Another entrant in the UGC games race

Mashable has an interview up with the folks from Gendai Games who are the developers of Game Salad, another entrant to the drag'n'drop user created games space (e.g. like gamebrix and others).

The main thing that makes this unique compared to other offerings is that it's primarily targeted at Mac and iphone, (including multi-touch & accelerometer support). Mac-only for now, which sounds niche, but is a nice niche to go after, vs the crowded PC space.

On the negative side, from what little text is on the page, it sounds like it's mainly dragging your pix and such onto game templates, vs editing game rules and the like. I could be wrong though.

As an aside, someone needs to define a bunch of terminology for this space. There's a very wide spectrum from GameSalad to GameBrix to Metaplace to XNA. There are a bunch of differences including how much the seatbelts come off for the developer, the business model(s), open-vs-closedness, etc.

Technological advances in genital simulatation continue...

Hot on the heels of the Spore penis creatures, comes a penis machine in little big planet.



If only all that creative talent could be used for good.

Putting my theory to the test

Well, it's as if someone read my last post about IP infringement in User Generated Content centered games.

Kotaku points us to Tetris re-made in Little Big Planet.

The coming tsunami of IP infringement

The "User Generated Content" or specifically "User Generated GAME" space seems to be red-hot these days.

Lots of web-based examples (Metaplace, GameBrix, Silverlight, Atmosphir, etc), and now console games are going to be a hotbed as well, with Little Big Planet being the case example getting the most mindshare.

David Edery had a post up doing his own post-mortem on Scrabulous, in which I commented on it's successor, Wordscraper. In it, I said:

Wordscraper... supports user-definable boards and tile weightings. Which means you can do, as I have done, a board and tile set that exactly match those of Scrabble, and VOILA! IP circumvention via User Generated Content!!!

If they were to publish something like a board-sharing service, the developer (or FB?) would be subject to DMCA takedown notices, but now Hasbro/Mattel has a harder job: Vigilantly watch the forums, send repeated DMCA takedown notices, etc. Also, I don’t know if other countries have similar laws.

There are some holders of game IP that have tried to enforce their hold over game rules, mechanics, etc. Obvious examples are Tetris Corp, who recently were in the news for getting a clone pulled from iTunes, as well as the Hasbro/Mattel Scrabble example. Other cases exist where it seems to have flown under radar (e.g. Webkinz's games are almost ALL rip-offs of classics, but with name changes and theme changes. Sometimes game design changes too)

Quite frankly, I just don't see how the IP holders are going to keep up with it all in this new world.

I suppose you could serve takedown notices to - like Scrabulous - only the most successful examples. But then what does that say for all those would-be infringers out there: Go ahead and clone games and be successful with them... but not TOO successful.

More on marketing of indie console titles

Gamasutra has a postmortem up of the XBLA beat-match-3 title Go Go Break Steady.

Of note is the last point they make on their 'what went wrong' list.

5. Marketing XBLA games as an indie.

What is hype? We completely underestimated the marketing effort required for a successful XBLA title. One of the most attractive reasons for us to develop for XBLA was that we wouldn't need a publisher or major marketing, as the game would always be available online and would be able to garner enough sales for us to make up our investment.

This might have been true when we first started developing for XBLA, as there were then fewer than 10 titles available. We, on the other hand, were the 150th title on XBLA, and we were released alongside a very popular remake of a classic arcade game. Going into our release, we had next to no hype and much to our chagrin very little post-release hype.

Researching this more, we realized that this seems to be the bane of all indie developers. Although we found someone to help us with the PR work close to the release date, in retrospect it would have been prudent to show more of the game earlier so consumers would at least recognize the name when they see it on XBLA.

As I've been saying for some time, this is the real challenge for downloadable titles. Both Braid and Castle Crashers are great examples of devs creating their own buzz.

Indie devs can't count on XBLA, PSN, Steam, or any other digital distribution service to do the full marketing effort for their titles. Doing so would be the equivalent of EA counting on EB Games doing the marketing for Madden. The storefront plays a role, but there has to be anticipation built for the title over time, etc. Viewed differently, if you do well, the storefront will bolster your effort. If you don't do well, they'll forget about you quick.

Portal Prequel coming soon...

...and it's made with PEOPLE!

Portal: Prelude Official Trailer from NykO18 on Vimeo.

via Rock, Paper, Shotgun, news of an 'official prequel' for Portal.

And there's people in it, which is a little strange, till you get the back story:

Its story revolves around the pre-GlaDOS epoch, even before she was plugged in. At this time, test subjects were monitored by real Aperture Science employees, whose work was tedious, lengthy and repetitive. This is why they decided to build a great artificial intelligence that could both replace them in these difficult tasks, and also take responsibility for many other tasks within the complex and compete with Black Mesa’s superiority. All employees of the Aperture Science complex are now eagerly awaiting GlaDOS. Maybe even a little too eagerly, as the upcoming events will tell… This game is totally free and set to be released somewhere around the end of the month. It offers a bit more gameplay hours than the original Portal, with 8 chapters, 48 challenges, 6 advanced maps, a brand new storyline and more than 400 lines of speech with english and french subtitles.

Spore DRM-haters create anti-DRM Spore creatures within Spore

There's a been a bunch of people griping about the SecureROM DRM in Spore. Some of those people have now created creatures within Spore to voice their opinions. Crafty, given that the game is built around the sharing of player-generated content.

At right, the VeROFLaptor, "hails from the planet EADisappointsMe and is known to spray excessive DRM and overhype on it's attackers".

via GameCulture.

Google and Games: Yes. Publishing? No.

A few people have pointed to an article that appeared this week on Forbes web site, speculating that Google might get into game publishing.

I think that while Google's definitely making inroads into games, which is the main thrust of the article, the article is a both a little off base on it's predictions, and also mixing up terminology some.

First, the article mentions that it could make inroads into the in-game ads market (citing casual games sites like Pogo & Real's) market using something "similar to Adsense". And also mentions that the company could use it's warchest to acquire development studios to develop titles to display those ads. This line of thinking has a number of flaws:

• Google's already publicly stated that they intend to do 'adsense for games'. 
• Casual games sites like those mentioned, or MSN's which I worked on, while this do some "in-game ads", usually advergames or 'skinned' games, do the bulk of their advertising via interstitial ads as well as ads elsewhere around the games. For those not familiar: think TV commercials vs in-show product placements.
• Doing either of those, or even in-game ads, doesn't require acquiring a studio. Lots of examples out there today of people using technology solutions to connect ads with other parties' content.

Which brings me to the second and main issue I take with the article: That I don't think believe the content publishing business - where specifically I mean publishing to mean "the business of funding and otherwise aiding the production and bringing to market of content" - is something that fits within Google's DNA. 

Google's a technology company. Technology that aids the connection of people and content, sure. So adsense, yes. Platforms for games (which Lively or Google Earth, etc), sure, I'll buy that too. Game portal? Quite possibly. 

I could see them trying to the shoes of either flash-based game portals (newgrounds, kongregate) or traditional multiformat casual game portals like Real's or MSN's (and maybe supplanting the manual merchadising with an algorithm-driven one - not unlike what happened with Search). I could even see them doing a algo-driven/technology-driven version of what Oberon does - a whitelabel games portal service.

But none of these requires that they retain control over IP, fund content development, etc. So I don't think Publisher is in their future list of roles. 

It's also worth considering that there are parallels in their other businesses: Acquired Blogger and aggregate advertising realestate there, but haven't felt the need to acquire BoingBoing or Kotaku, etc. Acquired YouTube, but aren't producing video programming nor acquiring the Coke'n'Mentos guys. 

What do you think?

Re-treading the re-tread games argument

GamesIndustry.biz has a post up about Frontier's David Braben making some comments about the second hand games industry. I've commented on this issue before (e.g. here), but thought it worth adding a couple things.

First off, this idea that a rental games market could replace a second hand games market is a bit of a fantasy. The second hand games market IS a rental market, at least it can be looked at as such.

That aside, however, there's a basic math problem here that doesn't add up. Either you are going to charge consumers more for the same thing (which then won't replace the second hand market), or you are taking a portion of the retailer's money (which he isn't willing to give up). 

Put differently, the problem is that users are getting the same product, and they and the retailer are getting better value by cutting the developer/publisher out of the equation, and neither gives a damn.

So, what do you do? It seems there are two pieces to address. Here's the same sentence with a couple pieces highlighted:

the problem is that users are getting the same product, and they and the retailer are getting better value by cutting the developer/publisher out of the equation, and neither gives a damn.

Let's spend a bit of time thinking about each:

On the First front, the "new" has to be demonstrably better than the "used". People have done this by linking it to services (MMOs, Steam). There's also the personalize games idea. There's also the idea of shipping the game with something that doesn't transfer as well. Guitar Hero discs are worth less without the guitar, and people often want to keep the peripheral for sequels, etc. 

On the second item, getting people to give a damn, there's two pieces to that:

1) Getting retailers to give a damn. This is a tough one. They make a great amount more money on a second hand title, especially a hot one. In a case like that, a $60 game (from which they make maybe $15 or less) sells for $55 (of which they might make $25 - paying $30 to the consumer for the title). Nevertheless, I have to beleive there are some things that could be done to help incent them to curb the behavior:

• Cut them off. Don't do business with them. Granted, this is cutting off your nose to spite your face, but if you are Rockstar, people will go find your title. 
• Give exclusive release periods to retailers that don't sell second hand.
• Give rebates/discounts/etc to retailers that don't sell second hand.

2) For consumers buying second hand titles, getting them to care, I beleive, doesn't come through their wallets but through their hearts.

• They need to be educated where the money's going.
• That needs to be PEOPLE, not COMPANIES. i.e. No one cares that some of Spore's proceeds are going to EA. They *might* care that it's going to Will Wright. 
• They need to know that the people getting the money appreciate their support.
• They need to know that its part of a relationship they have with those creators.

I know I find myself having to explain to EB employees, trying to get me to buy a second hand copy of a game for 

The music business has an element of this happening. Why can't we get the same thing in games? It seems like in a funny way this related to the whole game credits thing that the IGDA has been going on about for some time. But that's a discussion for another day.

I guess the point is that whining about not liking a business model isn't going to change it. You've got to go build something better.

More power Scott... and fans. and fans for the fans.

Jeff at Rad posted some video of one of the multi-core specialty dev machines Intel has them working with.

This is awesome in too many ways to speak to. just go view the vid, put headphones on, and turn the volume DOWN!

The OTHER consoles.

Quick: How many consoles are there on the market?

Chances are, if you are a gamer, you either answered 3 (PS3, Xbox360, Wii), or maybe 5 (if you included PSP and DS handhelds), or maybe 7 or 8 if you dipped back into previous generation consoles that are still selling titles (PS2, GBA, etc). What if I suggested there were another few that you probably didn't think of? Hold that thought.

GameSetWatch had an interesting post up the other day about how the core game development community, and gamers themselves, are all too ready to dismiss games that appeal to a specific niche; especially when that niche doesn't include them. The post was in reference to Christian themed games, which I agree, are all too often dismissed by the general fan populace in the same way Christian rock is by mainstream rock fans.

The problem's not unique to this niche. We see it elsewhere too. Raph Koster, myself, and others have commented on how we as an industry are too quick to dismiss the kids MMOs when we in fact can be learning from them. And it really wasn't very long ago (2005-ish) that "casual games" was spoken with a sneer, and disregarded as not really games and not really a business. Opinion has shifted on both of those - to a point.

And when it comes to consoles, to most of the folks in game development, what springs to mind is a Wii or a PS3 or a 360. It is not this:

That's my son Tom trying out a Fisher Price SmartCycle at the ToysRUs. It's a game console, it sells for $100, and it runs cartridge based SW (much of which is based on licensed IP) that retails for $20 or so a pop:

Now the "fitness" angle is new and pretty interesting, but this certainly isn't the first or only game console for kids.

Leapfrog has a range of devices for different age groups, but the most popular is their flagship product, the leapster, which is still selling, and was introduced in 2003. It's had a number of features and sku's added, but is essentially the same platform as when it launched.

They just recently launched Leapster 2, which is smaller, more powerful, connects to the PC as well, and links via the PC to an online world where kids can share their content, get rewards for making progress in games (achievements-esque).

I'm not suggesting that everyone run out and write games for the Leapster. I don't think the market's there to sustain that many titles. I do think, however, that we could all benefit from having slightly wider peripheral vision. 

Looking at the features creeping into the HW and SW of these things, they are clearly learning from us. Are *we* learning from *them*?

Rhetoric

I turned on the republican convention coverage for a bit this evening but really couldn't stomach it after a while. I get that McCain's military service arguably speaks to his character, but jeez. We're electing a president. Listening to the speeches, you'd think we were electing Rambo!

*I take  a little liberty with the use of "We" here. I'm not a citizen yet, so *I* won't be electing anybody!

More on retail's evolution

Not one, but two trips to Target in close succession. Ugh. Anyhow, another interesting observation.

Last time, I'd posted something about retail's evolution, upon which Raph added some thoughts.

This week, I noted the huge end-cap of point-of-sale point & subscription cards for virtual worlds:

Some thoughts:

• Look at how many there are! Twenty or so varieties and that's just what I got in frame! It wasn't so long ago that only WoW was doing this and even then it surprised people.
  
• Look at the variety! Acclaim, Toontown, WoW, Dora, City of Heroes, Club Penguin, Pirates of the Caribbean, Habbo...
• Look at how many I've never heard of! BrainPop.com?

And this doesn't even count those who's retail transaction is obfuscated by masking it in a plush (or other) toy, like Webkinz, BuildaBear, BarbieGirlz... (of which I've written here, and here).

Evolution indeed!

Thoughts on Google Chrome

Google launched their browser, which made some (surprisingly little) noise around the blogosphere yesterday. I installed it (this is my first post made from within Chrome) and thought I'd post some thoughts.

First off, kudos for the Comic that kicked off the launch (fans of Scott McCloud will recognize his work here):

Brilliant! What a brilliant way to convey at consumer-level the ideas behind some of the advantages that Chrome offers over competitive offerings. things like Multi-threading, memory management, JVMs, priviledge levels, etc

Secondly, I'm just surprised how little talk there's been about it. First off, it's got to be a HUGE threat to Microsoft. Firefox has made inroads just based on technical advantages and word of mouth, but now here comes Google, with a track record of gaining MSS via a proven business model (look at their toolbar business), and the advantage that comes with being a primary starting point for so many people's web experience. Which brings to mind... why is Chrome not being pitched on the google homepage; nor even in the options at the top; nor on the 'other' pull down menu? Strange. Anyhow, secondly, holy cow this has have Firefox worried. Google's been a major partner for them, and it will be interesting to see just how fickle their users can be, and how many were with them because they just weren't IE.

Finally, the browser itself is pretty slick. I love the 'most visited' and 'most recent bookmarks' in the startup page, The tabs are nice with duplicate features, the drag'n'drop of them feels nice. The treatment of popups is very slick (much better than IE's 'yellow bar'). 

My only complaints so far:

- it'd be nice if History was nested by site. I'm occasionally.searching for a page I found earlier in the day, and this feature makes it easier.

- I'd really like the RSS integration that IE7 has. I know Google has Reader, but I want it baked into my desktop app and I want that app to be the same as my browser.

Anyhow, fantastic product from what I've seen thus far. Nice first effort Google!

No Pax for me :-(

The forces of the universe continue to conspire against me, and I'm not making it to Pax again.

Sounds like it's really exploding in size, and it looks that way too. Jason's posted some pix showing just that, plus goat spotting!

Friends Mark, Jane, Andre and Rob were all speaking on a cool panel I'd like to have chimed in on, about whether casual is 'killing' core games. Sorry I missed it.

Meanwhile, I've got to get back Mother of All Spreadsheets... [grumble]

Zero Punctuation takes on Braid

Jon suffer's Yatzee's wrath:

Evolution of retail

photo.jpg, originally uploaded by Kim Pallister.

Having not set foot in a retail game store for some time, I found myself at Target recently.

Holy balls! Look at the PC game shelf! Approx 1/3 traditional PC hardcore fare (not shown), 1/3 kids & adventure (e.g. Dora, Nancy Drew, etc - also not shown) and 1/3 $20 casual download titles.

Once the domain of Mumbo Jumbo and a couple others, now every downloadable title to have proven itself beyond a given threshold (not sure what that might be - 100k units? half that maybe?) graduates to physical retail.

I wonder whether this is a nice secondary market or whether it's "the big leagues". I'm guessing the former, but who knows!?

As an aside, it's interesting to see their box designs. Most of these games had to sell themselves on a name and a 60x60 thumbnail. The luxury of a big cardboard box lets them mix it up a bit.

It's Bizarro Internetz time!

The Internet is a conundrum of opposites!

• Competing Loanwords! GD Mag's Brandon Sheffield argues we've reached a Graphics Plateau. On the other hand, Crytek's Cevat Yerli argues we're at the beginning of a Graphics Renaissance! While both make some valid points, I'll side with Yerli. I've heard the 'mips fatigue' argument for 15 years, and it's graphics variant for at least the last 5. We still have *very* far to go in graphics, and in computing for that matter.
  
• I posted yesterday about Cliff Harris' concluding that DRM was bad for business. Id's Todd Hollenshead apparently thinks the evil lies with platform vendors, who won't bake DRM into their platforms. Do we really have to learn the painful lessons that the music biz did, for ourselves?
• Apparently we do. Hey, we can NOT learn from those lessons even better by hiring on RIAA legal beagles. Ugh. No opposites there, just bone-headed behavior on both sides of the pond.

It's all too much to ponder. Probably best pondered while sweating in a sauna, cause that's where all tech talk happens, right. Warning. Footage of pudgy nerds talkin' mobile gaming. You have bene warned. (seriously though. I like that it's pretty out of the box approach to pitching. Then I like nothing else about it. shudder. Those guys should seriously check their image)

One way to get to the root of a problem...

Awesome post up by Positech Games' Cliff Harris, in which he, when trying to figure out why people pirate his games, decided to ASK THEM, via his blog.

The comments back were detailed, thoughtful and enlightening. Cliff also outlines a plan to take action based on the feedback received. Put another check in the 'DRM does more harm than good' column:

1) No more DRM

I only used DRM for one game (Democracy 2) and it's trivial. It's a one-time only internet code lookup for the full version. I've read enough otherwise honest people complain about DRM to see that its probably hurting more than it help's. I had planned on using the same system for Kudos 2, but I've changed my mind on that. I have also removed it from Democracy 2 today. I now use no DRM at all."

It's a cool read for a bunch of reasons. Check it out.

Hey EA! Your innards are showing.

I was pointed to this article in adweek about how EA Sports is launching a new "Freestyle" brand aimed at delivering more casual sports fare, for the Wii as well as other platforms.

While it makes sense to target that as a market, does it make sense for a new brand? Couldn't EA Sports Freestyle titles compete equally well under the EA Casual heading?

Perhaps it does, but I'd wager that there was also some internal politicking at work, and that what we're seeing is the creation of a casual brand that doesn't have to reside in Kathy Vrabeck's EA Casual shop. If they are going to create answers to Wii Sports, etc, then will the expertise really come from the Madden team or the Casual team or from Blueprint?

Anyhow, I could be off base, but the announcement smelled a little of office politics to me.

Look at the unit(s) on that guy!

photo.jpg, originally uploaded by Kim Pallister.

Funny button seen at Siggraph. Auteur will remain anonymouse :-)

If you get it, you get it. If you don't, well, keep surfin'. Nothing to see here.

Armored Core Floor

photo.jpg, originally uploaded by Kim Pallister.

Long-time readers of my blog may remember our trials and tribulations with moles destroying our lawn when I last lived in Portland.

We had sod put into the back yard of the new place and decided not to mess around. This is a pic of the 1/2-inch metal cloth mesh I laid down before having the sod put in.

Lets see the little buggers chew through that!

Braid & Indie 'Escape Velocity'

[OK. Last Braid post for a while, I promise.]

I checked out the Metacritic score as of this morning, and it's weighing in at 92, which makes it the top rated XBLA title, and the #10 ranked title of all time, just nudging ahead of Mass Effect, a multi-million dollar title from a large team. Braid cost under a quarter million.

[Update: A few people picked up on this post, and the WSJ one saying Jon invested $180k of his own money into Braid, as concrete evidence of the development cost of the game. I should clarify: Although I had some involvement with Jon, I have no idea what it cost to make the title. That's his business, and up to him whether to disclose. Secondly, my *estimate*, having given it some thought, are that its much higher in total. Likely more like $300k-$400k. Jon's $180, plus an unspecified amount borrowed, but let's assume it's a significant amount, plus the costs that MS covered as advances on royalties for localizations, ratings, etc. Jon talks about some of these here. Anyhow, if you look at it as a $400k dev cost, that's still about 40k unit break-even. More if you consider the tax issue that Jon mentions. And let's not forget that 'break even' isn't the goal, or at least it shouldn't be.]

Now Metacritic is useless in many ways (e.g. there are interweb thoughts on MC scores of Wii not being indicators of sales; or MC scores being too harsh on XBLA titles, etc), but it's still followed closely by console manufacturers and publishers as an indication of what does well and what to aim for.

Which means that people are going to be looking at Braid and trying to emulate it/follow it. This is not unlike how Geowars inspired a publisher/platform vendor thirst for small two-stick shooters (e.g. I courted Everyday Shooter for some time as a more 'arty'/indie title, but Sony wanted the title far more than I did. There are a ton of other examples, both good and bad).

I think there'll be a few misguided publisher/developer/console companies that look at Braid's success and say "we need painterly-rendered platformers with time mechanics!", but I think they'll be small in number. They'll also be wrong in pursuing those as root causes of Braid's success.

What I think is shining through, and what I think the majority of the industry *will* get, is that Braid's success comes from the delivery of a game containing an undiluted form of its creator's passion and vision. Which is, IMHO, what the overused "Indie" moniker is really all about. It's not about small teams, small budgets, or "wackiness". It's about artists taking the vision in their minds eye, and wringing it out in blood, sweat and code.

And if you think about what might happen if the companies in the industry actually take that to heart, well, that's interesting.

If it were to mean a willingness to fund, pubisher or otherwise support titles, while acknowledging that their success will come from completely relinquishing control to those with the original vision, well, that'd be good for 'indie' games now wouldn't it? It would mean 'escape velocity' for indie games, where the metaphor refers to the gravitational pull of the mainstream and the dollars that fund it.

Of course, at some point, those converations within those companies will start to include words like "risk aversion", "focus group", "market trends", etc, and then it'll be hard to stay hands-off, but one can always dream.

Braid mention in Wall Street Journal

In addition to the glowing reviews of the game, WSJ has a nice write-up here with some background on the game's development.

Braid is out!

Braid has *finally* released on XBLA.


I only had a few minutes to play at 5am this morning before heading out, but was so happy to see the final product.

I believe it's one of the most beautiful things on xbox360, and I also believe it's THE most beautiful thing to happen TO xbox360. (Metacritic scores up so far seem to agree)

Congrats to Jon for seeing his vision through, and for keeping nose to the grindstone for SO long (I first talked to Jon about it at IGF 2006, so he started 2005?2004?). I stand in awe of his passion for the art.

Peek inside Larrabee

A Siggraph paper on the Larrabee architecture went live today, so there's press aplenty about the details we've given.

Still lots is hush hush, but those curious can read the paper here.

Scrabble/Scrabulous Scrap Specifics

GamePolitics has a scan of the court docs up.

For those curious about the details, here's a summary:

Case is over trademark and copyright infrigement (not patent infringement as some have stated)

Trademark in that the Scrabulous name rides the coattails of the Scrabble name brand (trademarked several times since 1954, and in 2002 wrt video game versions).

Copyright in that, the rules were copyrighted in 1948, the board design was copyrighted in 1948, the OSPDictionary was copyrighted in 1978, and included things like. These copyrights include things like:

- The board is similar in size, color, multipliers (indeed, the doubles and triples in Scrabulous are color coded and the player assumes what they are worth)
- The tilecount (total and per-letter) is identical
- letter point values are similar.

There's an interesting element to this in that the docs seem to outline a strategy to take what I guess were tactics RJ Software used to obfuscate the copyright infringement, and then uses them as the lynch rope. For example, the fact that there are no rules published for Scrabulous, that the multipliers on the board don't reference the x2 or x3 values, etc. How do people know how to play? Well, it must be assumed they know how to play Scrabble.

"Lawyers" for 63 points!

Well, they finally did it, Scrabulous is down. The following message gives a hint:

"Scrabulous is disabled for US and Canadian users until further notice. If you would like to stay informed about developments in this matter, please click here."

US & Canada is of course the territory covered by Hasbro's copyright on the Scrabble game. EA licensed that property and launched Scrabble for Facebook earlier this month. My guess is that someone had a "pull it down by end of July, please" notice and well, it's the end of the month.

LATimes has more detail here.

Mattel, who has Scrabble rights for rest of world, is suing the Scrabulous developers in India (where they hail from) and has launched their own game for folks in their territories.

They will of course win, and we'll be stuck with two versions of scrabble for different regions, and an inability to play with friends overseas.

Hasbro, Mattel and EA win. RJ Software loses. However, there are other casualties. The end user loses, and Facebook loses. However small a stain on their service this might be, it's still a loss: A social network app that bifurcates the members of the network. It's unfortunate there couldn't be a more win-for-all solution that came out of this.

A wave of original XBLA content

Looks like the XBLA team has been queuing up a wave of original titles for a burst of July/August goodness. Given some of the flak XBLA has taken over the past year (over everything from changes in royalty structure to mediocre content), it's nice to see all this original content coming out, and I hope and expect some of it will fare really well both in terms of sales and critical review.

A few of the recent and upcoming titles:

Go Go Break Steady

OK, it's not faring so well sales-wise, and suffers from meta-critic averaging of what seems like polarization of it's reception. Still, I bought it and am rather enjoying it. I'm generally not a fan of beat-match games on a controller, but this one's ok. Plus, the mix of genre with match-3 is unique, and the theming and music are sweet.

Geowars: Retro Evolved 2

XBLA's monster hit, second in sales only to Uno (an aptly named game), it'll be interesting if the game (debuting at $10) can be the must-have that it's predecesor was.

When I worked at MS, there was a photoshop job someone had done (or downloaded?) that was hanging up in the hallway, entitled "missing GeoWars features" and it showed the player ship in a mucho-crowded scene, with a speech bubble captioned "Where the F*** is Co-op?!?" or something along those lines. See above screenshot. That is all.

Braid

Finally! Braid's slated to release the week after Geowars 2, and it's been a long time coming. I first played it at the IGF (when? 3 years ago?) where it *hurt my brain*. So when I joined MS's XBLA bizdev team, Jon was the first person I approached about getting his title on XBLA. I'm glad to have played a part, and I really hope the Xbox customers have a thirst for such an original brain-bending platformer.

Also coming:

Castle Crashers (go go The Behemoth!), and Galaga Legions (which promises to be a complete remake of the original in the same way Pac Man CE was; a game I play almost every day). Also looks like N+'s add-on pack of 200 levels boosted sales of the game. Go Indies!

Player Created Content: Industry Created Glut

Man, things sure seem to be shaping up for a mighty crowded playfield on the user-generated-content (or the better 'player created content' name) landscape.

The basic premise of '99% of everything is crap, but in a long-tail world, there's enough content for some cream to float to the top' seems sound. However, creating content takes time, and one has to wonder what the intersection of sets looks like between gamers and would-be-creators, and then how big that pool is, vis a vis it's dilution across so many venues for content creation & sharing.

An incomplete inventory off the top of my head:

Games centered around UGC
- Spore
- Little Big Planet*
- others

Games with UGC as non-core feature
- Many many first person shooters (e.g. Unreal)
- Race games allowing for custom cars/tracks (e.g. Forza)
- etc

Virtual worlds with UGC-element
- Second Life
- Google's Lively
- Habbo and a thousand would-be Habbo's
- Sony Home

Game creation middleware/systems
- MS's XNA
- Torque

Hosted game creation services
- Playcrafter
- Raph's Metaplace (my personal fave)

The good news is that there's plenty of variety, and they run the gammut from writing cod to drag-n-drop.

I do worry, however, that many will fall by the wayside for lack of sufficient user-base to generate the content.

And yes, I realize I *totally* sound like one of those "there'll never be more than a million MMO players!" cronies of 7-8 year ago. I was one of them! :-)

* BTW, this may point to it being a smart idea Sony's hinted at, allowing users to sell their content, to provide additional incentive beyond the rest of the fray. I beleive Raph's system is going to allow such things as well.

Here comes Google...

Google pulls the covers back on Lively!



Looks like cartoony 3D space social network, with limited user creation tools (I'm going off other's posts - will give it a go when I get some time).

no content creation tools at the level that Metaplace is doing (i.e. not sure you can actually MAKE GAMES with it), but I might worry if I was someone like Habbo, etc.

As one of the commenters on Alice's blog points out, it's a vehicle for advertising, so that may turn off some users and limit how much people can do with it (because most people don't want their banner ads popping up on the sides of flying penii.

As Casey once put it, 'now the dancing turns German'.

(via Wonderland)

Rein Myopic on Stereoscopic?

Epic's Mark Rein is interviewed on GamesIndustry.biz this morning, and among the juicier quotes they latched onto is this one:

Q: Ubisoft has said that their going to be using 3D - or stereoscopic - technology in games...

Rein: That's dumb.

Q: So there's not going to be an Unreal Engine that supports it then?

Rein: It does already. I have a 3D Monitor sitting in my office and stereoscopic has worked on Unreal for a long time. [snip] So unreal works fine on stereoscopic, it's just that you've got to change out your screens to use it - that's a big accessory.

I really like Mark, but I think he's missed the point on this one. I don't believe that 3D monitors are going to be what the console manufacturers latch onto, if in fact they decide to differentiate via stereoscopic 3D. It'll be via LCD shutter glasses with the TV you've already got.

LCD shutter glasses have the downside that (a) they are glasses, so you have to wear them and look dorky, with which I am well acquainted, and (b) you need a pair for each person in the room.

The upside, however, is that they are cheap (e.g. sub-$100 products exist with 2 pairs of glasses, so within range of a pack-in peripheral with a high-end title if MS or Sony were to do in real volume), you can ship them as a peripheral along with a USB dongle to drive the shutter (or maybe can be done via the existing IR on the 360 or PS3?).

You can drive existing HDTVs at 30hz per left/right field, which works, but will make your retinas bleed. The more interesting way to drive it is at 60hz per field, on 120Hz LCDs. Anyone who's shopped recently for an HDTV knows that 120Hz refresh is one of those differentiator features that is rapidly becoming a checklist item that will exist across all products in the near future.

Another cool think you can do is two-player games where each player has a full-screen view.

As an aside: You could probably do some other cool social/family games where you flash stuff intermittently on the screen in a way that everyone can see it except the person with the glasses on. Kind of like the 'isolation booth' in old game shows.

Anyhow, it means that adding stereo to a console is probably more of a $25-ish peripheral, not a 'buy a new TV' option as Mark interpreted it.

That being said, I'm not bullish on a feature like this being anything other than a science project mid-console-lifecycle (note that some science projects actually do ship). It's more like something they might go big with in the next cycle.

In-game PPT: Raising the bar on presentations

Just back from Paris GDC, and while there was a number of cool things there, my favorite was the keynote given by the guys at Media Molecule, makers of Little Big Planet.

You can find plenty of summaries of their talk online. No need to rehash here.

What I did want to note though, is that they seriously raised the bar for those of us looking to given good, unique, presentations.

Rather than using Powerpoint, their entire presentation was done as an in-game level, which they "played through" as they gave their talk. Different videos and pix were brought up by leaping onto trigger switches, levers and buttons were used to trigger animated actions supporting the talk, etc.

It was just beautiful.

Maybe I'll give my next talk in Line Rider!

Kindle(ing) for Games Industry?

Seth Godin has an interesting post up about the Amazon's e-book device, the Kindle.

I must first fault his post for one thing. For all the pros and cons he discusses, there's not one mention of the device's use of DRM. While he's correct in citing some of it's limitations, he fails to note what is by far the most significant one. Surprising, given that he talks about his own affection for 'buying books to give to someone else', something you can't do with DRM'ed e-books.

This one complaint aside, he offers some intriguing ideas about how the Kindle could be improved, and many of which I beleive apply equally to games. Most of them fall under the umbrella of viewing the 'connected device' as a social platform, and not just a distribution platform.

Much of the talk about Kindle has centered around the convenience of having all your books on one device and purchasing them over the internet, and also around digital distribution, and what this *could* mean in terms of savings to consumers and/or increased royalties to authors. (In fact, much of complaint-camp posting has been about how this has not yet translated into such savings, but that may just be a matter of time as existing books are still paper - and thus publisher - dependant).

Seth instead talks about how the device falls short of it's opportunity to capitalize on it's connected nature. How books should ship with/connect to the readership's commentary. How I should be able to see what books my friends are reading and what htey thought of them. How I should be able to see (if desired) notes in margins, highlighted paragraphs, stickies, disputed facts, links to corroborating or conflicting points of view. How I should be able to link to any word in the text to get a dictionary definition, wikipedia entry, etc. All fantastic points.

I think there's a parallel here with digital distribution as it pertains to games.

Much of the discussion around digital distribution has been about how it might (or might not) translate to increased savings to consumers and/or increased revenue share to developers. Also discussed is how it's allowing for feasibility of certain formats/genres/etc that might not otherwise be feasible, as they wouldn't acheive the revenue needed to justify retail shelf space allocation.

While all of that's true, Seth's comments bring to mind some ideas about how the connectivity of game platforms could enhance the social aspect of games. We are seeing the beginnings of this with Wii's service allowing user rating of game titles, Xbox Live letting you see what your friends are playing, and Steam letting you see what your friends have purchased and commented on.

However, I beleive these things might only be the beginning.

Connecting user ratings & recommendations with a social network allows for networks of trust, as well as 'networks of taste' (not the 'people who liked this also liked' amazon thing, but letting you develop networks of people who've enjoyed games similarly). Connecting the online distribution with the social network potentially could allow for gifting of games, friend discounts, etc.

The idea of annotation is also intriguing. Note how the video I linked to in this post, uses Viddler and someone's commented on a particular point in the stream. We've also seen how games like Portal have shipped with 'Director Commentary' features in the game where they've annotated the game with facts about it's design and development. I find the idea of user-contributed commentary intriguing. Players could opt to play through with commentary on, and could do so with comments from a given person or group. This could be their friends, from a group like the reviewers at JayIsGames, or a favorite blogger/designer/luminary, etc.

In any case, there's a lot of room for innovation as these platforms connect. It will be interesting to see where it takes place. In general, the PC is the place that has the most rapid churn and innovation, but it's often a closed vertical model that allows for consistency of experience (e.g. annotation of games would need some kind of API to allow for linking to a particular object or event, and usage of that API would need to exist across all games on that platform). My bet is that we'll see the first instance of this on somehting like Raph's Metaplace system, though someone like Sony or Microsoft could chose to drive it across theirs (not likely, as Sony's been hands off with theirs, and Microsoft's been letting others catch up as of late, it seems). Other potentials could be Flash or Silverlight, or perhaps whatever secret-sauce gaming thing Google's working on.

The cake is a meme

From UK's Times Online article about a group targeting the Church of Scientology's tactics of targeting individuals that critique their religion. The group does so anonymously, wearing masks and borrowing heavily from web memes:

One of their placards reads: “We have cake, they have lies.”

Game Design and Architecture

Everyone is going to link to this. It's just too awesome not to.

Wealthy guy in NY has his apartment remodeled, and wants to have puzzle elements built in, that his kids have to solve to get to the end prize, a poem he's written for them. The architect (game designer?) outdid himself, to say the least.

Snippet:

"In any case, the finale involved, in part, removing decorative door knockers from two hallway panels, which fit together to make a crank, which in turn opened hidden panels in a credenza in the dining room, which displayed multiple keys and keyholes, which, when the correct ones were used, yielded drawers containing acrylic letters and a table-size cloth imprinted with the beginnings of a crossword puzzle, the answers to which led to one of the rectangular panels lining the tiny den, which concealed a chamfered magnetic cube, which could be used to open the 24 remaining panels, revealing, in large type, the poem written by Mr. Klinsky."

Be sure to look at the slideshow as well. The craftsmanship looks awesome.


via Raph.

Go Go Break Steady trailer

The latest trailer for upcoming XBLA title Go Go Break Steady is looking awesome.



A peer of mine signed this title while I worked there, and it has been under development for a LONG time. I haven't seen many XBLA titles go through this much iteration (except maybe Braid, the game I'm most looking forward to), and change so much during that process. Last I played it, it was a beatmatch game with a kind of match-3 twist to it, and was cool then. I can only assume it's gotten even better. Really looking forward to it.

Almost makes up for stuff like Frogger 2, doesn't it? ;-)

Portmanteaux du jour

Two recently heard portmanteau(x? - never sure how to pluralize), one good, one bad:

• Clowd: (via Seth Godin). Meant to refer to the idea of combining crowd-sourcing with cloud-computing. i.e. send execution out there to the 'cloud', but maybe it's crowdsourced and it's actually this amorphous human engine that executes it. I like the idea, but as a portmanteau, it's almost impossible to audibly differentiate 'clowd' from 'cloud', not to mention the confusion when it's someone with a Canadian accent pronouncing it. Visually, looks too much like 'clown'. Is it a portmanteau form of a snide jeer? If so, then it's a little too clever!

This next one I love so much more.

• Psychogylcimic: A clever combination that clearly indicates the behavior exhibited by some when their blood sugar gets low. My wife started using this one immediately upon hearing it.
  

That's "Mister" to you.

Like all parents, I want to ensure my kids get a proper education. I believe that starts with a solid foundation based on the classics.

Which is why we took a break the other day from the never-ending Lego Star Wars gaming to introduce Thomas and Jennifer, aged four and a half apiece, to the classic Pac Man franchise. This way I could show them what games were like when I was their age (actually about 3 times their age when Pac Man came out, but I digress).

We started with Ms Pac Man because it's more forgiving. Then we moved on to the original Pac Man, at which point my daughter corrected me.

"Daddy, it's not Pac Man. It's MISTER Pac Man."

Tom likes eating ghosts. Jenny is interested in the part (on 360) when she is presented with a tally of which fruit she has eaten, citing that fruit is very healthy and that both Ms and Mr Pac Man will avoid getting sick as a result.

...and speaking of games as art

...Clint casually mentions that Ubidays (Ubi's big press rollout of the year's coming catalog) is being held at the Louvre.

Rented venue or not, I think that says something, no?

Sex in Games: The Lecture

Alice points us to this awesome lecture-turned-flash-movie by Daniel Floyd.



Well worth the few minutes to watch!

Game mini-reviews: GTA4, Penny Arcade Adventures

I'd been meaning to post some thoughts on GTA4, but have been busy and have only played a couple hours into it. Since "anonymous" seemed to think my pointer to a flickr set of game screens was an endorsment, I guess I'd better do a short review/commentary now.

While I'm at it, I spent an hour or so playing the Penny Arcade Game, so let's throw that into the mix, shall we?

GTA4

Pros: It's like GTA3, but bigger, badder and better. The world is huge, the content is racy, they've added a ton of stuff to the proven formula.

Cons: It's like GTA3, but bigger, badder and better. The game, like many, is TOO BIG. Multiple hours before you even get to the moderately interesting stuff. Racy content is ok, but its gratuitous and they missed out on many opportunities to treat it more as gameplay rather than fluff. 'Better' as a con in that it's largely many incremental improvements over the proven formula of GTA3, but nothing revolutionary, and certainly not deserving of the over the top review scores.

Other thoughts:

• As many have noted, the metacritic scores are *out* *of* *control*. It's a good game, but it is not the perfect game by any means. There's a whole other post to write about the group think and pre-launch hype and resultant salivation that helps drive this behavior.
• As 'anon' commented, the game appears to push the DVD drive pretty hard, and some xbox's are having problems, something to do with dusty lenses? I saw the issue once, but then swapped Xbox360's (one of my had RROD'd and it came back from the fix-it shop) and haven't seen the issue since.
• The 'score with your girlfriend' potential achievement (ahem) is such a lost opportunity. Could have made a fantastic mini-game that you interact with through the game. Should you attempt to kiss her, take her upstairs, etc, with her reacting based on how long you've dated, what she thinks you'll think of her in the morning, how passive or aggressive you are being, how the current date was going, etc. Instead it's a little bit of gratuitous content and that's about it. Shame.
• The GPS and in-game phone are ok, but sometimes I think that games go too far to mask the HUD. I mean, really, are we all really fooling ourselves?
• I havent played multiplayer yet, but the multiplayer modes look like a riot. Waiting until I finish single player game.

Penny Arcade Adventures

I've only played an hour or so this evening, but I was privvy to a little of the background while I worked at MS. There was a lot of heated discussion about whether the more-family-friendly XBLA channel was a good place for a game with a character that copulates with produce, but I guess we can see how that worked out, and I'm glad that it did.

The game is best described as comic-book-point-n-click-adventure-meets-turn-based-RPG. Some thoughts on it:

• I fucking hate turn-based RPG's, and yet I like this game, so I guess that says something. I'm not even that much of a Penny Arcade fan (I like the comic, but am much more of an XKCD guy, and confess that I have a guilty pleasure in reading Questionable Content.)
• It's the closest I've seen to the reincarnation of Lucasarts point-n-click glory days. If you liked those games (I did), you'll be willing to put up with the turn-based-combat crap.
• As a comic put in motion, it's brilliant. Scott McCloud would be proud, I think. I love the treatment of fixed camera views as "panels", breaking the fourth wall. The toon rendering is well done, as is the panel treatment. Best comic-in-motion since Ubi's 'XIII'.

Go try the demo, decide if it's for you, and buy it if it is. Its definitely worth downloading the demo.

It's Nau or Never

Crap.

A while ago, I discovered Nau, a clothing store whose clothes I really liked and who's mission was pretty cool. Then the other day I discovered they were going out of business despite being less than a year old. Crappy crap.

The unique thing about their business seemed pretty well timed, "style with meaning" I guess you'd call it. Things like a portion of your purchase going to a non-profit group which you chose at time of purchase, clothes made from sustainable or reclaimed materials, low-impact biz practices, etc. See here for more detail.

The (somewhat bitter sounding) statement on their website claims investor reluctance, but I can't beleive that's the whole story. There's a ton of VC interest in other environment-related companies right now. Maybe it's the direction the economy is taking that has them reluctant about boutique clothing? I dunno.

Anyhow, rest of inventory is on sale on their website. I went and busted the bank, you should too. They'll be rareties soon enough!

Sightseeing in Liberty City

Awesome flickr set of side-by-sides of GTA4 screens and NYC pics.

Shippin' stuff

Man, People are *shippin* stuff!

Dave's book is done. Congrats Dave. I remember finishing GPG5 and handing off the huge printed stack. Fun.

Robin (and a cast of others) shipped Boom Blox, and it's rockin' 85 on metacritic. I guess I'll finally have to buy that Wii.

Justin & Merci (who's game has been in beta for a while), shipped PMOG, the Passively Multiplayer Online Game.

Mary Jo shipped Iron Man. Congrats to her to, even though she's since left to do consulting. (BTW, the story's cuter coming from her S.O.)

Meanwhile, work on Industry's worst-kept secret will have me not shipping stuff for.... a while :-)

Back on the horse...

Man... over 2 weeks without posting. Very unlike me. (VGVC is lagging even more. Really ought to do something about that...)

Things have been busy between work & settling into the new house. Work's also involved some travel. Did a few days in San Fran for work-related meetings, dinner with Chris, lunch with... well, no one talks about Fight Club.

Montreal last week for 3 days which was fun, but tightly packed. Work related meetings and dinners, tons of work to do in small gaps of time between, and then one afternoon of visits with mom, dad, friends. Flew back 6:00am Saturday to attend Adam & Stacey's wedding party.

Hopefully should catch up now that I am stationary (I think?) until GDC Paris.

How many repetitive stress injuries per minute?

OK, I just discovered TypeRacer.

Typershark meets Kung Fu Chess. Typing of the Damned meets Deathmatch.

Yes, it's multiplayer touchtyping deathmatch. If you wake up in the morning and notice the world's awesome is missing, well it's all collapsed into here. It is a singularity of awesome.

Gamers steamed over Steam? Distilling some learnings

There's an interesting thread over on the Escapist Magazine forums in which someone is raising a bit of a fuss about game prices on Steam. Specifically, their complaint is that many of the games listed, including some of Valve's, can be found cheaper at physical retail locations.

Having higher prices for comparable product isn't normally perceived well, but it's additionally aggravating in this case because (a) so much has been said about the efficiency of digital distribution, and (b) there's a perception that the customer is 'buying direct', and therefore should be given a better deal.

Now, I'm not faulting Valve. I think they have a great service. The issue here, is in the difficulty of keeping up with the aggressive discounting and/or promotion that retailers will do as they manage their inventory and shelfspace.

To some extent, Valve is between a rock and a hard place. Just keeping up with the pricing and promotions that all the retailers have going on would be daunting (I'd argue impossible). Even if they did that, then matching one retailer's price drop would be seen by another retailer as undercutting their channel partners. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

So what can we learn from this?

1) Be careful about message you send about the value of your service. I'm not sure that Valve has ever said that digital distribution would result in lower prices (I'm fairly certain they didn't). Still if the value was in the dynamic updates, or in the feel-good value of a larger share getting back to developers, or whatever, they should have made that the top talking points in all marketing efforts.

2) If people are comparing apples to oranges, make sure to point out that you are a pineapple. If customers ignore the above, and insist on making comparisions like the above, bring the discussions back to your product/service's value and to why the comparison is moot. In this case, it's not buying a product, it's entering into a service relationship with Valve, and that does more than get you the one game.

3) Prevent the upset from happening to begin with. This might seem a little schizophrenic at first, but I think that Valve should point people away from Steam. By this I mean they should clearly point out that some retailers might offer the game for cheaper, and that if all a customer wants is to buy the game, they are welcome to check prices at places A,B,C. They should then point out what the advantages are of buying through Steam. Customer doesn't feel they were duped, and you've reinforced your messages.

Long story short, I think this is a good lesson in how the customer doesn't always get your marketing pitch. Sometimes they write it for you. You have to plan for that and know how to address it.

Time Sink...

photo.jpg, originally uploaded by Kim Pallister.

Spent a surprising amount of time this weekend getting my media room in order. Assembed new IKEA entertainment center (centers actually, I bought two to put side by side, and reversed the shelves/drawers on one of them which required some IKEA-hacking), routed cables (HDMI, audio, component, power, etc) through the wall. The latter was a pain because it's an outside wall so I had to route a bulk of cables in the narrow space between the wallboard and the vapor barrier.

I'm still trying to get wireless to work well throughout the house with HD video, etc. Was much easier in the old house where I'd routed CAT6 cable everywhere.

[oh, and the room isn't orange. iPhone camera did that for some reason)

Centennial Middle School Talk

I gave a talk yesterday at Centennial, a middle school out east of Portland, about careers in the games industry. I'd given a talk at the same school when I last lived here, and it was once again a blast.

The format changed some. Last time, they rotated 5 groups of 25-ish through for a 15 minute presentation each. This time, we got the whole group of 150 kids in one room, and did a 30 minute talk followed by 30 minutes of Q&A.

[BTW, if you are one of the kids I spoke to, you here's the list of resources I posted last time on 'game development for beginners'. It's a little out of date, and I'll be updating it later today, but if you are eager, that should get you started.]

Now for everyone else, here's some observations from the talk:
- Number of kids out of 150 that play games: 148. There were two outliers, both girls, for what that's worth.
- Number of teachers that play games: 3 of 6.
- Number of students that even *heard* of Space Invaders (I'd been asked what the first game I played was): ~1/3.
- Games about which I was asked the most questions: Grand Theft Auto (3,4), Halo. Remember, these are 12-13 year olds. ESRB, you still have work to do!

It's worth noting that the socio-economic split between the students is pretty big. Some are from newer development areas and are lower-middle class or slightly better off than that. On the other hand, 50% of the kids in the room are on free or subsidized lunches. The teacher I was working with pointed out that while many have computers at home, most are very old, and many are not connected to the Internet (as she put it, "many of them are used to having the phone cut off in the last week of the month").

As well, the school reflects this. "Non-essential" courses (e.g. computer science, *ahem*) have been cut from the curriculum. They have computers in the school, but they are almost exclusively used to administer standardized testing. Kids get very little time on PC's to actually explore/create/experiment. The school has one Smartboard which was paid for via a grant. Contrast this with the public school I saw in an affluent part of Redmond and blogged about here.

Despite this, I was getting some awesome questions. Some examples:
- How does the Wii do motion tracking?
- How do the chips in a game console differ from the ones in my computer?
- How does a game being connected to the Internet (cited Live as example) change the process of creating it?
- How do motion-capture rigs work? (was phrased as "those suits with the ping-pong balls on them")

Also lots of pragmatic questions about how much money will you make in job X or job Y.

A few questions were a little more basic. My fave was this three-part question from a young lady in the audience:

"How long have you been in this business?" (My answer: "15 years")
"How old were you when you started?" (My answer: "24")
"How old are you now?" (My answer: "You just wrote a math problem!")
Another kid then cried out "You're 40!?!".
*sigh* "Close."

Other favorite moment: A number of kids were asking for autographs afterward (why? I don't get it either). The last kid that came up as I was packing up asked for one as well and I asked why on earth he wanted it. His answer? "I've never met anybody OLD before... that plays games, and I want to prove to my parents that you exist!".

Anyhow, it was a blast and I'd highly recommend to others that they do similar things in their community.

A book so remarkable, it has it's own trailer

Can't wait for this to arrive from Amazon. Cool style, plus it's own trailer.


Johnny Bunko trailer from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

Way to stand out!

How the Allies won the war

We decorated the kids' rooms in the new house.

The boys are sharing a room and we put up some stickers of WWII-era planes. As part of that, Tom and I went to the hobby shop to pick out some models to put together and hang from the ceiling. I told Tom to pick some out that were similar to those in the stickers we put up. He did a pretty good job as you can see from the bomber below.


He also is a pretty good history buff for a four year old. He was aware of the little-known secret weapon that garnered the Allies a real advantage over the Germans: The Millennium Falcon!

What was I going to do? Turn down a chance to work on the Millennium Falcon with my kid? C'mon!

Nerd Bird

photo.jpg, originally uploaded by Kim Pallister.

One of the nice perks at Intel that I was definitely glad to have coming back was the Intel chartered airline, aka the Nerd Bird.

Not nearly as lavish as it sounds, this is really a cost savings because the company sends so many people back and forth between OR, CA, AZ, etc.

What it means though, is that I can show up for a 6am flight at 5:50 and make it to an 8am meeting in Santa Clara on time. Sweet.

[Above, San Jose tarmac early morning]

Viral marketing or new usage model?

photo.jpg, originally uploaded by Kim Pallister.

Viral marketing or new usage model?

Or just a stock-boy's sense of humor? Or Freudian slip?

Walking through the grocery store the other day, this M&M's "Get Wild!" endcap right next to the condoms.

Portal-inspired trends & heroism

Portal incited a lot of conversation about whether it would inspire shorter games with high-quality production.

I ask instead; will it inspire games with brilliant closing-sequence songs?

And as an answer, I give you "You Have To Burn The Rope".

Sheer Brilliance.

[Update: Am I the only one that finds this reminiscent of The The? (check Soul Mining, tracks 2, 3)]

A Laptop from God

There's been a huge amount of talk around the "$100 laptop" idea. One Laptop Per Child, has gotten the most press and there are similar efforts from Intel's Classmate (note: I work for Intel but have no affiliation with the Classmate product or team), Asus' Eee PC and others.

I'm quite surprised at how much press there is on the feasibility of the price point, and how little press there is about what business models could sustain such a price point.

As pointed out in this CNET piece, Gartner analyst Annette Jump beleive's that the $100 is still too high, and that it's also not feasible due to a bunch of other TCO type costs (Internet access, servicing, etc).

Whether $100 or a few hundred more, it seems some sort of subsidy is necesary. There's been a lot of talk about government subsidy, and some talk of 'charitable organizations' providing subsidy.

There's a precedent for the subsidy of providing educational equipment and other basic infrastructure to third world countries: Religious groups, via missionary work.

It's been long understood that basic quality of life improvement can be a powerful persuader, and religous groups* often provide such services out of charitable motivation, but not without association to their beleifs (e.g. lots of Christian mission groups helped out after the Tsunami in Asia a few years back, but I don't think any did so anonymosly.)

[*Political groups aren't unaware of this. My own grandmother lived in a very rural area of Quebec, and whenever anyone bad-mouthed the oft-bad-mouthed Maurice Duplessis, she countered with "C'est lui qui a apporte l'electricite" ("It was him who brought the electricity") and thus he could do no wrong in her eyes, despite his other doings.]

Anyhow, I'm surprised more religious groups haven't latched onto this opportunity. Seems a pretty powerful motivator.

"Why do I follow Jesus? He's the one that brought the Internet!"

[Note: Since some may question my motives in this post. I'm atheist, and am not advocating for or against the above, just pointing out what seems like an opportunity. Personally, I don't worry too much about education or technology with religious strings attached, since educated people are better equiped to question their faith anyway.]

Note to IP holders: My friendships matter, your boundaries don't.

I've blogged plenty about the ongoing Scrabulous debacle (e.g. here, here, and here), but have to comment on the latest.

RealNetworks (who hold the PC rights to Scrabble for outside US & Canada) have released Scrabble for Facebook, but only for users outside US & Canada).

Let's ignore for a second that Scrabulous is still available on Facebook, and has the momentum of being the incumbent.

There's a really good example here of how the IP issue is going to poison the property's chance of success.

There have already been examples of online games where players were unhappy about being unable to play on the same overseas servers as friends. This however, is much worse. Here we are talking about a social network and applications that are looking to complement (and leverage) existing connections between people. Connections that previously haven't had to worry about distinctions like what country they may reside in.

If EA (the US rights-holder) ships Scrabble for US & Canada Facebook users, and Hasbro manages to shut down Scrabulous, users will be the loser here, having to figure out with whom they can play, out of their friends list.

Hasbro has the opportunity here to offer a superior offering (see my last post on the subject) to the incumbent, and possibly acquire their user-base in the process. Instead, they'll have partners offer two crippled versions because they did their licensing with an antiquated view of the world.

[Update: I was reminded that the rift goes beyond the digital world, as Hasbro has rights in the US, and Mattel in rest of world. Still the point still holds, their IP rights are going to restrict adoption and push users toward another game entirely.]

Ugh. Just seems so broken.

Ooma update

I blogged a while back about the Ooma that I picked up (for free!) at an entrepreneurial event that I attended. Having moved into the new house, I finally got around to setting it all up, so here's the mini-review:

Ooma is a VOIP device that offers free long distance in the US (unlimited) along with call-waiting, voice-mail, and a bunch of other services, with no monthly service fee. The cost absorbed in buying the device. Long-distance outside the US is extra, but relatively cheap (to call Canada is a little over a penny a minute).

OK, so first, the good:

• It's a sexy device. Definitely designed by (and for?) mac-lover types.
• Setup was a snap. I'll caveat this below, but for the most part, plug in and go, and it guides you through the process relatively problem free. Considering that it plugs into your broadband, your phone line, requires a credit card for long-distance billing, and your phone number & service provider to switch off other services (like call waiting) with your land-line, it's surprising it all worked at all, let alone problem free.
• Customer service (I had to email about my change of account info from Seattle to Portland), responded in minutes, even on a sunday morning.
• Nifty features. Things like SMS'ing you or emailing you with info about new voicemail messages, are pretty cool.

The bad (the only downside I can think of):

• I'd wager that the thing was designed by a group of people that live in the bay area, or another similarly congested place. It's definitely designed with a compressed living area in mind. They suggest placing the device between your cable modem and your router (if you have one), they require that it be plugged into your land-line, and the 'hub' device (in the photo above) is designed to be in an accessible location (having the main buttons and indicator lights on it). This might be fine in most San Francisco appartments, but for those of us in suburbia, it's less than ideal. Right now I have it in the living room, but I plan on re-working things so that the modem and router are in the garage, so my sexy device will live in there, I guess, and I'll have to route a phone cable over to where it's going to be located. ANyhow, I'd like to see an option where the main 'guts' are available in a small unit to put in my network closet, and the 'UI' portion is then available anywhere else in the house. Would also like to see support for a wireless version of the scout (maybe one exists?)

I've only used it for a few local calls and one long distance call so far (20 minutes to mom -> 29c!), but so far, so good!

Bartle's Indie MMO Conference Keynote

Here's an Indie MMO conference going on in Minnesota (?) and it looks like Richard Bartle's keynote was really good.

Gamasutra has a good synopsis, and Bartle has posted slides.

His keynote looks back 20 years, from the year 2028, and paints three alternate portraits of the future: One in which game designers and other creatives thrive (the good), one in which lawyers and accountants stifle development (the bad), and one in which business and academia drive VW's to practical usage - and thus make them mundane in the process (the ugly).

On the front of the second of those possible futures, Congress recently held hearings on Virtual Worlds.

GTA IV sucks...

...sucks me in that is.

I have to admit. Watching this TV spot has me ready to pony up money for my copy.



A couple thoughts while on the subject:

- GTA 3 did a good job of populating a large city with ambient characters/content. Crackdown & Saints Row took it further, but GTA 3 was quite a bit earlier. GTA4 looks from early footage that it does an event better job on this front.

- In terms of "realism", camera work/effects/automation seems a WAY bigger bang for the buck than things like animation or shader effects. Madden and Ace Combat 6 are great examples. Footage of the latter here: