The more distracted your company is with creating a video game, the better the game will be. The more distracted your company is with money and shareholders, even your quality with be diminished.
I feel, with utter certainty, that this is a rule that is seldom seen. When shareholders are kept at arm’s length in defense of the artist, you begin to see true art take form in the way of perfection.
Take 2 cases.
The first is the Nintendo 64. The big N’s decision to remain cartridge-based has been called stunning, and perhaps their largest failure. 3rd party companies fled en masse towards larger disc space and admittedly better 3 dimensional implementation and support.
And what did Nintendo’s core teams crank out? Masterpieces.
Ones like Mario 64, which sets a benchmark for quality that, despite all efforts including their own, is brought up in every comparison.
Another was Ocarina of Time, which was a world as fully formed as you could get, and few which any game has the chutzpah or design qualities to be as subtly beautiful. Every game before and since is compared to this one by the legitimate press.
It took a long time to make that game, and the release date always seemed out of reach. But quality, gameplay quality, that’s what they wanted and would only deliver. Nothing else.
It took an IGN 10.00 rating.
Next we have Grand Theft Auto IV. For the uninformed, Take Two is a spectacularly retarded business. Their core revenue streams are few and far between, and their gaming experiments flawed both financially and in execution.
The heads of Take Two are resisting an attempt by Electronic Arts to buy it, which is an important thing to its major investors. EA is offering more for Take Two than it is worth, according to essentially every major analysis.
But they want to discuss if after the game. Whether that’s protracted arrogance, the fiscal insolvency of parent Take Two pales in comparison to the IGN 10 rating that Rockstar’s gem has just received.
Obsession wins in game design. Sacrifice of common business practice wins in game design.
It’s an important lesson, one Sega doesn’t learn, that Squenix and Sony and sometimes Nintendo refuse to learn. But it produces the bulk of critical and financial success.
The real question is when will the industry realize that.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Because people spend money on stupid stuff
he next 20 years, look for a company that can produce content-specific (meaning game or movie-themed) pinball tables to be a niche market catering to affluent, aging gamers. They will run in the thousands, and the person who figures out this market will make more money than Coach makes on ridiculous purses. What motorcycles are to baby boomers, pinball tables are to Gen Xers.
Baby Boomers (the majority of them, at least) didn’t really enjoy motorcycles as a youth, but they’ll spend a ridiculous amount of monies on them because they are, ultimately, really cool and a symbol of their lost youth. While I believe there is a market for vintage arcade cabinets, the ready accessibility of those same games to be played on a multimedia box is here (also on a vastly superior screen) and will not go away. Truly digital mediums transfer easier and carry less niche appeal (examples: even your grandma has an iPod.) An experience you cannot transfer digitally to another medium carries both a fashion cache, as well as a market that likes niche products and is unafraid of spending money. A similar market admittedly exists for record players, but there are fewer opportunities for licensing and promotion.
I feel that this pinball company would have to make them better than Midway ever did, but if that's the greatest challenge then I'd hope I'm not the only one excited by it. A business like this can also act promotional vendor: why win a Batman 4 t shirt when you can play a Batman themed pinball game?
The market for gamers is wide open, and I don't think that's even partially understood by any company outside of Nintendo.
Baby Boomers (the majority of them, at least) didn’t really enjoy motorcycles as a youth, but they’ll spend a ridiculous amount of monies on them because they are, ultimately, really cool and a symbol of their lost youth. While I believe there is a market for vintage arcade cabinets, the ready accessibility of those same games to be played on a multimedia box is here (also on a vastly superior screen) and will not go away. Truly digital mediums transfer easier and carry less niche appeal (examples: even your grandma has an iPod.) An experience you cannot transfer digitally to another medium carries both a fashion cache, as well as a market that likes niche products and is unafraid of spending money. A similar market admittedly exists for record players, but there are fewer opportunities for licensing and promotion.
I feel that this pinball company would have to make them better than Midway ever did, but if that's the greatest challenge then I'd hope I'm not the only one excited by it. A business like this can also act promotional vendor: why win a Batman 4 t shirt when you can play a Batman themed pinball game?
The market for gamers is wide open, and I don't think that's even partially understood by any company outside of Nintendo.
Friday, April 11, 2008
It's this or the Terminators...
Some ideas aren’t meant to make money. That’s the problem with Facebook and Myspace and now Yahoo, apparently. Some ideas do not produce the profit margins that are sustainable in the old world economy. But instead of adjusting the map, the companies adjusted, largely for the worse.
And if disappointing profit doesn’t point to the end games, the exponential increase in computer storage will. While a 10 gigabyte hard drive wasn’t cutting edge in 2000, it was certainly huge. Now a 1 terabyte hard drive is not considered cutting edge, but it’s considered a good chunk of space.
What will the next 10 years bring? I think it will bring a new version to the web. As server bandwidth and storage increases, we’re going to be in for such a shock.
Because some smartass is going to put ten grand into a server. And he or she is going to put basic networking code in, exactly as Facebook does, exactly as Myspace does, to help you blog and sort and catalog your many friends, passer byes, and pity friends.
And he or she won’t accept money for it.
I know, I know, it sounds like herecy, but think about it. Everything that drove Facebook’s or YouTube’s mass appeal was done on the cheap. And there will come a point where the operating costs of the necessary server will creep closer to zero. As that happens, and I believe it will, that next generation will find itself drawn to the moth to the flame. Look how easily and readily we have embraced email, texting, online conversations and blogs. As the hurdles in bandwidth are slowly overcome, the lasting thought of a megacorporation holding the keys to your favorite entertainment is going to be less and less appealing. Indeed, that’s precisely what happened with the internet recently. There simply won’t need to be a justification for the upkeep of large corporations, or stock holders who care more about their dividends than the product. That way of business is not sustainable on the internet. Hell, it’s not very sustainable outside of the internet, really, but that’s another story.
The point of the matter is the concept of the world on a single server (or collection of linked servers) is fast approaching, and when the costs are later driven down the attempts of Facebook and YouTube to capitalize in the multi-billions will seem laughable.
This current generation sees the bloat of the music industry, how their expectations for profits are not realistic. We see that there is profit for the musicians and various media types to make money, but I can’t think of a single person who thinks that the sheer size of the music industry can carry its own weight any longer. Storage and bandwidth outpaced their sales models.
Websites carry that same potential, and businesses that find themselves working against comsumer interests with things like advertising clutter, obtrusive data tracking, and the cessation of appealing services will find themselves doomed by the next rond of technology. The talents of Silicon Valley and beyond have the talent to take the reins and pave a road for the next generation of talent. But here’s the thing. All those innovators are working on how to make shareholders happy, how to make advertising more effective. That’s what makes the news now. Unless there’s a paradigm shift in how they do business, efficiency will doom them. It doomed AOL, and it’s been a problem for Yahoo of late. There’s no reason it won’t happen again.
And if disappointing profit doesn’t point to the end games, the exponential increase in computer storage will. While a 10 gigabyte hard drive wasn’t cutting edge in 2000, it was certainly huge. Now a 1 terabyte hard drive is not considered cutting edge, but it’s considered a good chunk of space.
What will the next 10 years bring? I think it will bring a new version to the web. As server bandwidth and storage increases, we’re going to be in for such a shock.
Because some smartass is going to put ten grand into a server. And he or she is going to put basic networking code in, exactly as Facebook does, exactly as Myspace does, to help you blog and sort and catalog your many friends, passer byes, and pity friends.
And he or she won’t accept money for it.
I know, I know, it sounds like herecy, but think about it. Everything that drove Facebook’s or YouTube’s mass appeal was done on the cheap. And there will come a point where the operating costs of the necessary server will creep closer to zero. As that happens, and I believe it will, that next generation will find itself drawn to the moth to the flame. Look how easily and readily we have embraced email, texting, online conversations and blogs. As the hurdles in bandwidth are slowly overcome, the lasting thought of a megacorporation holding the keys to your favorite entertainment is going to be less and less appealing. Indeed, that’s precisely what happened with the internet recently. There simply won’t need to be a justification for the upkeep of large corporations, or stock holders who care more about their dividends than the product. That way of business is not sustainable on the internet. Hell, it’s not very sustainable outside of the internet, really, but that’s another story.
The point of the matter is the concept of the world on a single server (or collection of linked servers) is fast approaching, and when the costs are later driven down the attempts of Facebook and YouTube to capitalize in the multi-billions will seem laughable.
This current generation sees the bloat of the music industry, how their expectations for profits are not realistic. We see that there is profit for the musicians and various media types to make money, but I can’t think of a single person who thinks that the sheer size of the music industry can carry its own weight any longer. Storage and bandwidth outpaced their sales models.
Websites carry that same potential, and businesses that find themselves working against comsumer interests with things like advertising clutter, obtrusive data tracking, and the cessation of appealing services will find themselves doomed by the next rond of technology. The talents of Silicon Valley and beyond have the talent to take the reins and pave a road for the next generation of talent. But here’s the thing. All those innovators are working on how to make shareholders happy, how to make advertising more effective. That’s what makes the news now. Unless there’s a paradigm shift in how they do business, efficiency will doom them. It doomed AOL, and it’s been a problem for Yahoo of late. There’s no reason it won’t happen again.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
2.0 failed.
The sad thing is that Youtube, or rather, the Youtube of such monumental power as to be swallowed by Google for hundreds of millions of dollars, is dead.
You see, Youtube has had some major hits with user-generated content. But you see a producer’s dilemma in sifting through Youtube. For everything worth watching, there was an almost unlimited supply of crap. Tribute videos, for example. You ever wondered what if they did a montage of Gilmore Girls clips to Linkin Park? Then have we got the website for you! Also, guys getting kicked in the nuts, which is always funny. And the “Leave Britney Alone” kid, who I’m sure the gay community is proud to have as a prominent celebrity. A few years prior, an excellent homosexual actor Ian McKellan thrilled the world as XMen’s Magneto and inspired magic in viewers as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings series.
This goes to show two things. The first is that there is a lot of crap. The second thing is that, by and large, the entertainment industry largely does it better.
The problem with current YouTube is that it’s not the old Youtube, which was filled with Daily Show clips and episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and that lost episode from that television show you watched as a kid. In the genesis of the high definition age, people were tuning in to watch a shoddy bitrate.
But then all the industry players got ligitation-happy, and the whole party went to crap. It’s a lot harder to get content. And they pointed out, quite furiously, that DVD sales dropped during this timeframe. While this is true, they have not recovered despite much stricter copy write enforcement since the lawsuits. It hasn’t worked.
On Demand Programming is said to be a nexus, but I do realize that much of what I enjoyed on YouTube will never be free again. It’s a shame, really, as quality entertainment pushes and exceeds boundaries, freeing people to take on new and challenging works that they denied themselves, but were now instantly accessible for the low, low price of free. The sad thing the industries never understood was how much free publicity a low quality feed was. Now the website is left with “Chocolate Rain” and “2 Girls 1 Cup reactions”. That is very disheartening.
I am a believer that people gravitate towards quality. The problem with entirely user-generated content is that, after a while, you create a culture of performers who do not watch other people perform. The problem with online journalism is also this: everyone wants to write, nobody wants to read.
I believe sites like the one being developed in Rochester, Minnesota put power both in the user’s hands, but also in the hands of the creators of content. Because they are separated and one in the same, just like old Youtube. The reviews and opinions are the users, and the scores are the users, but the content being viewed is by the big boys. It doesn’t make the pairing equal, but it does derive entertainment for the viewer and perspective, eyeballs, and consumer data to the content creators. It’s something akin to performance theater, which the internet is exceedingly good at.
Here’s a show, now the audience is involved. They can see where they sit, see the stage, and react solely from their seat. They feel their opinions and output matter, and game creators are forced into a position where they know, deep down, they ought to be. Whether in comments such as the ones by EA’s Vice President about the deteriorating scores of EA Games, or in the Gerstmann-gate debacle, it’s quite clear that the extent of marketing is understood, even if they don’t always like to admit it.
Back to YouTube, its best days, as the great content equalizer, are now behind us. Internet 2.0 websites are fascinating, because they are usually best in their initial incarnations. Once sites like YouTube and Facebook and Google have to become profitable rather than revolutionary, their edge (and a great deal of their appeal is lost). How they could ever maintain their stratospheric sales projections is beyond me. It may even be beyond a dramatic gopher.
You see, Youtube has had some major hits with user-generated content. But you see a producer’s dilemma in sifting through Youtube. For everything worth watching, there was an almost unlimited supply of crap. Tribute videos, for example. You ever wondered what if they did a montage of Gilmore Girls clips to Linkin Park? Then have we got the website for you! Also, guys getting kicked in the nuts, which is always funny. And the “Leave Britney Alone” kid, who I’m sure the gay community is proud to have as a prominent celebrity. A few years prior, an excellent homosexual actor Ian McKellan thrilled the world as XMen’s Magneto and inspired magic in viewers as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings series.
This goes to show two things. The first is that there is a lot of crap. The second thing is that, by and large, the entertainment industry largely does it better.
The problem with current YouTube is that it’s not the old Youtube, which was filled with Daily Show clips and episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and that lost episode from that television show you watched as a kid. In the genesis of the high definition age, people were tuning in to watch a shoddy bitrate.
But then all the industry players got ligitation-happy, and the whole party went to crap. It’s a lot harder to get content. And they pointed out, quite furiously, that DVD sales dropped during this timeframe. While this is true, they have not recovered despite much stricter copy write enforcement since the lawsuits. It hasn’t worked.
On Demand Programming is said to be a nexus, but I do realize that much of what I enjoyed on YouTube will never be free again. It’s a shame, really, as quality entertainment pushes and exceeds boundaries, freeing people to take on new and challenging works that they denied themselves, but were now instantly accessible for the low, low price of free. The sad thing the industries never understood was how much free publicity a low quality feed was. Now the website is left with “Chocolate Rain” and “2 Girls 1 Cup reactions”. That is very disheartening.
I am a believer that people gravitate towards quality. The problem with entirely user-generated content is that, after a while, you create a culture of performers who do not watch other people perform. The problem with online journalism is also this: everyone wants to write, nobody wants to read.
I believe sites like the one being developed in Rochester, Minnesota put power both in the user’s hands, but also in the hands of the creators of content. Because they are separated and one in the same, just like old Youtube. The reviews and opinions are the users, and the scores are the users, but the content being viewed is by the big boys. It doesn’t make the pairing equal, but it does derive entertainment for the viewer and perspective, eyeballs, and consumer data to the content creators. It’s something akin to performance theater, which the internet is exceedingly good at.
Here’s a show, now the audience is involved. They can see where they sit, see the stage, and react solely from their seat. They feel their opinions and output matter, and game creators are forced into a position where they know, deep down, they ought to be. Whether in comments such as the ones by EA’s Vice President about the deteriorating scores of EA Games, or in the Gerstmann-gate debacle, it’s quite clear that the extent of marketing is understood, even if they don’t always like to admit it.
Back to YouTube, its best days, as the great content equalizer, are now behind us. Internet 2.0 websites are fascinating, because they are usually best in their initial incarnations. Once sites like YouTube and Facebook and Google have to become profitable rather than revolutionary, their edge (and a great deal of their appeal is lost). How they could ever maintain their stratospheric sales projections is beyond me. It may even be beyond a dramatic gopher.
Friday, April 4, 2008
3 Rants and a Confession
First off, I want to say that I am insanely, intensely jealous of Angsty Gaijin and his wonderful vacation right now. Like so much, I could cry. It has me speaking like a Zelda NPC, to the point where I hope he doesn't forget that special item from the far Eastern land.
Cocaine and Waitresses
It’s a real shame when one of your favorite restaurants drop the ball. It’s like you know of a friend who, by chance, did a line of coke at a party once. It’s not habitual, so you don’t have to worry about good old Eric, for example. But when you hear that he was missing, or off by over five minutes to a party, it comes back to “I can’t believe that bastard is back on the blow, man” and “He’s really letting us all down” and “Eric, man! He was doing so effing well, too!”.
So now it goes with a favored restaurant served up a very unpleasant meal. Whenever I go back now, I wait for it to let me down. And they were doing so effing well, too!
Coffee.
The fact of the matter is, Starbucks doesn’t exactly suck. Their coffee doesn’t rock by any means, but you know what you’re going to get. This becomes apparent when you frequent an area that doesn’t have a Starbucks, where quality control and consistency is maybe, not as controlled.
Take for example, this example. Sometimes when visiting friends in a town, somebody (by which I mean all of us) get a sudden urge for some of the caffeinated stuff.
My initial reaction when traveling is “Where is the Starbucks?”
In certain towns and in certain circles, the reply sometimes goes like this “Starbucks?! Man, fuck that burnt bean shit. You have to try this place we have down here! It’s so awesome! Their macchiato?? Man, it’s the bomb. They percolate their coffee just right! This shit’s so good, it’ll make your d--- bigger. No lie.
Excited (how could I not be?!?) we drive to this local establishment. And I order a large drink. I put the drink to my lips/ It’s muddy, unflavorful, and the taste of this brew contains none of the exotic, almost fruity bouquet that I’ve come to expect from a $5 cup of coffee. Instead it has the liquidity of sludge, the grounds are unpleasant, and I grow sadder and a bit irritated. I’m too polite to say anything, but my expression works its magic.
The friend says, “Man, they’re a bit off tonight.” Now I’ve visited enough local establishments to say, maybe they’re not off tonight, but that a bit of the magic has worn off. Maybe my expression broke the spell of “being different” long enough for their tongues to think what their brains could not and judged the coffee on the grounds of flavor.
They recover their zeal by the next time I visit. Similar line about how awesome it is. Same line about how evil Starbucks is (Starsucks? How clever and original). I know one thing hasn’t changed: Somewhere, there is a thick iced coffee and full of rich aroma and more than a hint of dark chocolate. And here I am again, playing Columbian Roulette with my tastebuds.
Friend of a Friend of a Friend
Sometimes I don’t think weddings make sense. Not in the whole “two people being together and loving each other for their lives and beyond” but I sometimes think people spend way too much time worried about who to invite or who to uninvited that sometimes the incomprehensible happens. Sometimes, you end up at a wedding for people you never met, buying kitchen implements and carefully wrapping them for people you never met, and watch them stand before their maker for what has statistically become a coin toss whether they will still be paired up when they meet their maker.
I think weddings should be inflicted on as few people as possible. To the carefully selected, they are privileged to watch a beautiful union between people they love. When it’s a friend of a friend of a friend, you wonder about the food.
How beautiful.
Cocaine and Waitresses
It’s a real shame when one of your favorite restaurants drop the ball. It’s like you know of a friend who, by chance, did a line of coke at a party once. It’s not habitual, so you don’t have to worry about good old Eric, for example. But when you hear that he was missing, or off by over five minutes to a party, it comes back to “I can’t believe that bastard is back on the blow, man” and “He’s really letting us all down” and “Eric, man! He was doing so effing well, too!”.
So now it goes with a favored restaurant served up a very unpleasant meal. Whenever I go back now, I wait for it to let me down. And they were doing so effing well, too!
Coffee.
The fact of the matter is, Starbucks doesn’t exactly suck. Their coffee doesn’t rock by any means, but you know what you’re going to get. This becomes apparent when you frequent an area that doesn’t have a Starbucks, where quality control and consistency is maybe, not as controlled.
Take for example, this example. Sometimes when visiting friends in a town, somebody (by which I mean all of us) get a sudden urge for some of the caffeinated stuff.
My initial reaction when traveling is “Where is the Starbucks?”
In certain towns and in certain circles, the reply sometimes goes like this “Starbucks?! Man, fuck that burnt bean shit. You have to try this place we have down here! It’s so awesome! Their macchiato?? Man, it’s the bomb. They percolate their coffee just right! This shit’s so good, it’ll make your d--- bigger. No lie.
Excited (how could I not be?!?) we drive to this local establishment. And I order a large drink. I put the drink to my lips/ It’s muddy, unflavorful, and the taste of this brew contains none of the exotic, almost fruity bouquet that I’ve come to expect from a $5 cup of coffee. Instead it has the liquidity of sludge, the grounds are unpleasant, and I grow sadder and a bit irritated. I’m too polite to say anything, but my expression works its magic.
The friend says, “Man, they’re a bit off tonight.” Now I’ve visited enough local establishments to say, maybe they’re not off tonight, but that a bit of the magic has worn off. Maybe my expression broke the spell of “being different” long enough for their tongues to think what their brains could not and judged the coffee on the grounds of flavor.
They recover their zeal by the next time I visit. Similar line about how awesome it is. Same line about how evil Starbucks is (Starsucks? How clever and original). I know one thing hasn’t changed: Somewhere, there is a thick iced coffee and full of rich aroma and more than a hint of dark chocolate. And here I am again, playing Columbian Roulette with my tastebuds.
Friend of a Friend of a Friend
Sometimes I don’t think weddings make sense. Not in the whole “two people being together and loving each other for their lives and beyond” but I sometimes think people spend way too much time worried about who to invite or who to uninvited that sometimes the incomprehensible happens. Sometimes, you end up at a wedding for people you never met, buying kitchen implements and carefully wrapping them for people you never met, and watch them stand before their maker for what has statistically become a coin toss whether they will still be paired up when they meet their maker.
I think weddings should be inflicted on as few people as possible. To the carefully selected, they are privileged to watch a beautiful union between people they love. When it’s a friend of a friend of a friend, you wonder about the food.
How beautiful.
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