The following page points to some research on the impact of latency on gamers and, in particular, on recent research involving Unreal Tournament:The Effects of Loss and Latency on User Performance in Unreal Tournament 2003.
I think this is an absolutely great way to attract students: do research on gaming technology. In fact, I once proposed to NRC that I could do some research on Web porn technology, but my boss (Bruce Spencer) seemed reluctant for some reason to invest government dollars in the porn industry.
I still haven’t given up on using porn technology as a research topic though. However, I think that just like gaming, you’d need to work extra-hard just to justify your research topic.
Which is not to say that my research is not on cool topics. I think that inDiscover is quite cool. I also have other things coming that may appear as sexy to some people (but no porn research as of yet).
Just like art, I think that research should be thought provoking.
Gaming poses interesting problems in research and industry, it seems. Sun is just one of the few companies looking at it. Gaming is definitely on the edge of technology. It would be very interesting to look at the porn industry too since their motivation for staying on the edge is slightly different. They also tend to face technological problems before everybody else: pirating, privacy concerns, etc.
Thanks for the comment, and I agree, but your URL to Sun is broken for some reason?
Sorry. Try this then.