing tales of five college students. Their mission: to explore strange new titles, to seek out new genres and platforms, to boldly go where no one has gone before. In this episode, the young developers learn the black art of making a game over eleven weeks at MassDiGI’s Summer Innovation Program. Hear them tell the story of how they met their goals and overcoming giant bugs, terrifying teamwork, diabolical daily builds, stale pizza and zombies.
Featuring a conversation among MassDiGI SIP ’14 alumni Paige Coblentz (RISD), Andrew Krischer (Northeastern), Pat Roughan (WPI), Loren Sherman (MIT) and James Spavold (Becker College) along with MassDiGI’s, Tim Loew and Monty Sharma.
Assembled Education: Are You Ready for the Future? – LearnLaunch and GA: September 12, 2014 – Cambridge, MA
MassDiGI managing director Monty Sharma will deliver a keynote talk at this special LearnLaunch and GA event which brings thought leaders together to look at future trends in learning. Information here.
Central Mass. Business Expo: September 8, 2014 – DCU Center, Worcester, MA
Come visit MassDiGI at booth #225. Click here for more information.
Meet MassDiGI: Worcester: September 5, 2014 – Becker College, Worcester, MA
Worcester-area games students are welcome to attend. Learn all about our 2014-15 student-focused programs and activities. Free and open to all. This is event is co-sponsored by Becker IGDA.
When: September 5, 6:00p
Where: Becker College, Weller Academic Center, Room 210, 61 Sever St., Worcester
MassDiGI celebrates third Summer Innovation Program at Open House
The 2014 MassDiGI Summer Innovation Program Open House on August 7 featured four great games and attracted over 150 attendees. Read about the Open House here in Worcester Magazine, here in WPI’s Daily Herd or watch CharterTV3 WNT’s report below.
Why analytics matter – 7/22/14
Why analytics matter
By Benji Smith, sophomore, Northeastern University
As game developers, we often tell ourselves stories when making games. Not the ones that you see in a script, but ones about the people who will play the game. “Okay, so this part will introduce the player to mazing, and then they use that to defeat the boss, and then they’ll feel awesome.” Every pixel, line of code, or variable changed all has a purpose, and we tell ourselves that the player will interact with it in a particular way and get a specific reaction out of it.
In reality, things aren’t that easy. Our stories about our games are often as fictional as the stories within them. That’s why we playtest. But playtesting isn’t an exact science; it’s often much more qualitative. And that’s good! There are a lot of changes that require qualitative feedback more than raw data. But there are also a lot of risks that come with it. We tend to gloss over feedback more easily. Every piece of info we receive gets contorted into our story. It’s all too easy to assume that the tester is an anomaly, that most players will play the game ‘properly.’
But with quantitative feedback collected from all players, the illusions disappear. It’s no longer, “I didn’t see the button,” but rather “Out of 100 players, 63 didn’t see the button.” Likewise, it’s no longer “This player just doesn’t understand,” instead “63 percent of players just don’t understand.” This summer, we’re using Splyt Analytics to help drive our decision making on Midnight Terrors. It’s hard to argue with the data, because data doesn’t tell a story. Data is the story.
That’s not to say data is infallible. It can be outdated or incomplete, and it can certainly be misinterpreted. But it can never be wrong. That’s because data is just what happened. It doesn’t carry any analysis of its own, it’s just a series of numbers and events.
In some ways, it’s a bit intimidating to use analytics. It’s effectively handing off your game, and letting whatever will happen, happen. You can’t coach people, and you can’t hide from the results. In some ways, it’s like launching a title (just with a quarter the stress). But it’s absolutely necessary, because polishing a game can’t just be an art. It needs to be an art and a science. And for that, we need data.
