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For a technology so commonplace, it’s surprising how little consumers know about touchscreens. E. A. Johnson invented the first capacitive touch screen in 1965 - although it was not commercially manufactured until decades later. This capacitive touchscreen utilized sensors along an electrostatic grid that allowed the screen to react to a user’s contact with the screen. The other major type of touch screen - the resistive touchscreen - was invented by Samuel G Hurst in 1981 and then commercially produced the following year. This utilized a very different system that tracked changes in electrical currents using sensors underneath the screen.

  The next major advancement for touch screens that ultimately enabled their mainstream success was the development of multi-touch which allowed multiple points of interaction and later gesture-based methods of control. While the first multi-touch screen was technically developed by Nimish Menta at the University of Toronto in 1982, the first true modern multi-touch screen - that is to say, one didn’t rely on a camera to track the gestures of users - was produced by Bob Bolle of Bell Labs in 1984.

  Although touch screens might have become commercially available in the 1990s it wasn’t until the later part of the twenty-first century that they became truly commercially successful. Apple’s iPod, iPhone, and later iPad popularized touch screens as a method of control for smartphones following its release in June 2007 and since then touch screens have continued to develop as a technology with Microsoft’s Surface and Smartglass demonstrating how far touch screens have come. Touch screens haven’t just developed in terms of the technology surrounding them, they have developed in a cultural sense - removing the crucial layer of artificiality between the users and their screens that buttons present and seamlessly blending together the worlds of the digital and the real.

  Prior to the Apple iPhone, the Nintendo DS handheld games console held the crown as the biggest financial success story for touch screen devices with the handheld selling over 150 million units since its release in 2004. The success of the DS can somewhat be attributed to the way it was marketed towards audiences not typically approached by the games industry. Nintendo succeeded in recontextualizing the act of touching as a way to engage and interact with games in a revolutionary and approachable way. David Parisi argues that through this approach “Nintendo promises to liberate and restore the touching subject, but only if the subject submits to the radical altering of touch that occurs in the process of technologizing it”.

  While the success of the DS might have been the catalyst for Apple’s interest in touchscreen technology the iPhone has had a massive impact on the games industry - generating both a lucrative new market with thousands eager to develop for it. In contrast to the console games market where control has been mostly standardized through the iconic gamepad format, the touchscreens of Apple’s devices have been subject to much experimentation by developers with the notion of remediation shaping a lot of early touch control systems on the iPhone.

  Prior to the emergence of this “App Market”, mobile development was largely regarded as the dead-end of the games industry. However the incredible success of a number of touch-based mobile games for the iPhone (such as Flight Control, Fruit Ninja, Doodle Jump and Draw Something) has led to a significant migration of developers migrating to these platforms and a vast reversal in this perception with the App Market now being seen as almost utopian system of games development and distribution and as developers flooded the App Market with thousands of games, it quickly became apparent to developers that almost exclusively embracing the multi-touch and gesture-based applications of the touch screen would lead to the best results (Epic Game’s critically acclaimed Infinity Blade is a strong example of this through its combination of unique and engaging touch controls and high-fidelity graphics).

  The biggest argument for touch screens as a control mechanism is that they allow for greatly increased immersion in gaming experiences. Ingrid Pohl claims that “With the new technologies we will be able to create space phenomena augmenting our perception in a prosthetic way, beyond the visual conception of space“ (Pohl 4). Similarly, Paul Cairn highlights the link between the gesture based touch controls of touch screen devices and the immersion felt like players in a paper entitled “Effect of Touch-Screen Size on Game Immersion“ - as well as noting the impacts of screen size on player immersion. The attention he draws to screen size here is quite important as the viability of any touch screen is closely linked to it’s size relative to the size of the users hands and fingers. I would argue that the widespread adoption of touch screen devices into mainstream culture is the result of the more ‘natural’ interactions they enable in comparison to the mechanical and artificial interactions of buttons and other control mechanisms.

  Another characteristic that make touchscreens a viable and effective control method for video games is their balance of consistency and versatility. While gestures might be used differently between games, the consistency of these gestures themselves through the iOS platform helps to make touchscreens an effective control method (that said, the gestures and mechanisms of the touch screen are better suited for some types of games over others). Despite these advantages, one must acknowledge the inherent weaknesses of touch screens - one of which is the way that users interactions with the screen can directly obfuscate their vision and thus, ability to play. In spite of these shortcomings, the touch screen is still a much less intimidating means of control than the traditional joystick and button based controller and this contributes to its appeal.

Touchscreens have come a long way and their success is inextricably linked to their ability to bring the user and the device/software closer together. This development has proved incomparable in the world of videogames as it in turn leads to more immersive and accessible experiences that as much designed around the touchscreen itself as they are around gameplay mechanics.

Bibliography/Works Cited-

Journal Article - David Parisi, Fingerbombing, or “Touching is Good” - The cultural construction of technologized touch. The Senses and Society, Volume 3, Number 3, November 2008 , pp. 307-327(21). Boomsbury Journals.

Journal Article - Thompson, M., Nordin, I., Cairns, P. (2012) Effect of touch-screen size on game immersion, In Proc. of BCS HCI 2012, BCS, 280-285

Super Hexagon is on the surface, a fairly simple game. The game’s goal of guiding a triangle that rotates around the hexagon in the center of the screen through a gauntlet of ever changing patterns of shapes seems initially simple but this only served to mask the greatly nuanced game that lies beneath the easy-to-learn surface. Besides, the retro aesthetic and catchy chip-tunes soundtrack might make Super Hexagon a joy to play, but it’s the understanding of the game that you develop that will really keep you coming back.

Super Hexagon has a reputation for its difficulty and it only took minutes for me to rack up a half dozen deaths and learn why (in fact, in my first few hours of the game I struggled to even reach double digits on the game’s timer). However I began to notice patterns to my deaths. Over time, I began to understand that Super Hexagon tests more than just your reaction speed - it also tests your ability to problem solve. Each set of lines converging on the center of the screen is a puzzle that you have seconds to find and execute a solution for and it’s learning to beat Super Hexagon at its own game that is so very rewarding.

Should it have flopped? What could have been done differently for it to succeed? Fergus: I think the biggest thing that prevent Halo Wars from being a bigger success story in the gaming world was that RTS games need a strong fan community that keeps playing with the game and that kind of audience just doesn’t exist on consoles as far as RTS games are concerned. The Halo franchise has a reputation for a strong (and vocal) multiplayer community) but FPS games are very different to RTS games. While the critics agree that Ensemble made a solid translation of the RTS genre to the Xbox, it’s commercial success was probably more so fuelled by the Halo brand than Ensemble’s track record of great RTS games. By not releasing on the PC (or even porting to it at a later date), Ensemble may have alienated the kind of strong community that would have enjoyed Halo Wars for more than just the franchise it belonged to and allowed it to succeed not just critically or commercially, but in the eyes of gamers. Nic: The lack of a PC port is definitely the major failing of this game. While I can’t say I would’ve bought the game at full price, I certainly would’ve picked up a PC copy on special if such a thing existed. That egregious error of just failing to identify the proper demographic for their game had a massive impact on their potential sales, and is I think we agree, on of the largest contributing factors to the perception of this game.

On the surface, "Mafia" is a party game for up to 12 players where each player is allocated a role (Such as Doctor, Investigator, Godfather, Cultist or Serial Killer) and must work towards accomplishing that role's win condition throughout the 7 rounds that a game can span. During the day the townsfolk vote on whether to lynch someone who has been acting suspiciously and during the night the Mafia works to kill off all who oppose them.

While the custom map is admittedly very complex - once you wrap your head around it it's a hell of a lot of fun. Every round you are given a new role and alias and so you never play the same game of "Mafia" twice. Even if you are suddenly picked off by chance in the first round (the game features perma-death) there's plenty of incentive to stay in the game (such as a built in Russian Roulette mini game that utilizes the points you earn in-game) and watch how things play out.

Canadian developer Bioware have been a longtime leader in showcasing the impacts that player choice can have on a games story and arguably the best example of this is their Mass Effect series. Mass Effect is a science fiction Shooter-RPG hybrid where the player takes on the role of Commander Shephard. The player is able to customize their Shepard both in appearance, morality and personality through the choices they make. While the ultimate direction of the story in Mass Effect is controlled by Bioware, through the introduction of continuity (where the past choices of the player are preserved and referenced in future games) places far more value on player choice than other games do.

While games like inFamous and Bioshock made claims about the impact that player choice would have on their own narratives, it quickly became apparent after their release that player choice has much more impact on the player's playstyle and the gameplay they experience than anything else. Throughout inFamous, the player is presented with numerous choices that superficially shape the main character's own morality but on a more practical level, affect the skills and abilities that the player has at their disposal. Bioshock, on the other hand offer's a binary ending that is impacted by player-choice regarding the Little Sisters but doesn't always reflect the player's experience because of it's binary nature. Bioshock's major choice of whether to save or harvest the abominable Little Sister's arguably has much more of an impact on your style of play than anything else as harvesting the Little Sister's gives you more ADAM to spend on Plasmids and saving them gives you access to some exclusive Plasmids. As the game itself says "We all make choices but in the end our choices make us" - reflecting the reduced impact of player  choices in terms of story but enhanced impact of player choices in terms of gameplay experience.

Even game's that don't place major emphasis on player choice like Batman: Arkham City and Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty experiment with the mechanic. Several times throughout Starcraft 2, the player is given a choice between siding with one of two factions or embarking upon one of two available missions. These not only create permutations in the game's story but also impacting the game on a practical level by  locking the player out of certain units, upgrades and even missions. Rocksteady Game's Batman: Arkham City is mostly devoid of player choice however, in a sequence towards the game's end the player (controlling Catwoman) has the opportunity to abandon Batman and once they make that choice, the game itself ends a considerable distance from the intended end of the story. Experimentation like this in games that don't heavily focus on player choice shows that the mechanic can still be highly effective inside otherwise highly linear games.

The biggest obstacle to player choice is the technical limitations that games have. While abandoning Batman in Arkham City provides players with an ending, it cuts the story short rather than continuing the story to it's natural conclusion - likely because the development costs of such extra content outweigh the number of players who would experience it. While a company like Blizzard has no trouble financing an dynamic gameplay experience that changes based on player choice, the majority of games companies do not have that luxury and player choice is often limited as a result.

Developer Driven Experiences - where all of the player's actions and decisions are essentially 'allowed' by the developer. Games that offer this give players linear stories to play through where they drive the plot forward that is ultimately controlled by the developer. Good examples of this can be seen in the majority of popular modern titles such as the Call of Duty or Mass Effect games - in these examples, the players actions might push the story forward (and in Mass Effect's case, create permutations of the story) but at the end of the day, control over the story and the players experience is in the developers hands. 

Player Driven Experiences - these are often found in games that offer players an environment and tools with which they can make their own stories. These experiences are very dynamic and allow the player to have an experience that is entirely unlike what other players experience. Player Driven Experiences take control away from the developer and offer gamers something far more unpredictable and unique.

While these two experiences are very distinct, there's no reason that a game cannot contain both of these or that these experiences are even limited by genre. Open world games like Grand Theft Auto or Assassins Creed are a good example of this - while they offer a linear developer driven experience in their main story but also offer player driven experiences through the freedom they offer the player inside their sandboxed worlds - and by comparing first person shooter games like Call of Duty and Far Cry 2 it's easy to see that there's plenty of room for both experiences in pretty much all gaming genres.

A good modern comparison of these two game experiences can be seen in two of the most successful online games in modern gaming history - Blizzard's World of Warcraft and CCP's EVE Online. Internet games critic John 'Totalbiscuit' Bain once made the comparison of an MMORPG like World of Warcraft to a theme park whilst the immersive science fiction experience of EVE Online was much more akin to a sandpit. Almost all the content in World of Warcraft is developer driven while almost all the content in EVE Online is player driven and this in turn defines each games appeal - WoW offers every single player an epic journey through an epic fantasy world with epic fantasy characters whilst EVE offers players their own unique personalised life in a science fiction world where they have the freedom to make the choices they want.

The inherent randomness in player driven experiences is arguably a vital part of it's appeal. Games like Minecraft offer players an entirely randomised world while games like Diablo or The Binding of Isaac offer players a randomised journey to the same ultimate destination. This characteristic not only adds replayability but is also key to the way that player-driven experiences take control away from the developer and by taking control over the player's experience away from the developer, you are inherently giving the player more control over their own experience. The success that randomized player-driven experiences like Minecraft showcase pose the question of whether players no longer need the developer's help through cutscenes and other static storytelling tools. 

Narration can come in many forms and it's presence in video games can serve many purposes. Max Payne's gritty Noir atmosphere is undoubtedly enriched by his cynical narration during the games comic-book-styled cutscenes while the retrospective narration of Prince of Persia (The Sands of Time trilogy in particular) or Dragon Age 2 serve to further contextualize the story and pull the player further into it's story. A similar use of narration can be seen in Hothead Games' Penny-Arcade Adventures where the narration supports the lighthearted witty tone of the game. 

Much like other entertainment mediums, narration is just one technique that can be utilized by developers to pull the player further into their game. However, Supergiant Games' Bastion took what is just one tool of storytelling within video games and expanded it into a primary mechanic of the game. As you play through the game's unique fusion of action and platforming mechanics as The Kid you are guided by the powerful narration of a character called Ruck. A characteristic of this narration that sets Bastion apart from other video games is it's adaptive nature - the narration changes as you make choices in how you play the game - choosing to fight or flee from enemies or even choosing which weapon you utilize all shape the content of Bastion's powerful narration.

In complete contrast to these applications of narration in video games, is The Stanley Parable. The Stanley Parable is a unique mod for Valve's Source Engine that explores and makes commentary on the relationship between the player and the narrator. In The Stanley Parable the player is guided through the story by the Narrator but repeatedly given the option to disobey and undermine the Narrator's attempts to control the flow of the story. In The Stanley Parable, narration isn't just used to tell the story, it's a crucial component of the game's deconstruction of the relationship between the player of a video game and the story that the developer is trying to tell. 

The two biggest games that were refused classification are Netherealm Studio's Mortal Kombat and Left 4 Dead 2 and of these, Valve's zombie slaying simulator has the far better chance of being re-released now that an R18 rating is finally in effect. In the past, Valve has even said that once the R18+ rating was passed that an uncensored version of Left 4 Dead 2 would finally be available for Australian gamers.

While the unfortunate reality for Australian Mortal Kombat fans will probably have to wait for the release of the Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition (Although prior the R18+ rating being passed, Warner Bros. had confirmed that they were not submitting this compilation of the core game and all available DLC for rating in Australia) to get their hands on the latest installment of the world's bloodiest fighting game franchise, the prospects of a Left 4 Dead 2: Uncut Edition are considerably better - particularly for the PC version.

Due to the possible legal issues of changing the classification of an already released product, I'd expect a free or cheap DLC upgrade is the best route for Valve to go about uncensoring Left 4 Dead 2. While the rolling out any sort of Uncut DLC or patch for Left 4 Dead 2 will be tricky for Valve, it's certainly going to be an easier proposition for them to implement for PC gamers in comparison to console gamers as a result of Steam.

Whether Australian gamers even still care enough about Left 4 Dead 2 to make uncensoring it worth the effort is also something that needs to be considered by Valve. The online playerbase of the game has been in steady decline for a long time and its been over a year since the last major content update for the game. On the other hand, the effort it will take Valve to uncensor the game is quite minimal (as any Australian gamer who has had to uncensor their copy of the game already knows) and in doing so Valve stands to generate a lot of consumer goodwill.

In my opinion, I don't think it really matters either way. While there a lot of Australian's would like an uncensored version of Left 4 Dead 2 to become official, it's been so long since the games release that I don't think the passion or interest that drove the boycotts and zombie marches is still there.