Evolution of Gaming. AESTHEHumanities! Weekly THINK! Fun facts that will surely console you on a bad day

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1 ISSUE 1: Term 1 Week 6, 07 February AESTHEHumanities! Weekly Exclusively brought to you by the AES Humanities Department The wars of the twenty-first century will be fought over water. ~ Ismail Serageldin.~ ALL ABOUT THE BIG WORLD WE LIVE IN EXCLUSIVE NEWS TODAY Evolution of Gaming THINK! Are you a video gamer? You may love gaming but we bet you did not know about the History of Gaming! Day Zero? What does Day Zero mean for this African town? What impact does it have? Fun facts that will surely console you on a bad day 1)The Call of Duty franchise has globally earned around $7.2 billion US dollars in revenue, more money than can be found in the entire country of Nicaragua. 2)In the game Diablo, when the Demonic Boss is released in the final level of Diablo 1, he says something in a bizarre language. When played backwards, the voice is English and it says Eat your vegetables and brush after every meal. 3)The super mushrooms in Mario are based on a fungi named Amanita Muscaria. They make the user feel as though they are growing in size.

2 The Exciting History of Gaming Gaming has definitely changed over the years. It evolved slowly at first, from arcades to the first Nintendo. Over the past decade, however, we have gone from gaming on consoles to smartphones, and the new consoles that are released are fancier than ever, boasting extremely detailed graphics. Pong, the first arcade game, was released way back in 1972 and it was only five years later that the first gaming console was released the Atari 2600 with more than 27,600,000 units being sold. The console s most popular game, Asteroids, was released in The 80s brought about the infamous Pac- Man, which generated a revenue of more than $2 billion. It was also during the 80s that we were introduced to Donkey Kong, the Nintendo Entertainment System and John Madden s Football for the PC. 2

3 A lot of gaming advancements took place in the 90s. We saw the release of Super Nintendo, Mortal Kombat, Warcraft: Orc & Humans for PC, the first Sony PlayStation, and the Nintendo 64. Most gaming enthusiasts will agree that although we didn t realize it at the time, that the release of the Sony PlayStation would go on to revolutionize the entire gaming industry. Over the past decade, we have seen the release of multiple gaming consoles, including PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox, Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch, as well as handheld consoles, including the Nintendo 3DS. And while console sales have decreased, there are actually more gamers now than ever. In this modern age of gaming, Microsoft s Xbox 360, Sony s Playstation 3, and Nintendo s Wii kicked off the modern age of high-definition gaming. Though the Playstation 3 the only system at the time to play Blu-rays was successful in its own right, Sony, for the first time, faced stiff competition from its rivals. 3

4 World Peace? Only 11 countries in the world that are actually free from conflict! 4

5 The Xbox 360, which had similar graphics capabilities to the Playstation 3, was lauded for its online gaming ecosystem and won far more Game Critics Awards than the other platforms in 2007; it also featured the Microsoft Kinect, a state-of-the-art motion capture system that offered a different way to play video games (though the Kinect never caught on with core gamers or game developers). Towards the end of the decade and beginning of the next, video games spread to social media platforms like Facebook and mobile devices like the iphone, reaching a more casual gaming audience. Rovio, the company behind the Angry Birds mobile device game (and, later Angry Birds animated movie), reportedly made a whopping $200 million in

6 In Cape Town, South Africa, they're calling it "Day Zero" -- the day when the taps run dry. City officials had recently said that day would come on April 22. They have since moved up the date to April 12. Cape Town is South Africa's second-largest city and a top international tourist draw. Now, residents play a new and delicate game of water math each day. They're recycling bath water to help flush toilets. They're being told to limit showers to 90 seconds. And hand sanitizer, once somewhat of an afterthought, is now a big seller. "Unwashed hair is now a sign of social responsibility," resident Darryn Ten told CNN. So how did this happen? How does a major city in the developed world just run dry? It's been a slow-motion crisis, exacerbated by three factors: 1) The worst drought in more than a century, which has pushed Cape Town's water scarcity into a potentially deadly horizon 2) The metro area's population, which is 4 million and growing quickly. 3) A rapidly changing climate. Day Zero in Cape Town People collect water from pipes fed by an underground spring in St. James, a Cape Town suburb. 6

7 Photos: Cape Town faces severe drought. Even with the predicament they find themselves in, residents haven't dropped their water use significantly, Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille said. The city has lowered the water pressure in its mains to help stretch the water supply. But usage is still 86 million liters above its target goal. "It is quite unbelievable that a majority of people do not seem to care and are sending all of us headlong towards Day Zero," a statement from the mayor's office said. "We can no longer ask people to stop wasting water. We must force them." Starting February 1, residents will only be allowed to use 50 liters, or a little over 13 gallons, of water per person, per day. A campaign to help Cape Town avoid "Day Zero" offers residents some watersaving tips. 7

8 Residents have said that while they use tap water for household needs, they are reluctant to drink it. "They claim it is fine to drink, but the kids were having tummy issues," a resident said. "Many neighboring communities have started depending on it," another resident said. CNN asked the city of Cape Town about the water quality concerns that some residents reported but has not received a response. The massive influx of Capetonians collecting water at the spring has led to issues within the normally quiet neighborhood. Now, the government is stepping in to help manage the queues and congestion at the spring. The site will only be accessible during certain times of the day and will be managed by city officials. In the coming months, city officials say they will be diverting the flow to a nearby swimming pool to speed up queues and manage congestion. Water levels at dams supplying the city continue to sink. Satellite images from over the past seven years show the water disappearing from the city's largest reservoir at Theewaterskloof dam. 8

9 Sources: First Article: gaming/ games Second Article: 9