burning up inside
After reading Andrew Vanden Bossche’s High Aspirations for High Scores article on Gamasutra, I’m really surprised at all the ways Bulletstorm’s “Echoes mode” demo failed to hold my hand, and found it to be a major stumbling block in the game’s otherwise stellar promotion.
Would like to try and dissect the marketing experience so far, here: Continue reading “Marketing Concepts: the Calculated Climate Change of Bulletstorm”
Apparently the crazed faceless masses of our dear internet have gone off the deep end about Penny Arcade’s attempts to not feel guilty.
They made a strip, the Sixth Slave, about the ignoble underlying nature of World of Warcraft players, and it somehow became a lightening rod for rape culture. (they followed up with a strip, Breaking It Down, about the lunacy of attributing the comic strip to the promotion of rape, which was then misconstrued as mocking rape victims). Refusing to back down, they proceed to sell a tshirt and pennant featuring a dickwolves mascot and sporty logo.
Here is an interesting summary of the community response, PAX Speakers Withdraw Over Controversy, by Alexander Bevier. I couldn’t resist offering my penny’s worth of thoughts:
If you wish to change the culture, I would encourage you to do the hard thing: and attend these PAX events.
Seek to speak there, and engage the gaming culture, instead of abandoning it to fester. Continue reading “Dickwolves, Rape Culture, Penny Arcade Fans and Fanatics”
Here is some unnecessary fan boy ranting about upcoming movies. In response to MovieBob’s blog post on The Escapist. I was pleased to try and counter the writer’s rampant pessimism (it’s like a mirror!) with some weird sardonic optimism. But then I felt the need to follow up. With nasty pessimism. wtf? I don’t know why I always end up getting so negative about things I enjoy (or expect to enjoy!). but. I spent some time writing it. so i feel the need to preserve it. in all it’s creative uglies: Continue reading “PreJudging Upcoming movies: Batman3, The Hobbit… and hot chicks in insane asylums!”
This post is suppost to keep track of interesting news that’s shooting out left and right from CES this week. (Like Xolotl’s dying sperm shots in Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light). (the tragedy here, is that I don’t know ANYONE who cares about this CES tech shit half as much as I do)
Microsoft Surface version 2
(aka Samsung’s SUR40 tv) sounds awesome. AWESOME! I’m stunned this isn’t bigger news. … I guess people see it as a giant iPad that costs more than twice most high end tvs? (or they will soon? if they ever even hear about it?) butttttt. What’s really exciting is the “pixelsense” tech, which claims to be a bunch of camera sensors mixed in with the pixels, turning the whole display into a camera. Apple patented this years ago. but, microsoft made it. HMM! (actually, no one has laid out the tech exactly. who knows how many sensors there are).
I’ll rant more about below, after listing off some interesting tech announcements Continue reading “CES 2011 – Surface 2”
(this was posted initially as a response to gamasutra’s best iOS games of 2010)
I’ve heard nothing but praise for Game Dev Story (GDS), but disagree heartily.
Isn’t it more like some sort of simple limited tamagotchi than a real game? (is there a better term? “micro simulation with minimal input allowed”?) Continue reading “Game Dev Story : emperor’s new clothes? crippled tamagotchi?”
I bought the keytar RockBand3 bundle. I bought the cymbals to upgrade my beatle’s Ringo drum kit. I have three mics (but only one mic stand). I have the old original rockband guitar (plus the original red PS2 guitar hero[GH] guitar, white xbox GH2 guitar, wireless black gibson GH guitar). I’ve purchased almost every Harmonix game (but stopped buying GH titles after the Aerosmith tie in).
Last night I received my madcatz “Mustang pro guitar” and played with it for a couple hours. BLEW MY FUCKING MIND. I couldn’t be more excited about the music game genre right now.
So here are my ranting comments, in response to a Gamasutra article about why music games are over. SIGH) Continue reading “Rock Band 3 changes everything with Pro mode.”
my view:
Jobs is saying there is a difference between apps and the web.
I think the key is this:
“It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps.”
Some mention that apple could get involved in Adobe’s open screen project, but the whole point of that project is “o provide a consistent runtime environment.” How can you do this between a blackberry and an iPhone?
(degrading features gracefully? that sounds like something for the web, not for an app. !!!).
Continue reading “Apple vs. Adobe: My thoughts on the Jobs rant and rebuttals”
I read this io9 article about Google’s progress securing third party copyright licenses, and all the pussy authors who are freaking out. I also read this guy’s comments and then his blog on the subject (he presents a view I don’t agree with. but find challenging).
This is my rant/reply:
copyright law protects publishers so they can maximize profit. It isn’t designed to protect authors.
I’m drinking the google-aid here, but it makes a lot of sense. Continue reading “Copyright Licensing Panic: Please don’t play ball with the dinosaurs!”
I’ve been discussing the Supreme Court’s recent ruling, in the “Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission” case with some friends. I’m eager to understand how this could possible be a good thing. The only “pro” argument I’ve heard is that spending money is free speech and corporations are citizens of the United States with free speech protections. (but I have problems with both halves of that sentence).
Last night, a friend noted Adam Liptak’s article in defense of the decision: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/us/politics/04scotus.html?hp
I’m eager to better understand this situation. So please do comment if you have any sort of opinion or insight.
Here is my reply (reformatted for blog): Continue reading “Corporations (Juristic Persons) vs. Real People (under American law)”
I started SolidFuelStudios LLC to experiment with starting a small publishing business (comics, movies, and video games). I made a couple grand off of contract artwork I did last year, but have more than blown it on business crap (computer purchases and comicbook printing costs) (yay, tax write offs). I have not turned a single dollar of real gross profit for my business. Continue reading “Oregon Measure (66 and) 67: You $%@ing with me?”