Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Social Games vs. Traditional Games free essay sample

Nowadays many people all over the world make daily use of social networks like Facebook, Twitter, or Google+. A social networking service  is a World Wide Web platform in which you can meet your real-life friends, share information and news with them and develop social relationships of any kind. These electronic communication devices, along with the opportunity to keep oneself updated with the latest news, opinions, mundane events, etc. usually help individuals to develop and maintain human contacts overcoming the obstacles of real geographical distances. Apparently, though strangely enough, these sites hadn’t developed a series of videogames of their own for quite a long time, until the beginning of the first decade of our century. Until then, traditional videogames, that people use to play individually or, at least, in groups of real people playing together in the same room, detained the monopoly of popularity among electronic ways of entertainment. In an incredibly small amount of time videogames provided by social networking systems attracted interest from every part of the world and they seemed they could easily steal from traditional videogames their monopoly of popularity. We will write a custom essay sample on Social Games vs. Traditional Games or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Up to now, it is very difficult to say if social games are more popular than videogames or vice versa. The point is that, after a vertiginous raise that impressed and sometimes even scared traditional videogames producers, the number of social games players seems to be constantly reducing over time leaving us with the thought that that of the social games could just be a passing fad as many others in the past. In the present work, we will put our attention on the possible real users of both social and traditional videogames and we will try to find out whether they share equal popularity among people or not. Traditional Games Videogames, computer programmes for personal amusement, have a long history that remount to the second half of the 1970’s with the first arcade games for consoles, electronic devices that you could find in public places. Since then, there have been sensible improvements on almost all the aspects of the programmes such as graphics, whose aim is generally that to recreate eality as vividly as possible (although there have also been many videogames designers inventing completely different, fantasy worlds); or playability, that is to say, the opportunity for the videogame player to make a â€Å"real† experience while playing (joysticks, technical devices that are used to make virtual characters and objects move on the screen, represent a good example of it, p assing from being simple levers and knobs to sophisticated radio controlled sensors, real automobile steering wheels and gears, reproductions of airplane cloches). Nowadays, to be realised, traditional videogames may require years of production, with lots of expenditures to pay workers such as producers, designers, graphics and sound engineers, etc. , not to mention the costs deriving from promoting it on a large (usually worldwide) scale. For all these reasons, traditional videogames, with their high costs, are now suffering from smaller competitors like social games, which don’t require that amount of work behind them. Apart from that, it seems that young people, especially boys, in a range that goes from teenagers to men in their thirties, still prefer playing this kind of games rather than spending their time playing on social networks. Social Games Social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ usually host social games. Social games include various kinds of games but they present some common features like the need to share the game with other friends in a multiplayer session to be played, the presence of turns by which players don’t have to be simultaneously participating in the same session of the game, the reference to some kind of social activity like meeting friends, dating and so on; the absence of winners and losers as a means to convoy the maximum number of users (usually there are missions that need to be accomplished in order to pass one level after another). Moreover, these games are quite elementary in terms of programming requiring much less effort (and production costs) to be realised. Even for these reasons, social games have encountered the critics of those who denounce its most exploitative aspects. Anyway, the fact is that the number of social games users has progressively increased over the years (almost from 2007) only to know a first stop this year, but experts think this is due to the switch of platform: more and more people are playing social games on their mobile phones instead of playing them at their computers at home. According to the statistics, the number of women (of all age) who have already joined at least one social network it’s much higher than that of the men, so we may be able to derive, as a consequence, that women could possibly be a consistent part of the social games users. Researches seem to highlight the presence of middle aged people among the users of this new kind of game. Conclusions The decline of the traditional videogames appears to be constant and ineluctable due to the differences of costs with respect to those of the social network games. Despite the market seems to be subdivided in two ranges of users (young versus middle-aged people, men versus women) this is not a sufficient reason to think that traditional videogames will successfully overcome the strong competition of social games. Furthermore, the recent evolution of mobile phones can represent a very suitable platform for social games in the immediate future.

Saturday, November 23, 2019

The Leeward vs. Windward Side of a Mountain

The Leeward vs. Windward Side of a Mountain In meteorology, leeward and windward are technical names for the directional sides of a mountain. The windward side is that side which faces the prevailing wind (upwind), whereas the leeward, or lee side, is the side sheltered from the wind by the mountains very elevation (downwind). Windward and leeward arent just arbitrary terms, they are important weather and climate factors. One is responsible for enhancing precipitation in the vicinity of mountain ranges, and the other, for withholding it. Windward Mountain Slopes Give Air (and Precipitation) a Boost Mountain ranges acts as barriers to the flow of air across the surface of the earth. When a parcel of warm air travels from a low valley region to the foothills of a mountain range, it is forced to rise along the slope of the mountain as it encounters higher terrain. As the air is lifted up the mountain slope, it cools as it rises (a process known as adiabatic cooling). This cooling often results in the formation of clouds, and eventually, precipitation which falls on the windward slope and at the summit. Known as orographic lifting, this event is one of three ways precipitation can form (the other two are frontal wedging and convection).   The Northwestern United States and the Front Range Foothills of Northern Colorado are two examples of regions that regularly see precipitation induced by orographic lift. Leeward Mountain Slopes Encourage Warm, Dry Climates Opposite from the windward side is the lee side the side sheltered from the prevailing wind. (Because prevailing winds in the mid-latitudes blow from the west, the lee side can generally be thought of as the eastern side of the mountain range. This is true most times but not always.) In contrast to the windward side of a mountain which is moist, the leeward side typically has a dry, warm climate. This is because by the time air rises up the windward side and reaches the summit, it has already stripped of the majority of its moisture. As this already dry air descends down the lee, it warms and expands (a process known as adiabatic warming), which causes clouds to dissipate and further reduces the possibility of precipitation. This occurrence is known as the rain shadow effect. It is the reason why locations at the base of a mountain lee tend to be some of the driest places on Earth. The Mojave Desert and Californias Death Valley are two such rain shadow deserts.   Downslope winds (winds that blow down the lee side of mountains) not only carry low relative humidity, they also rush down at extremely strong speeds and can bring temperatures as much as 50 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the surrounding air. Katabatic winds, foehns, and chinooks are all examples of such winds. The Santa Ana Winds in Southern California are a well-known katabatic wind infamous for the hot, dry weather they bring in autumn and for fanning regional wildfires.

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Global business venture Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Global business venture - Research Paper Example The battery life is the same 10 hours as of it predecessor. This iconic tablet is available in two colours, black or white, and supports HDMI output using a separate cable. It has front-facing cams with the traditional rear camera and a few cool accessories offered first time by Apple (Apple iPad, 2012). Till now, the product has been launched in many different counties but not in Japan. The other products of Apple have been successfully launched in Japan previously. Therefore Apple Incorporation is now planning to introduce iPad 2 in Japan. For this purpose government, political and economic analysis was carried out. Japans government is a constitutional monarchy and has a parliamentary government. Sovereignty, previously embodied in the emperor, is vested in the Japanese people, and The Emperor is the symbol of the state with sovereignty bestowed to the people of the country. Cabinet composes of Prime Minister and State Ministers and holds the executive power. The members of the cabinet must all be civilians and the power to appoint and remove state minister lies with the prime minister. The judiciary here is independent, with judicial system being drawn from civil law, customary law and Anglo-American common law. The final judicial authority is with the Supreme Court, though there are several levels of courts. The Japanese constitution includes a bill of rights similar to the U.S. Bill of Rights, and the Supreme Court has the right of judicial review. The court verdicts are made in accord with legal statutes. Since the 1980’s Japan has faced political instability. To put Japan back on the path of vibrant growth, the nations tax system was changed; there was a cut in corporate tax and a hike in sales tax, to escape sovereign debt crisis. There were a few other changes in government policies to attract investors towards Japan which had given positive outcomes (Takenaka, 2010). The free-market economy of Japan is the third-largest economy in