Short.am provides a big opportunity for earning money by shortening links. It is a rapidly growing URL Shortening Service. You simply need to sign up and start shrinking links. You can share the shortened links across the web, on your webpage, Twitter, Facebook, and more. Short.am provides detailed statistics and easy-to-use API. It even provides add-ons and plugins so that you can monetize your WordPress site. The minimum payout is $5 before you will be paid. It pays users via PayPal or Payoneer. It has the best market payout rates, offering unparalleled revenue. Short.am also run a referral program wherein you can earn 20% extra commission for life.
Short.pe is one of the most trusted sites from our top 30 highest paying URL shorteners.It pays on time.intrusting thing is that same visitor can click on your shorten link multiple times.You can earn by sign up and shorten your long URL.You just have to paste that URL to somewhere. You can paste it into your website, blog, or social media networking sites.They offer $5 for every 1000 views.You can also earn 20% referral commission from this site.Their minimum payout amount is only $1.You can withdraw from Paypal, Payza, and Payoneer.
Wi.cr is also one of the 30 highest paying URL sites.You can earn through shortening links.When someone will click on your link.You will be paid.They offer $7 for 1000 views.Minimum payout is $5. You can earn through its referral program.When someone will open the account through your link you will get 10% commission.Payment option is PayPal.
Clk.sh is a newly launched trusted link shortener network, it is a sister site of shrinkearn.com. I like ClkSh because it accepts multiple views from same visitors. If any one searching for Top and best url shortener service then i recommend this url shortener to our users. Clk.sh accepts advertisers and publishers from all over the world. It offers an opportunity to all its publishers to earn money and advertisers will get their targeted audience for cheapest rate. While writing ClkSh was offering up to $8 per 1000 visits and its minimum cpm rate is $1.4. Like Shrinkearn, Shorte.st url shorteners Clk.sh also offers some best features to all its users, including Good customer support, multiple views counting, decent cpm rates, good referral rate, multiple tools, quick payments etc. ClkSh offers 30% referral commission to its publishers. It uses 6 payment methods to all its users.
Adf.ly is the oldest and one of the most trusted URL Shortener Service for making money by shrinking your links. Adf.ly provides you an opportunity to earn up to $5 per 1000 views. However, the earnings depend upon the demographics of users who go on to click the shortened link by Adf.ly. It offers a very comprehensive reporting system for tracking the performance of your each shortened URL. The minimum payout is kept low, and it is $5. It pays on 10th of every month. You can receive your earnings via PayPal, Payza, or AlertPay. Adf.ly also runs a referral program wherein you can earn a flat 20% commission for each referral for a lifetime.
Ouo.io is one of the fastest growing URL Shortener Service. Its pretty domain name is helpful in generating more clicks than other URL Shortener Services, and so you get a good opportunity for earning more money out of your shortened link. Ouo.io comes with several advanced features as well as customization options. With Ouo.io you can earn up to $8 per 1000 views. It also counts multiple views from same IP or person. With Ouo.io is becomes easy to earn money using its URL Shortener Service. The minimum payout is $5. Your earnings are automatically credited to your PayPal or Payoneer account on 1st or 15th of the month.
Linkbucks is another best and one of the most popular sites for shortening URLs and earning money. It boasts of high Google Page Rank as well as very high Alexa rankings. Linkbucks is paying $0.5 to $7 per 1000 views, and it depends on country to country. The minimum payout is $10, and payment method is PayPal. It also provides the opportunity of referral earnings wherein you can earn 20% commission for a lifetime. Linkbucks runs advertising programs as well.
LINK.TL is one of the best and highest URL shortener website.It pays up to $16 for every 1000 views.You just have to sign up for free.You can earn by shortening your long URL into short and you can paste that URL into your website, blogs or social media networking sites, like facebook, twitter, and google plus etc. One of the best thing about this site is its referral system.They offer 10% referral commission.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.
CPMlink is one of the most legit URL shortener sites.You can sign up for free.It works like other shortener sites.You just have to shorten your link and paste that link into the internet.When someone will click on your link. You will get some amount of that click.It pays around $5 for every 1000 views.They offer 10% commission as the referral program.You can withdraw your amount when it reaches $5.The payment is then sent to your PayPal, Payza or Skrill account daily after requesting it.
I think I inadvertently creating a shooting list with eBaldur. I got to play with the Woldwrath for the first time a couple of weeks ago against a Cryx player at the Battle Standard. He usually doesn't play in tournaments much but it was my first time with the Woldwrath anyway so I have no allusions that it's OMG BROKEN or anything but I do want to share my brief insights on the model. I wanted to try out a 50 point game because Templecon is coming up soon and I need some practice. I crafted a 50 point list for eBaldur a while ago but I finally got to try it out and so I need to share my findings.
The next entry in the Summer Of Tanks is Robot Tank, by Activision. Lots of great feedback for this game, thank you all! Coming up next will be Front Line by Coleco, which will be the last Summer Of Tanks game. The release will be slightly delayed due to my parents' visit, so please get your feedback in to me by 23 August. You can send it to me at 2600gamebygame@gmail.com. Tank you for listening!
Test your vocabulary with our Scrambled Words game! Rearrange the letters to make a word. To play you must choose a topic (animals, colours, days of the week, months, parts of the body, numbers, city places and buildings, family members...).
PUBG Mobile Apk Data English Version Free Download PUBG Mobile Android in English PUBG Mobile. Earlier it was in Chinese language only, but now you can play PUBG Android English Version. It's latest version at the moment PUBG Apk v0.5.0 and I will be update it as soon as the newer version of PUBG For Android will be released!
NOTE: Both PUBG APK DATA is given in one file. Follow the instructions below to Install PUBG in Android Phone.
How to Install PUBG Mobile Apk and Data:
1. Download PUBG Mobile English Version From the given link above. 2. Extract/Unzip the "PUBG Apk Data.zip" using ZArchiver App. 3. Copy & paste "com.tencent.ig" to Android>obb in your android device. 4. Install PUBG Mobile v0.5.0 APK and open it. Done! Enjoy PUBG English Version in Android Phone! Don't forget to share if it worked for you 🙂
PUBG Mobile English For Android:
PUBG Mobile for android download latest version of PUBG Mobile Apk + Data for android (Official/English) from with Direct link for PUBG 0.5.0 Apk Data in ENGLISH! Officially licensed PUBG MOBILE, the original battle royale style game is coming! Unreal Engine 4 brings smooth, next-generation graphics to your mobile device, and produces a graphical and audio experience that perfectly recreates the PC version. 【Game Features】 1. Officially licensed PUBG on Mobile An authentic port of the PC version. 100 players are dropped on an enormous 8×8 km battlefield. Players fight to survive and eliminate each other through strategy and skill. The last one standing wins! Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner! 2. Realistic Graphics and HD Audio Unreal Engine 4 brings a phenomenal visual experience with detail rendering, an expansive HD map, and realistic scenes. High-quality audio with 3D sound effects and 7.1 channel surround sound makes players feel like they are on the real battlefield. 3. Realistic Shooting With a large selection of firearms, melee weapons, and throwables with realistic ballistics and trajectories, this is the perfect combat experience on mobile. 4. Travel in Style Drive one of a variety of vehicles to escape from your foes or to stalk your prey. 5. Team-Up with Friends and Use Voice Chat Invite friends to team-up, head into battle together and collaborate over voice chat. 6. Fair Gaming Environment Armed with powerful anti-cheating mechanisms and optimized for many devices, ensuring a fun and fair environment for players.
Recommended Specs For PUBG Mobile:
Android Version: 5.1.1 or above
RAM: 2GB or above
Processor: 1.3GHz Quad Core or above
Tested Devices (PUBG Android)
The current version supports more than 500+ Android devices, including REDMI NOTE4, REDMI NOTE3, SAMSUNG GALAXY J7, OPPO A37F, OPPO A37FW INTERNATIONAL, REDMI 3S, VIVO Y53, SAMSUNG GALAXY S6, SAMSUNG GALAXY S7, LG GOOGLE NEXUS 4, SONY XPERIA E5, etc.
"PUBG Mobile"
Officially licensed PUBG MOBILE, the original battle royale style game is coming! Unreal Engine 4 brings smooth, next-generation graphics to your mobile device, and produces a graphical and audio experience that perfectly recreates the PC version. These games are official license PUBG Games but there are two different games and both games are from different developers. one is from Timi Studio and one is from Light Speed and Quantum. you can also call it PUBGM APK. Since, its just released as open beta game you will find an ENGLISH VERSION of PUBGM here on CompressedApk. Stay tuned for more latest updates & news of PUBGM English or PUBG Mobile!
Welcome to the How to Build a Gaming PC 2014 video. Isaac Harsh, a first time PC builder, volunteered to do a video for other new computer builders. He takes you through an in-depth step by step process building his gaming PC for the very first time. We also have the hardware he used linked below as well as a link to his introductory article.
here is the original article outlining Isaacs hardware choices: http://goo.gl/BJ853Q
Links to the Hardware Used in the 2014 How to Build a Gaming PC video: ________________________________________
We don't perceive every single piece of information around us. Instead we must constantly fill in blanks in our knowledge to properly create a mental image of the world. This processes of filling in gaps is really important to understand and to exploit when crafting games.
At the very core, games are driven by systems. We have extremely powerful machines that can quite accurately simulate various forms of physics, economics, group dynamics, intelligence and so on. This means that at our fingertips are the tools to create entire worlds. It is therefore very tempting to use these in order to solve every single problem. But this is not always the best approach. Sometimes it's best to just leave gaps, and let the player's imagination handle the rest.
There are five core reasons why this is so:
We are all unique individuals with different needs and likes. By leaving things unsaid, players can personalize their experience without any asset requirements from the creator. A typical example is that players can envision the sort of monster they personally are the most afraid of.
It is impossible to simulate things on an atomic level; there always needs to be a cut-off at some level. Since highly complicated things tend be unstable and encourage scrutiny, it is often better to make the cut off at a higher level.
There are certain things which are, for various reason, not possible to implement properly. In this case a lot can be gained by simply leaving it to the imagination. This includes everything from creating immense battle scenes to conveying a particular emotional state.
For the sake of pacing; sometimes it's simply not possible to give the player all of the required information and it's better for them to just work it out for themselves. This could be things such as background story, details on a map, or the areas that it's possible to visit in a location.
There is an inherent enjoyment in filling out blanks in various forms of art. The reasons are a bit fuzzy, but you can clearly see it in all art. It's fun to wonder what a character is really feeling, what events lead to a scene, and to mentally picture what a shadow is hinting at.
All of this works because of how our brains is constructed. We are all equipped with highly capable pattern-matching machines. Our brains, and therefore we ourselves, want the world to make sense and will always try and fit things into a coherent and convincing narrative. The simplest example of this at work is motion. Just consider this animation:
This is really just a series of circles that we see in rapid succession. Despite the fact that it's quite easy to notice the individual frames, we still see it as a ball jumping up and down. We fill in the gaps between the frames and see it all as an animation. Notice that this doesn't really take any conscious effort - it comes naturally. In fact, it is quite hard (possibly impossible) to not see this motion. When done right, gaps of the imagination never really feel like such - they simply get incorporated into the overall experience.
There is no white triangle pointing downwards, but the other shapes suggest that there should be, and hence we see one. Again, this is something that we carry out automatically and while we can rationally understand that there really is no triangle, we cannot mentally unsee it.
Closing gaps like this is not just a fun side effect. It is a crucial way in which our brains function. Taking decisions on incomplete information is an essential skill in the function of our day to day lives. In fact, most of the information we receive is incomplete - it's quite rare that we are directly exposed to situations where we have all possible information to hand. So it's not so strange that closing gaps should come so naturally to us, we literally wouldn't be able to survive otherwise.
As I have said before, any decisions we make are based around a mental model. In our heads is a mental simulation of how we think the world works, and before we do anything we first run through the action in our model to see if it would have the effect we intend. However, it is not possible to get complete information about our surroundings. So in order to get a working map of the terrain we need to fill some of the information. That is what the gaps in imagination are all about - our process of crafting a working mental model.
Given that this is a foundational part of how people work, it is essential that we always have it in mind when designing games. After all, the end result of a game is really to create a specific mental model in the player. This can be done through direct system access, sensory input or, what this post is all about, through suggestions of something unseen. I will now go over the most common, and most important, ways in which gaps can be used.
---
Sensory Gap
This is the most common one and also easiest to understand. When we are presented with sensory information that is somehow incomplete, we try and fit it into a working context. There are many different ways in which to do this. It can be quick, disjointed shots of something, events seen through the eyes of a monster, a character reacting to a smell. or a sound that is so loud it shatters glass. Normally you build this sort of gap up by presenting a negative space where one or more object/events/reactions/etc. all related to something unseen.
We tend to use this sort of gap more than we realise, simply because it is such an ingrained way of working with various artforms. But that just means you have to be extra aware of how it works. For instance, it's good to know that we are extremely prone to seeing familiar shapes, such as faces, in just about anything.
It's actually quite hard to not see anything in an image. We have evolved in an environment where there was nothing like pure noise, everything we saw was part of the environment somehow. Therefore, when we see random patterns the brain goes into overdrive to find a connection. Of course, it is not just the direct information received that we use to do this, but anything related is accessed as well. Because of this, you can often get away with very little if the scene is just set up in the right manner. Learning to do this is incredibly important.
Informational Gap
This is very similar to the sensory gap, but instead of sensory data it deals with information in the abstract. Jeff Vogel recently wrote a blog post on how games often have too many words [1], and properly using gaps is the best remedy for that. It is often easy to underestimate just how much information a player is prepared to fill out for themselves. You might think that a player really needs to know details of everyday routines in order to fully understand how a certain society functions. But often it is just as good to simply have some brief glimpses (visually or through text) of what they are doing along with something that sets the tone (music, animation, etc).
This sort of advice might seem a bit obvious, but it is worth keeping in mind how good we humans are at filling out these sort of gaps in information, especially if it comes in form of gossip. Gossip is something that has probably been part of our lives since before we evolved into modern humans. We are social animals and gossip serves as a tool to keep track of the group we are living in. This means our brains are extra-sensitive to this sort of information, similar to seeing shapes and motion, and can easily assess even the smallest hints.
Spatial Gap
Games are often very spatial and requires the player to navigate various places. Because of this it is often very tempting to accurately represent every single area to give a proper sense of place. However, for various reasons this might not be feasible or required. It is then important to note that spaces can also be created from gaps, just as much as sensory information and lore. Spatial gaps are a bit trickier though as we are now messing with the actual play area which means you you have to be extra careful.
The sloppy way to implement is to simply have a lot of locked doors that the player cannot access. But this can be bad for pacing and, worse, it can lead to a weak mental model. The brain is usually quite lazy and will try to optimize. If the pattern becomes 'locked door equals the room is irrelevant', it will be noticed and incorporated into the model. After all, dismissing these spaces is much easier than assuming they are there.
Instead it is better to vary the ways in which the rooms are blocked off, and to build up a negative space hinting that it is there, such as glimpses into it from a small window. It is especially effective to make the player believe that room might contain something of value. That way it is much more likely it will be part of the mental model. Remember, what matters is not what is actually there, but what the player perceives to be there.
Causal Gap
This next time is very similar to the animation example from above, but happens over longer time scales. As I said before, closing gaps is all about creating a working mental model. Where the previous gaps where are all about what we see, causal gaps is more about why we see it. Just like we humans are quick to see familiar objects in random patterns, so are we quick to correlate two events with one another. A black cat runs over the street and then you get a headache. We humans often correlate the most strange occurrences and it is quite hard not to. Many of our psychological fallacies are really based around this fact, and it takes effort to learn not to do this. Why is this so? Because for our ancestors it was okay to have a few weird beliefs if it meant we could pick up on dangerous situations and survive better. If you are a skeptic about the cat causing the headache, you might also be skeptical towards the signals of an impending avalanche.
This is obviously the sort of brain glitch that we can make use of in art. Film is a medium that uses it all the time, in editing. See a gun fire, and then a person being hit, and it is obvious what has happened. Correlating these two events into a single event comes naturally to us. But because games are so driven by the player understanding the flow of input and output, or how the player's actions correlate to events in the game world, it gets a bit harder to deal with gaps.
The simplest way to do it is with events taking place. For instance, say the player suddenly notices that a door is blocked, and hears the sound of feet running away. They will now assume that whoever is running away is also the one who blocked the door.
A little harder is for us to provoke imagined causal connections from actual interaction. What I mean by this is that you actually leave out certain information when actions take place, and ask the player to fill in the middle. For instance, if I click on an object in a game and it simply pops into my inventory we would like the player to mentally simulate this as "I picked up the item" and not "the item got magically teleported into my inventory". The three key elements for achieving this are consistency, negative space and optimization-avoidance.
Consistency means that we need it to happen in a way that makes it possible to distil it into a couple of universal rules. For instance, is the distance you can pick up items at consistent with the player using their hands? Negative space means that we use other events to reinforce the fantasy. These can be sounds effects when you pick up, feedback messages when you are too far away, and cutscenes where we see this happening for real. Finally, optimization-avoidance means that our intended mental model, that of the player actually picking these objects up, must be the "simplest" [2] available explanation. If there are too many edge cases, weird behaviors or simply not enough supportive negative space the "magical teleportation"-theory will win.
Anticipatory Gap
This one is quite similar to causal, but worth having in its own category. These are basically events that might happen to the player in the future and that they will take into account when planning. As explained in an earlier blog, planning is a core reason why gameplay is engaging, and thus it is important to shape what sort of consequences the player can conceive of taking place. When the player plays a game, they will generate their mental models not just based on what they are playing, but also what they know from before. This is gives us an opportunity to make the player think certain things are possible, without them never having witnessed them.
Suppose that the player hears footsteps from afar. These might just be coming from a couple of scripted sound effects, but the player doesn't know that. Given the right context the player will conjure up a monster that is making these sounds and assume that it might attack them. Now the player will start making plans based on a few sound effects and project a lot more onto the game than what is actually there. This is something that we saw a lot in Amnesia. The player could create long, and engaging, gameplay situations for themselves only because of a few sound effects.
Of course, this sort of trick can't last forever. As I have mentioned several times, the brain likes to optimize and once the pattern gets to clear the illusion will go away. So it is important to constantly update the negative space, to not make the events so predictable and to setup situations in ways that feel exciting to partake in. Even more important is to make sure that this trickery is not the only gameplay there is. If the player has a baseline of actual planning and execution going on, this sort of illusory anticipation can be sustained for quite a long time and add a lot to the experience.
Agency Gap
If you are in the jungle and the high grass suddenly moves. Do you:
Assume it is a tiger with the intention of eating you?
Be skeptical and consider that it might just be the wind playing tricks?
In our ancient past, the people who thought like number 2 were much less likely to survive. Sure, they escaped the embarrassment of being afraid of grass from time to time. But they also got eaten a lot more by tigers. Thinking of events as being caused by something with agency (e.g. an animal) is powerful concept for survival. It is also something that leads to all sort of weird beliefs like tree spirits and demonic possession. For many events it comes naturally to think of them as caused by intentional beings. And once again, this is great stuff to use in games.
This video that is a great example of the whole thing in action. Just note how you directly project agency on the shapes.
The most common use of this is in enemy AI. Most of the time, AI that feels smart is because the player thinks it is so, not because the underlying systems are complex [3]. F.E.A.R. is a great example of this. While the AI does have some clever systems at play, it derives most of its impressiveness from being good at giving the player feedback. For instance, by saying "cover me" while a grenade is thrown, it gives the impression that much more is happening than what actually occurs. The player projects a set of thoughts running through the soldier's mind and incorporates that into their mental model. But in reality it is just very simple code that is executed.
This is an area where the brain works a lot to our advantage. We are ill-equipped to mentally simulate things like state machines, but it comes naturally to think in terms of people. This means that we can get a lot of content to the player only through suggestion. The player's brain is really apt at simulating people and can do so much better than any existing computer system. So the more of that power we can use, the better.
All of this get harder when we get away from combat though. While players want to think of other characters in games as entities with rich mental lives, there is a limit to how far they are willing to go. If animations start to look weird, if responses come out as canned or if interaction possibilities are too limited the brain gets lazy and optimization kicks in. Characters go from intentional beings to simply being objects.
A big problem of interactive storytelling is how to keep this from happening. Just as I discussed with causal gaps, the key elements in achieving this are consistency, negative space and optimization-avoidance. How exactly to achieve this with characters is still too unclear and complex to cover this time around - I will go over some possible directions in a future blog post.
Volition gaps
Finally we have arrived at the last gap type, which is similar to causal gaps. Previously we have mostly talked about things happening when the the player is the one causing it, but volition gaps contradict that. These are events that the player thinks they cause when in fact they don't.
This is something that I think currently is quite unexplored and has a lot of potential. It is quite hard to construct control interfaces that allows the player to take all the possible actions. Therefore it would be nice if we could have actions that the game does automatically but that the player believes they used their volition to cause. This is what this gap is all about.
Just like we construct a mental model of what is happening on the outside world we are also constructing a narrative of what we are doing ourselves. While we are not conscious about it in everyday life, a lot of the time we have reasons and beliefs because we do certain things, instead of the other way around.
For instance, take choice blindness. In an experiment the subject had to pick which face they thought were the most beautiful, and then when handed back a different picture, most subjects continued to explain why they had chosen it. So a lot of the time, we make up reasons based on the actions we find ourselves doing. And as always, whenever there is a brain deficiency, we should try and exploit it for art.
The best example of this effect in use is in Assassin's Creed. When you run across the roofs in a city, the game will automatically make the character jump. Despite that, it always feels like you are the one who is willing those jumps to happen. This works as a great way of streamlining the controls and making the experience more fluent without taking away a sense of agency in the player. Another example of is in games like Uncharted where the character will interact with the world in ways that make sense and enhance the feeling of being there.
I believe that these sort of gaps can be taken further, though. An interesting example of this is The Path, where the protagonist will carry out actions of their own choice when you leave them alone. It is by no means perfect, and doesn't really provide an illusion of volition. But I think it shows the potential of this and I think causes the player to feel intimately involved with various events if used correctly. Currently, though, it is too unexplored to say for sure what the possibilities really are. I will explore some more thoughts on this in a later blog post.
---
That should summarize the basics for the various gap types. I am sure there are even more than these, but this selection is what I found most useful for games. In upcoming blogs I will dig deeper into some aspects of this and give more examples on how it affects gameplay.
Until then I recommend reading Ian Thomas's excellent article on the subject where he discusses gaps for LARPs, SOMA, and much more.
2) This is simplest in terms of effort used by the brain, not in a strict theoretical sense. For instance "a witch did it" is a simple explanation for a human brain, but in reality is quite complex because it assumes a lot of attributes for the witch. But we as humans are great at just ignoring this, making the silly explanation seem simple.
King recently decided to abandonin-gameadvertising and considering my position with the NativeX Games Task Force (where we collaborate with mobile game developers to increase the engagement, retention, and monetization) this sparked a few questions and discussions in circles of people around me. Why are they doing this? What's their motive? Were players leaving? Did they need a better ad experience? These are all good questions, but before addressing them specifically around King let's look at the two major groups of developers who don't want or like ads. There might be more groups than this, but in my experience most developers fall into these two buckets.
Purist Developers
I've encountered several developers who don't want to break the 4th wall in their game design. They've created a story and world where they feel players should immerse themselves, and advertisements would make players aware that this is just a game. I have a hard time believing this in mobile gaming, but I won't argue that point against developers who feel this way.
There are also developers who believe that the game they are creating will be good enough that players will "want" to spend money in game through in app purchases (IAPs). With those developers, I wish and hope that they're right! I would hope that a game could achieve 100% conversion rate, 75% or even 30%. Unfortunately, you'll never have 100% conversion and most developers won't see more than 10% conversion (in a F2P title) just because one word is associated with their game... free. Some consumers have preconceived notions or assumptions with the word free, and game designers/developers will never be able to change how those people feel about the word free.
Lastly in the purist category, there are some developers who think that advertisement revenue cannibalizes their IAP revenue. This can be true, but only if they slap ads into a game without thinking how to "intelligently" integrate advertisements. I can take any game and completely destroy it with advertisements. I think we all can, but you can also increase your game/company revenues significantly with the addition of advertisements too. That is, if you care for more revenue.
Elective Developers
The other kind of developers out there that don't use ads are those who have enough cash flow or resources and don't feel the need to include advertising revenue, or any other benefits associated with it. They can "elect" to include ads or not. Most of the time this way of thinking spawns from great success, so it's really difficult to criticize their decision to remove ads because they're obviously doing something right being as successful as they are. If you haven't guessed it yet, King falls under this category.
Many developers think of advertisements as a "necessary evil" in order to make a living out of doing something they love. On the flip-side advertisers believe they are offering a service or product that the consumer values. Which is right? Well that depends on the game/platform and the consumer. Let's look at Hay Day for example. My wife has been playing for over a year, and is level 60-something at the time of writing this. She has never made an IAP. She will never make an IAP. I asked her why and her response was, "because it's free." However, she will watch videos for currency. She actually likes to watch ads for currency. This is a case where a consumer finds value in an advertisement and the developer is benefiting from it as well. Of course on the other end of the spectrum, 20-some year old hardcore gamers who only buy Call of Duty will hate advertisements. (Ok that's sort of an extreme example, but I think you get the idea.)
You Think I'm Saying King is Making a Mistake?
Not necessarily, but I believe there's a role for advertisements in most games. I've seen the effects first hand from players who won't spend. However, the data at my fingertips from the NativeX network and from the shift I've witnessed in the past few years shows the importance of advertising. However, this is sort of a win-win scenario for King. They're successful so advertising isn't as important, they're getting some press coverage for the announcement and in the eyes of gamers it looks like they're "doing good."
Do I think this stance can last? That all depends on their future success. If they stay on top, or keep releasing hits then yes, but if revenues start declining or they're not meeting expectations then they might reintroduce ads. There's also always the possibility of reintroducing ads back in games that are "sunsetting" so we could always see them pop back into games that aren't in the spotlight anymore.
If you'd like to talk about this or any other games you can find me here at my blog or onTwitter.
Just eighteen years after 2001 (older readers will know the significance of that date), the AI-debater on the left, a 6 foot high black stele, with a woman's voice, used arguments, objections, rebuttals, even jokes, to tussle with her opponent. She lost but, in a way, she also won, as this points towards an interesting breed of critical thinking software. This line of AI has significance in the learning world.
How does it work?
First, she creates an opening speech by searching through millions of opening gambits, removes extraneous text and looks for the highest probability claims and arguments, based on solid evidence, she then arranges these arguments thematically to give a four minute speech. In critical conversation, she then listens to your response and responds, debating the point step by step. This where it gets clever as it she has to cope with logical dilemmas and structured debate and argument, drawing on a huge corpus of knowledge, way beyond what any human could read and remember.
Debate
In learning, working through a topic through dialogue, debate and discussion is often useful. Putting your ideas to the test, in an assignment or research task or when writing an article for publication and so on, would be a useful skill for my Alexa to be able to deliver. It raises the game, as it pushes AI generated responses beyond knowledge into reasoned argument and checks on evidence from trusted sources. But a debate is not the great win here. There are other more interesting and scalable uses. Critical thinking Much of the talk about 21st century skills is rather cliched, with little in the way of evidence-based debate. The research suggests that these skills, far from being separate 'skills' are largely domain specific. You don't get far in being a creative, critical and problem solving thinker in, say Data Science, if you don't know a lot about... well... Data science. What's interesting about this experiment is the degree to which general debating skills,, let's call it stating and defending or attacking a proposition, shows how one can untangle, say critical thinking, into its components, as it has to be captured and delivered as software. There are some key lessons here, as the logo of debate is actually the logic we know from Aristotle onwards, syllogistic and complex, often beyond the capability of the human brain. On the other hand the heuristics we humans use are a real challenge for AI. But AI is rising to this challenge with all sorts of techniques, many species of supervised and unsupervised AI that learns through machine learning, fuzzy logic to cope (largely with the impreciseness of language and human expression) and a battery of statistical theory and probability theory to determine certainty. This, along with GTP-2 (I've written about this here), which creates content, along with techniques embedded in Google Duplex around complex conversational rules, are moving learning AI into new territory, with real dialogue based on structured creation of content, voice and the flow of conversations and debate. Why is this important?
1. Teaching
When it reaches a certain standard, we can see how it starts to behave like a teacher, to engage with a learner in dialogue and interpret the strengths of arguments, debate with the student, even teach and assess critical thinking and problem solving. In a sense it may transform normal teaching, in being able to deliver personalised learning at this level, on scale. The skills of a good teacher or lecturer are to introduce a subject, engage learners, support learners, assess learners. Even if it does not perform the job of an experienced teacher, one could see how it could support teachers.
2. Communication skills
There is also the ability to raise one's game by using it as a foil to improve one's communication skills, as a learner, teacher, presenter, interviewer, coach, therapist or sales person. Being able to persuade it that you are right, based on evidence, is something we could all benefit from. It strikes me that it could in time, also identify and help correct various human biases, especially confirmation bias but many others. Daniel Kahneman, in his Thinking Fast and Slow makes an excellent point at the very end of the book when he says that these biases are basically 'uneducable'. In other words, they are there, and rather than trying to change them, which is near impossible, we must tame them.
3. Expert
With access to over 300 million articles it has digested more than any human can read and remember in a lifetime. But this is just for reference. The degree to which it can use this as evidence for argument and advice is interesting. The experiment seems to support the idea that domain knowledge really does matter in critical thinking, something largely ignored in the superficial debate at conferences on 21st century skills. This may untangle this complex area by showing us how trues expertise is developed and executed.
4. Practice
The advantages the machine has over humans is the consistent access and use of very large knowledge bases. One can foresee a system that is an expert in a multitude of subjects and able to deliver scalable and sophisticated practice in not only knowledge but higher order skills across a range of subjects. The development of expertise takes time application and practice. This offers the opportunity to accelerate expertise. Of course, it also suggests that expertise may be replaces may machines. Read that sentence again, as it has huge consequences.
5. Assessment
If successful, such software could be a sophisticated way to assess learner's work, whether written work, essays or oral, as it puts their arguments to the test. This is the equivalent to a VIVA or oral exam. With more structured questions, one could see how more sophisticated and objective assessment, free from essay mills and cheating, could be delivered.
6. Decision making
One could also see a use in decision-making, where evidence-based arguments would be at least worth exploring, while humans still make the decisions. I'd love, as a manager, to make a decision based on what has been found to work, rather than guessing or relying on faddish decision making.
Conclusion
This will, eventually, be invaluable for a teaching assistant that never gets tired, inattentive, demotivated, crabby and delivers quality learning experiences, not just answering questions. It may also help eliminate human bias in educational processes, making them more meritocratic. Above all it holds the promise of high level teaching that is scalable and cheap. At the very least it may lift often crass debate around 21st century skills beyond their cliched presentation as lists in bad PowerPoint presentations at conferences.
Signup for an account in just 2 minutes. Once you've completed your registration just start creating short URLs and sharing the links with your family and friends.
You'll be paid for any views outside of your account.
Save you time and effort
ouo.io have a simple and convenient user interface, and a variety of utilities.
We also provides full mobile supports, you can even shorten the URL and view the stats on a mobile device.
![Download PUBG Mobile Apk Data v0.5.0 [English Version]](https://i2.wp.com/compressedapk.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/pubg-mobile-007.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1)
![Download PUBG Mobile Apk Data v0.5.0 [English Version]](https://i0.wp.com/compressedapk.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/pubg-mobile-005.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1)
![Download PUBG Mobile Apk Data v0.5.0 [English Version]](https://i1.wp.com/compressedapk.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/pubg-mobile-003.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1)
![Download PUBG Mobile Apk Data v0.5.0 [English Version]](https://i0.wp.com/compressedapk.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/pubg-mobile-008.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1)
