I’m certainly feeling that big game burnout.
Category: entertainment
The psychological difference between playing video games to relax and playing to win
Video games offer adults a popular way to connect and unwind, but the specific reasons people pick up a controller can alter how they experience stress and life satisfaction. A new study reveals that playing primarily to win is linked to higher anxiety, while men and women often report different motivations for starting a game. These results were published in the Journal of Affective Disorders.
People engage with digital worlds for many different reasons. Some look for a temporary escape from daily responsibilities. Others want to challenge their reflexes, socialize with distant friends, or experience an interactive story.
Psychologists categorize these motivations into a few broad buckets based on the rewards they provide. The most common reasons include playing to relax, playing to improve one’s skills, playing to simply have fun, and playing to win. The video game uses and gratifications theory proposes that players actively seek out different digital experiences to satisfy specific psychological needs. These diverse starting goals can strongly alter the emotional impact of a gaming session.
Batman: Arkham Origins has a graphics mod that looks like a remaster
My third-favorite Batman: Arkham game is looking a lot slicker.
Reduce Energy Consumption In Unity Games With This Plug-In
Over the past few months, we’ve covered plug-ins for both Unreal Engine and Godot that optimize power use, making games more energy-efficient and helping players get more out of their battery life. They work by detecting when a player goes idle, then lowering the frame rate and rendering resolution, and during longer periods of inactivity, even pausing rendering entirely.
Now, thanks to Oliver Stock, who felt like somebody should step up and do the same for Unity, there’s a similar plug-in available for developers. It’s free and open-source, and you can get it by clicking here. It monitors player input, and when nothing’s happening, it automatically switches between different energy profiles. These profiles control which settings are adjusted, like frame rate, resolution, or physics updates. You can easily tweak or create your own profiles to suit your project’s needs.
Oliver recommends using Unity 2022.3.62f2 or newer. The plug-in currently only works with Unity’s URP or HDRP.
Laser-modified graphene enables molecule-thick films to grow only where needed
Researchers from the University of Jyväskylä and Aalto University have developed a new method based on laser modification, which allows metal-organic materials to be grown locally one molecule-thick layer at a time. The method enables the precise construction of films of different shapes and offers new ways to modify the properties of materials for various applications. The study was published in the journal ACS Nano.
Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a method used especially in the semiconductor industry to produce high-quality thin films with atomic layer accuracy. The method was developed in the 1970s by the Finnish Tuomo Suntola, and it has since become an important technology.
In ALD, thin films are grown one atomic layer at a time through controlled chemical reactions between the reactants, as well as their interactions with the surface. This so-called bottom-up method allows for precise film thickness adjustment.
Dual immune response may keep HIV in check without medication
Imagine a game of chess where your opponent’s king is in check. It cannot move, but the game is not over—the piece remains on the board. This is how the body might control HIV on its own: The virus would be contained and unable to replicate or spread, but it would not have been eliminated. This is the goal of Professor Ole Schmeltz Søgaard and an international team of researchers—to enable more patients’ immune systems to keep the virus permanently in check without the need for daily medication. Their findings suggest that this requires two key components working in tandem: antibodies and T cells.
In a study published in Nature Immunology, the researchers followed patients who stopped taking their daily HIV medication after receiving experimental treatment. In a small group of patients, the virus has not returned.
“We can see that two branches of the immune system work together to control the virus. One targets one aspect of the virus, the other targets another. Together, they are effective enough to prevent the virus from escaping,” says Søgaard, Professor of Infectious Diseases at Aarhus University Hospital.
