Massively Multiplayer Offline Gaming: Dragon Quest IX

Outside the giant Yodobashi-Akiba department store in the Akihabara district, hundreds of gamers gather each day, crowdsourcing the hunt for rare creatures and virtual treasure.

They stand, packed together in a cordoned-off area reserved for them, as store employees attempt to keep the sidewalk clear, ushering the players behind safety barriers. Everyone is holding a Nintendo DS and playing this year’s hottest new game: Dragon Quest IX.

It’s a cartoony, easy-to-master role-playing game about grand adventures, but these players aren’t off slaying dragons. They’re swapping character data to meet other avatars and quite possibly collect valuable treasures.

Call it a massively multiplayer offline game

Outside the giant Yodobashi-Akiba department store in the Akihabara district, hundreds of gamers gather each day, crowdsourcing the hunt for rare creatures and virtual treasure.

They stand, packed together in a cordoned-off area reserved for them, as store employees attempt to keep the sidewalk clear, ushering the players behind safety barriers. Everyone is holding a Nintendo DS and playing this year’s hottest new game: Dragon Quest IX.

It’s a cartoony, easy-to-master role-playing game about grand adventures, but these players aren’t off slaying dragons. They’re swapping character data to meet other avatars and quite possibly collect valuable treasures.

Call it a massively multiplayer offline game.

From Why Tokyo Crowds Can’t Stop Playing Dragon Quest IX.

Another brilliant article from WIRED, which is incisive, informative and compelling. I love the term ‘crowdsourcing’ — which is decidedly old hat in the social media sphere — as the notions of harnessing the power of the collective presents the limitless potential in any endeavour, whether it’s finding a solution or creative brainstorming, with Warren Ellis’ Global Frequency being one such example.

Fishbulb

Looking at this makes me wonder if I can do the same thing.. won’t the fish have to be really tiny?

Lego Ceramics

Vinicius Zarpelon’s Lego Ceramics. If only we could buy them.

When Things Are Good Enough

all photos by Kenji Aoki. Lego sculptures by Nathan Sawaya & Michael Psiaski

Well, in short, technology happened. The world has sped up, become more connected and a whole lot busier. As a result, what consumers want from the products and services they buy is fundamentally changing. We now favor flexibility over high fidelity, convenience over features, quick and dirty over slow and polished. Having it here and now is more important than having it perfect. These changes run so deep and wide, they’re actually altering what we mean when we describe a product as “high-quality.”

And it’s happening everywhere. As more sectors connect to the digital world, from medicine to the military, they too are seeing the rise of Good Enough tools like the Flip. Suddenly what seemed perfect is anything but, and products that appear mediocre at first glance are often the perfect fit.

The good news is that this trend is ideally suited to the times. As the worst recession in 75 years rolls on, it’s the light and nimble products that are having all the impact—exactly the type of thing that lean startups and small-scale enterprises are best at.

Another great piece from WIRED about the Good Enough Revolution. Which I think is completely true. I have to say the Lego sculptures are amazing and a brilliant idea.

Read the full article here. Via nic.

Archaeologists of the Impossible: Planetary

Finally, Planetary #27 is out in October. Planetary is a comic unlike most: it’s about explorers and adventures and the secret mysteries of the world. It’s about the drawing a common thread linking pulp fiction, comics, novels and the fantastical, larger than life characters in their pages and fuelling them with imagination and the sense of wonder we increasingly seem to lack.

These stories draw you right in. They breathe something marvellous in you — and you can’t help but be taken up along with it.

Check out the preview pages here.