Straylight-Studios Press

Straylight in The Press

2008-08-05T00:15:23Z

Straylight hit the national news again this morning with our Meaningful Play message, this time in The Press. The article featured on popular news website Stuff, coincidentally on the same page as an article detailing how a Thai video game distributor has put a hold on GTA sales following claims a teenager confessed to robbing and murdering a taxi driver while trying to ‘recreate a scene’ from the controversial game.

While the media focus on gaming as a destructive and negative pasttime, Straylight believes gaming can and is being used as a tool for positive and beneficial experiences. We hope to achieve a more balanced perspective on gaming as a useful communication medium.

Read the article here

Straylight making play productive

2008-07-24T05:37:39Z

Straylight Studios chief executive Tim Nixon will travel to Europe next month to demonstrate to leading fashion and beauty houses a new interactive “meaningful play product”.

The Dunedin-based technology company had decided to change its focus from being a service company to large organisations – developing products on demand for training or tourism.

Read the full article here

Straylight Launch Meaningful Play Blog

2008-05-07T06:46:22Z

This blog is a new idea stream and news source for the worldwide community of individuals who subscribe to the notion that Meaningful Play can bring computer games to the masses by providing content that has relevance to its audience in their everyday lives.

We’re aiming to make this a high quality blog with consistent output and as such appreciate your feedback via email or the comments functionality.

Our goal is to expand this mini-site over time to include more papers, links, articles, and databases that will help service the worldwide community of developers and partners in this space, so if you have something to contribute then we’d love to hear from you.

Check out the blog now!

Straylight hits National Television

2008-05-07T05:56:33Z

Straylight was recently featured on Nightline (TV3, New Zealand), showcasing the launch evening of the Meaningful Play message at the Straylight headquarters.

The article pitches the company as trying to break the mould of the traditional core gamer, and touches on our work for The Vision Quest and The Kitchen.

Also remember to check out the Meaningful Play video, which is the full presentation from the night:
Meaningful Play Part 1
Meaningful Play Part 2

Straylight Enter 3D Training Market

2008-05-07T05:28:13Z

ORIGINALLY RELEASED JUNE 2007

Straylight’s CEO, Tim Nixon, has been guiding the company’s vision to bring games to the mass market by finding immediate vertical opportunities in the Serious Games sector, a highly untapped and lucrative marketplace. Previous Straylight developments focusing on such markets as Small Business and Injury Prevention training have paved the way for this highly detailed, yet incredibly intuitive educational tool.

Mr Nixon states that the unique challenge with mass market games lies not in driving graphics performance, but rather in “building an intuitive interface that can be understood by someone with no existing computer skills.” The team at Straylight offer a unique perspective in that their combination of design and engineering expertise drives a user centric approach, whether that user is a computer whiz or café kitchen hand.

THE KITCHEN
In The Kitchen, players are walked through a day in the life of a real world kitchen hand, thawing meats, baking pies, and preparing sandwiches. Throughout the process the player must observe all the correct food safety standards such as cleaning down benches, checking temperatures of food, and washing hands. After being guided through the process once by a virtual tutor, the player must then complete the tasks on their own. Should they follow all the correct food hygiene steps, the player will pass and walk away with the required knowledge to safely work in a food handling environment.

The first client of The Kitchen, Otago Polytechnic, are thrilled to be trialling the technology within their campus. Mike Waddell, Marketing and Business Development Manager for the Polytechnic, cited the “high turnover of staff in the hospitality industry and constant concern about standards” as key issues demanding new approaches to a traditional problem.

As the list of queuing clients grows locally, the focus now shifts to the international marketplace, in particular to Europe, where world leading partners are already making plans to adopt the technology into their catalogue.

THE RESPONSE
Not only has the game quickly found a first client, but already it is attracting accolades from industry, being announced as a finalist in the Computerland Excellence Awards in the category of Innovative Use of IT.

The game was featured on New Zealand’s TV3 news with the full video available at their website.

The Kitchen is being commercialised by partner company The Street, who have heard nothing but glowing reviews for the product as it is taken to the international market. “It’s fantastic to see such innovative technology coming once again from our small yet significant country. It’s becoming very obvious very quickly that there is a massive opportunity for games, especially in the compliance space.”

THE FUTURE
While the momentum gathered for this product is already huge, Mr Nixon insists that this really is only the beginning.

“We’re working with partners in Europe, and the USA to ensure that we’re finding the most exciting opportunities worldwide, not just in the training space, but also in ways we can bring our distinct accessibility to the entertainment market.”

View the project profile here