(sp)infocalypse

From: Playing for Change

Sony, you’ve been taking a beating lately. Sure, there’s the whole sales numbers thing. And sure, you and I both know that the price between the PS3 and Xbox 360 evens out in the end, once the add-ons and subscription fees are out of the way. But that’s not how consumers work. They see the low price up front and go with it. Hidden fees in the backend be damned.

That’s not why I’m writing, though. I’m writing as an indie developer and new media veteran. There’s one hideous fact I must face as I go forward towards the horizon.

The cost to do business with you is egregious.

For people who want to build games, there are plenty of options out there– and I won’t even bring up the Facebook/iPhone/iTouch side of it, since that’s a given that the game industry is slowing coming to terms with… no, it’s the Xbox and Nintendo franchises– both with robust and affordable environments and supporting toolkits that are not outside of the reach of the common man.

For 100 dollars a year, I can join the Xbox creators club with a copy of my Game Studio Express in hand for free. For 2000 dollars a year, I can participate with Nintendo’s WiiWare ecosystem. And companies like Garage Games have the Torque Game Builder, which not only has products specifically for Nintendo and Xbox (and iPhone, heh, pesky Apple), but clear porting paths to each of the consoles.

This is very bad, and you certainly know for whom.

The Playstation 3 environment appears to be so far out of reach that it doesn’t make the list of priorities for a product consideration at first whiff. Personally, I’m not even at the stage to determine which platform is easier to develop for (some Big Guys say Xbox, but I’ll just take their word for it– they have money).

Not even the Playstation 2– your own personal Wii– which would be a developer dream (EyeToy anyone?), is increasingly difficult to reach. The opportunities there could be exciting if we only had access.

Luckily, you have a browser. You can rest assured the irony is not lost on many of us that Microsoft–who makes the Xbox 360– also makes a web browser, and yet there’s no browser on the console. Nintendo figured it out. So did you.

So the porting path to the PS3 is through the browser– a crappy one at that. At least Flash 9 is there, hopefully someone will figure out how to access the camera for all those awesome Papervision Augmented Reality experiments out there.

Yet my optimism is limited, because the browser is horrible. It’s Netfront, not Firefox, not even Google Chrome (which ideally could work since Google+Sony seem to have a good relationship).

Things like high-price tags of the console– that will pass. It’s a luxury brand thing, much like the Apple thing. Things like the fantastic social media engagement the folks on the Playstation blog are engaged in? Good, but not enough to save the day. Playstation Home? Well that’s another article.

Embrace the creatives somewhere less than the rock bottom price of 10 grand. The options aren’t limited out there for us, except when it comes to a platform that some of us want to eagerly support.

Help us, help you.

As a straight, married man with children, I had to snicker at the timing of Prop 8 (the California proposition to overturn the right for gays to marry in California) happened during THIS election cycle– you know, the historic one. While all the celebrations about civil rights are happening, the gay community is having their rights stripped away. That is fundamentally offensive to my family. Gay marriage does not affect my own marriage (except well, that whole ’spending money for more wedding gifts’ thing, but hey, the economy, stupid, heh).

Proponents of Prop 8 forgot something: Because of how close the Prop 8 race was, it’s a notable item in current events– it’s on the news every night and a topic that comes up with our children. We’re already discussing the historical significance of Barack Obama’s victory and the history of civil rights, Prop 8 fits nicely in there. Those ‘Yes on 8′ signs helped, too.

You can be sure around 50% of are in the position to explain this from the opposing view– and most likely, in far greater detail than would be allegedly ‘taught in schools’. I’m proud that San Francisco, Los Angeles, and my home Santa Clara County (read: Silicon Valley) are challenging it. We narrowly defeated the proposition here.

Segregation is not a hand-me-down. There should be no Drinking Fountain 2.0. And please, please, please, keep your Gods out of our Government.

Discuss here

For quite some time, I’ve held the belief that Educational Video Games and Christian Rock-N-Roll share a two common characteristics: their intent may be positive and the implementation sucks.

There’s a periphery hobby related to my journey into the world of game development– the conceptual reverse engineering of existing video games as applied to modern day primary education. This idea came about while on holiday in London, and my oldest son was griping about being bored during the tour of the Tower of London. I snarked back at him, that if it wasn’t for actual castles, dungeons, and such, Mario would have no place to rescue a princess from, other than say, a parking lot, and seriously, how much fun would that be?

While ours is a gaming household, the duration of game-time is probably much more strict than others (I’ve not done even an anecdotal survey of my peers). No game playing during the school week at all. It’s a weekend thing. Period. However, gaming conversations exist, as does the analog manifestation of gaming does (drawing levels, recreating the entire game from scratch on paper, or playing Super Mario on the playground).

My oldest son was sharing that he loved math and hated geography– which was actually a huge surprise. After all, doesn’t everyone hate math and LOVE geography?  We talked about geography and why he hates it. As it turned out, he believes the subject matter is difficult, until he realized how much geography exists in every single game he plays.

From Pokemon to Mario Worlds, Sim City and beyond, his understanding (and love) of geography was greater than he realized. After all, the use of maps in many games is almost standard and true to form. Lakes, mountains, roads, landscapes, rock formations– the list goes on– is all part of many types of modern games. We talked about how what he’s learning in school (I read his textbooks) is somewhat the same thing he understands (to a degree) from his favorite games. For me, the next step is monitoring his enthusiasm towards the subject, while not being overly ‘educational’ in all the conversations– something that plagues many educational game titles.

The challenge that exists is creating a shared understanding of the positive sides of video games, the high-level understanding of what’s in a game, and how it relates to our children. Teachers and parents may only have passive awareness of games, reluctance to learn, or an ambivalent acceptance of the headlines they hear about the Evils Of Video Games. Kids on the other hand, can recite nearly all 400+ Pokemon in reverse alphabetical order, in context with the three stages of growth of each individual species (while refusing to read a short story for a book report, heh).

When my kids start learning geometry, I might remind them (and perhaps a teacher or two), that they’ve begun to understand the spatial relationship of objects and the X,Y,Z coordinates from a simple Nintendo Wii title like My Sims.

This is an opportunity for those of between the social and academic genres of life to share our understanding. It’s not to say to our fellow parents or teachers that ‘games! can! teach!’ Instead, it’s more of recognizing what our kids are doing in play and in work, and what common themes exist.

Instead of fighting or succumbing, let’s all work hard leveraging. We all have something to gain.

Bonus: If your kids hate geography, whip out an iPhone with Google Maps or download Google Earth or Microsoft Virtual Earth. Show them satellite imagery of your house and neighborhood. Find Hidden Mickeys in the terrain at Disneyworld. Technology + Quality Time together = time well spent!

Toyota’s Prius continues to be a target of vandalism and violence in California, stemming from what many believe to be political and passionate disdain for what the Prius represents. On the other side of that coin, numerous anti-SUV sites have dotted the internet landscape for some time, most notably: the site FUH2.com, where visitors are encouraged to submit photos of Hummer H2s with a middle finger extended in the photo.  People behaving badly. It just happens, regardless of science, fact, studies, or intent.

Hybrid vehicles can be discussed from a lot of different angles– is the technology better? is there savings for the owner? is there a reduction in emissions? is the design of these vehicles enough to capture the public’s affection? That last question is the one that fascinates me the most, because of how much perception matters towards a cultural shift.

Some people do care about the environment and emissions, and others are purely interested in savings at the pump (or the use of it at all). Everything can be a by-product of everything else. Design and style are factors in this as well.

Chevy’s new Camaro is a sight to behold. A tough-looking performance car, with design styling and attitude that hearkens back to the muscle car era– improved for the 21st century. Ford is doing this with their new Mustangs and Dodge is entering the game as well with the Charger and Challenger– except none of these are hybrids. It’s quite possible they never will be, and perhaps hybrid-izing these would be the curse of the PG-rated action flick. Macho-looking, but weak. Poserish.

With the Chevy Volt, the opportunity to stand out was thought to be upon us! Often I’ve thought of replacing my Chevy Truck with something sportier, but I remember that– any day now– something sexy and future-laced will come along.  I could see myself handing over the keys to my truck and taking control of something new; something with no heritage; something with actual design and style that blows the other players on the field back to the design lab.

Nope. Chevy couldn’t do either.

Photos were leaked of the 2011 Chevy Volt, which was called ‘an accident’ by officials at GM. Remember that gorgeous, muscular, eco-weapon-from-the-future we’ve been seeing for years from the Detroit Auto Show? To paraphrase Obi-wan, this isn’t the Chevy you’re looking for:

The 2011 Volt. Looks. Like. A. Prius. (Even Honda’s Insight is looking painfully like the Prius). There’s no ‘American Revolution’ there, not in spirit, not up against the Camaro or the other muscle cars.

In cruising the message boards, loyalists to Chevy and other brands in the bow-tie family compare it to the Malibu or other cars– yet I maintain that it looks enough like the Insight/Prius/Econobox to be generically thrown into the category of ‘things that will be keyed for what they represent’.

And worse– the part that makes me resent the whole design process– is that it’s SO far removed from the concept shown in Detroit–something which might have started the fracturing of the delicate cycle of ‘expensive to build/no one buys/they look totally silly’. The concept Volt had BALLS. It looked mean, evil, futuristic. It would be #2 on the road behind the 100 kajillion dollar Tesla (a lesson in extremes in the opposite direction).  It might make the eco-friendly car somewhat COOL. And maybe that coolness (something certainly going well for the iPod–a device not as feature rich as other products on the market) would trickle down to the other cars. After all, why is it so hard to sell the concept of electric vehicles without the sissy factor? Why can’t we have great design AND great engineering in next-generation cars? It might help sell the damn things– in concept, perception, and lifestyle.

A bolt of lightning? That’s exciting, that’s dangerous! The CARTOON CHARACTER, Lightning McQueen– (KACHOW) from Disney’s Cars has more style.  The electric concept has so much flexibility, and yet, the automakers are continuing to pump out the dainty and practical, with little regard for bold, daring style (the design changes from year to year in almost any brand of car are embarrassing across the board. Ooh, a new turn signal design. Yay. Which will be lost on people who don’t USE turn signals).

Is it superficial or shallow to consider the design of a car? Maybe, although, wanting a hybrid to save some cash at the pumps (face it, we finance higher priced things and don’t feel it day-to-day) is selfish too, with some good side effects. We have a long history of LOVING our cars. The automobile for many is a far greater thing than just simple utility. It’s the second most expensive purchase behind your home– and a lot of pieces must fall into place– aesthetics are a huge part of that.

The simple act of coming up with AMAZING design could kickstart next generation thinking and perceptions in automakers and the buying public alike (especially those of us that adore cars beyond simple utility).

The only thing I gained from the leaked photos of the Volt, was the benefit in getting a head start in seeing an utterly de-evolutionized execution of a great and mighty could-have-been. And personally, it could have very well been my next car… now, it’s completely off the list.

It wasn’t until today that I finally got around to checking out the new feature of Plurk, where users can customize their profiles. Cool, that’s always nice, a little personal style here and there is a Good Thing.

Problem is, how we users can modify this, isn’t by being premium members (ones that pay money)– no, it’s only allowed by the Karma system. It requires 10 points to give your profile a title, 25 points to change the CSS, and something around 40 points to change your username… Karma points are granted by varying levels of activity and interaction.

This bedroom-driven world of web software design called Web 2.0 seems to have a problem with figuring out how making money. This is a prime example. Instead of having a lite version and pro version, (to which I’d happily fork over some cash), there is this false social token system, sending users down this MySpace-ian path of Top 8s and THANKS FOR THE ADD-ness. (And to answer the question of “Is Plurk the Myspace of micro-blogging?” I think the answer is obvious here.

So what started as a quick, ‘hey I’m going to check this out and make some changes’ has turned into this all-out campaign to spam the ever-loving crap out of my account, just to update style. It’s stupid, but it’s the principle of the thing.

I’ve taken the liberty to setup a custom TinyURL for my profile there. http://tinyurl.com/plurkHO. That’s right, PlurkHO, because I am blatantly begging, whoring, spamming for adds. I’ll accept anyone– Russian brides, camgirls, spammers, Obamas, McCains– hell, even cable company Comcast (I have Charter, sorry, nothing I can do). I’ll celebrate a top 8 somehow, and you’ll probably be deluged with this gripe for a day or two until I can edit that profile.

Or you know, I could pay for a premium account, to help Plurk earn revenue, but who in their right mind should make money at this? I mean, seriously!

Add me on Plurk. It’s no-holds barred. I’m http://plurk.com/user/spin http://tinyurl.com/plurkHO.

And hey, thanks for the ADD (in advance)

Video hosting site Vimeo notified its users about a new upload policy that bans video game videos, unless they are of the genre ‘machinima’ which is filmmaking using video games engines (Red vs. Blue as an example, is a web sitcom that uses the Halo game engine). (To find a great alternative besides YouTube, read through to the end)

The reasons cited seem to be a little contradictory and subjective: First, is the reason of ‘creativity’, which is held up to the issue of ‘direct capture of game play’– a valid point, and yet, that puts Vimeo in the position of being editors to the game content that’s posted– since they DO allow machinima.

The Vimeo staff does not feel that videos which are direct captures of video game play truly constitute “creative expression”

A number of game video creators (and others) came to protest, as what may appear to be a direct gameplay video, may actually be a work of a greater nature. The blog has over 700 comments at the time of this writing.

“Creative Expression” is not something I’d personally want to touch, because it gets into a social subjectivity issue. A game video for one person may not be ‘creative’ and a ‘lip-dub’ video may not be to another. Nor cat videos, amateur acting– a whole range of content types that can appear on a video hosting service.

The second reason cited is the ‘processing time’:

Gaming videos are by nature significantly larger and longer than any other genre on Vimeo. Over these last few months they have been the single biggest reasons for our transcoder wait times.

While I do believe that what they observe is true, I do not believe that the content of a video matters. Fastcompany.tv’s Robert Scoble has often posted long videos to the various services he uses– some upwards to 40 minutes. Those take the same processing power as I suppose, a 40 minute lip dub or 40 minute game video.

This part of Vimeo’s argument is rather weak– and as someone always looking for reliable video hosting– doesn’t give me much faith in the ability of their transcoders or stability of their bandwidth. The phrase ‘by nature’ in their post seems to be a strawman argument. Game videos can be one second or one hour, the same as traditional video.

Why I chose Vimeo over Blip.tv (who has the same policy): support for high definition, a cleaner site that seemed less ‘network-y’, and truthfully, Vimeo appeared to have a better community culture– something a bit snootier than say, Youtube. (Flickr is accused of this, and I’d tend to agree. Snooty isn’t necessarily bad.) I’d assume that I could put a good game video up, and not have the usual suspects of immature 12 year olds coming to lolfagwtf the thing to death. So in part, it was because of a perceived community, which also included a lot of my friends. Vimeo, like Blip.tv, is a name, a previously trusted name.

What’s a bit disturbing about Vimeo’s decision is that a service is taking the role of editorial. They are still allowing game-generated videos (until the next big uproar), but they (Vimeo) needs to make that call.

While looking to find alternatives, Blip.tv immediately came to mind, however, I was informed that they had a similar issue about a year ago.  Many people will provide a recommendation to this service and that service, yet those that shopped for a product, have to go through the shopping process again. Who can you trust? (Note: according to their blog, videos violating the rule will be deleted September 1st.)

What’s rather ironic about this is how the video game space is thundering into every aspect of our lives. Approximately 1/3 of all the applications on the iPhone/iTouch App Store: are games. The evolution of entertainment, spanning every age, demographic, gender, social class, is pointing to games. The biggest grossing entertainment franchise of all time was a game. User-created content (and not just what comes from virtual worlds) is on the rise, and UGC is showing up in games. The video game industry is over 18 billion dollars and is believed to be one of the few recession-proof industries. There’s not really a ‘game community’ as ‘gaming’ is too broadly defined. Yet those that call themselves gamers, for better and for worse, bring a formidable force to any community.

Games, gamers, game videos– however you view them– will be forced into a box and segregated because of perceived notions about the space. Sometimes, the most important things about games aren’t game-y at all– and those aware of the harsh political and social commentary within Grand Theft Auto 4 might know.

I know I’ve personally exposed people to ideas and concepts, by way of games, that don’t require anyone to play or have an interest in games. That just won’t be happening on Vimeo anymore.

Update: Many have told me (and I did use this site for a while) about WeGame.com, who is certainly welcoming Vimeo exiles. What a fantastic opportunity for their growth and hey, maybe WeGame can throw us a premium service so we can pay their bills?

Good luck, folks, it’s a big ol’ subjectivity jungle out there. Here’s my super-long :31 second video I posted to Vimeo about a month ago, ripped from a live stream I did on ustream.tv from Xbox Live:

Alderney intersection traffic @ night from Eric Rice on Vimeo.