Book Review: The Blind Giant

A while back I read (and subsequently reviewed) Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway. I loved it so much I looked into what else he'd written. I found out that he had a non-fiction work about the impact of technology on business and culture, and so gave it a read.

It's hefty piece of work, talking about the impact of technology on a very wide range of subjects, from the publishing business, to our ability to learn and concentrate, to the impact on politics and life in the public eye. His view of the impact of tech on the publishing business is especially well done, as he's grown up in and around that industry as one of the 'disruptees', and yet is also a technology proponent.

Through the book, the author takes a nuanced, even-handed look at most of these areas of controversy, showing both sides as having some merit. He also tackles it in a way that is entertaining, and still goes deep enough to show that he's done a fair amount of research and thinking on the subjects.

The down side is that he covers broad ground without really reaching a hard conclusion. that might be OK though - as the point is to show that we are evolving in our relationship with technology, and that we don't necessarily know where it will end up, and that it's neither all good nor all bad, but somewhere in between, as will be our end destination.

Book Review: The Age of Persuasion

Came across The Age of Persuasion at the library and picked it up. It was OK in some ways, poor in others.

The book is a history of modern day marketing, as seen through the eyes of an advertising copywriter turned broadcaster. It covers a lot of interesting history, rife with colorful examples, of advertising over the past century.

On the plus side, there are a ton of interesting factoids, and the authors seemed to have done their research. They cover the advertising side of the business and the factors motivating players in each strata of the business.

On the down side, there are three flaws I find with the book.

The first, which is minor and forgivable, and which can be seen by the cover art, is that the book is very much trying to ride the coattails of Madmen, focusing, and perhaps over-glorifying advertising's 'golden age'.

The second is that "marketing" is not the same thing as "advertising". If the book's tagline were "how advertising ate our culture", that'd be fine, but otherwise the authors perpetuate the myth that marketing is about ramming stuff down people's throats. It largely ignores the other half, which is figuring out what they want or need to begin with.

The third issue is that by seeing the world through an ad man's eyes, the book is too quick to ascribe too much value and too little blame to advertising in the influence that it has. Where they do cite negatives, it's always the other guys, the inept and evil ad men, not the creative good ones (which they likely include themselves in). I feel like it's really not so black and white.

If you can see past the negatives, there are some interesting data points and interesting bits of trivia here. Just make sure you take much of the book with a grain of salt.

The Age of Persuasion: How Marketing Ate Our Culture

Book Review: Japanese Schoolgirl Confidential

After reading Brian Ashcraft's great book on the Japanese arcade gaming scene, I figured I'd like his next book on Japanese schoolgirl culture. It didn't disappoint.

Japanese Schoolgirl Confidential is a pretty deep dive on a number of different aspects of what can only be called a phenomena: The idolization, monetization, and 'fetishization' of the Japanese schoolgirl look and surrounding culture.

Ashcraft and his co-author (also his wife) Shoko Ueda take the reader through the history of the uniforms, idol worship, schoolgirls in films and games, as well as how different aspects of business (fashion and telecom in particular) have changed behavior to target the schoolgirl demographic.

Some of the book (e.g. the history of the uniforms) were more depth than I needed, but other parts were really enlightening. The sections on the evolution of cell phone texting, the fashion industry's capitalization of the schoolgirl market, and schoolgirls in video games were probably the most useful, and therefore recommended, sections for those in the technology and/or gaming industries.

Japanese Schoolgirl Confidential: How Teenage Girls Made a Nation Cool

[note: I'm post-dating a couple of these posts as I didn't have a chance to sync them while I was travelling, and I like to track by when I read the book]

Random reads from around the Intertubes

A few posts that caught my eye:

• Game retailers stocking fewer games, fewer copies of those they do buy. Further proof we're not recession-proof, recession-resistant, etc. (It will be interesting whether this compounds what we're already seeing with pubishers; cancelling risky projects, non-sequels, etc).
• Pachter would disagree, as he maintains that we are recession-proof. He blames bad planning and over-investment in R&D on new IP and the like, rather than bread'n'butter sequels. (EA did spend over $1.1B on R&D last fiscal year, which is pretty high even for them. Expect that to drop next year).
• Ubisoft is using this time to grow and invest. Smart if you have the cash on hand to carry you through. I think the "next gen consoles coming in 2011-12" is likely a bit off the mark though.
• Q4 VC investments down to lowest level since Q1'05. Also not surprising. (As an aside, I've been letting VGVC.NET attrophy for a while, but it might be a good time to do some editorial around this).
• Continuing the bad news, here's a post commenting on the downturn, layoffs, etc. An interesting snippet I disagree with: "a lot of firms, games industry or not, are using the credit crunch as an excuse to trim their more optimistic hires away". I think the difference with the games business in particular is that so many studios are running on a pretty thin bank balance, living hand-to-mouth between milestone payments. When credit dries up, cash is king, and if you don't have any, making payroll might get tricky.
• Good, but lengthy editorial on the whole "are games art?" thing and on games place in our culture. The money quote:"

There is no other medium that produces so pure a cultural segregation as video games, so clean-cut a division between the audience and the non-audience. Books, films, TV, dance, theatre, music, painting, photography, sculpture, all have publics which either are or aren’t interested in them, but at least know that these forms exist, that things happen in them in which people who are interested in them are interested. They are all part of our current cultural discourse. Video games aren’t.

• Its the sincerest form of flattery: EA, and other companies, asking for their IP to be whitelisted in Little Big Planet (Sony's been removing anything that even smells of IP infringement, not waiting for DMCA takedown notices.
• Good interview with Jon Blow about Braid, his next project, and other stuff. Jon's smart. Go read!

Peeking-inside blogs

Just about everyone has heard of the now-famous Post Secret blog, where people mail in secrets on postcards. It struck a nerve with people as it peek into the quirkiest, saddest and darkest secrets that people keep.

Today I came across another similar blog, Sasha Cagen's To-do list blog, which as you can guess, does the same thing, but for to-do lists. Seems to give a similar but slightly higher-level view into people's lives.

Like PostSecret, she's done a book. It seems to be getting better pick-up, perhaps because the lists are not quite as dark as some of the PostSecret ones. Perhaps her publisher is putting more effort into it? See the trailer below as an example:



I do wonder if there's a similar coffee table book to be made with a game angle to it. Designers' notes? Funny things found in code comments? Hmm...

Lessig's TED Talk

...is just brilliant. He's such an awesome presenter and his talk is right on the money (pun intended). Go watch:

More on the mainstreaming of games

If this isn't a great example of mainstream of games, then I don't know what is.

From the description on youtube:

Blizzard has teamed up with iCoke, Coca-Cola's name-brand presence in China to create a joint World of Warcraft and Coca-Cola televised commercial, featuring Chinese pop sensation SHE...

Can casual games industry draft behind poker?

Last month, I blogged about the Poker Players Alliance group that was trying to lobby for changes to gambling law to recognize games of skill as being just that, skill based, and therefore not under the umbrella of 'gambling'.

Today Kotaku points out that a resolution has been introduced into congress to tackle the subject.

The resolution can be found in full here.

Kotaku reads this as being relevant to MMO's, but it's clearly relevant to ALL games. The opening paragraphs of the bill reference Bridge and Mahjong, for example. Skill-gaming business models are currently a viable business model for casual games as well as core games like FPS games and the like. One of the reasons the model has been limited is that it's currently an 'arms length' business model, since many still see it as gambling.

Think about it. When you tell mom you are bringing home your new fiancee, and he/she is a professional poker player, what's mom's reaction? Now change that to professional chess player. You imagined a different reaction, no? Poker has come a long way in terms of public perception, though it still has some air of vice around it.

A societies laws reflect it's values, and vice versa, though generally the laws lag when the values change. If something like this were to become law, it merely reflects the fact that people are open to the idea of games of skill being something that can be an arena for fair competition.

I for one, look forward to watching ESPN's Celebrity Zuma Championship.

Safe sims

These *awesome* safe sex public service announcements from France have a very Sims-inspired look to them. Far more positive and realistic message than what you see here in the US (the slogan at the end translate to 'Live long enough to find The One')

Caution: They are NSFWIPA (not safe for work in prudish America), and if that's true for the hetero vid below, it's especially true for the gay version.

Pub AIDES Baby Baby
Uploaded by PeteRock