Recently, I’ve read not one but two articles on using algorithms to predict the success of movies. In both cases, the analysts start with a script (one team uses human analysts, the other a computer), then analyze it for key elements, plot twists, setting, characters, and so on. Then they use what appears to be regression analysis to determine the degree of commonality the script has with other hits.
And it works. Hits show up. Misses are clearly seen.
And in the process ate part of a day of posts and comments. I’ll see about rewriting the stuff or digging it out of a cache, I suppose. Looks like I lost:
Any more? And anyone got caches?
Maybe. In the sense that (dare I say it?) something like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is a commentary on Hamlet, perhaps. Asteroid’s Revenge. All I know is that I suck at it.
You do have to admire the trick with the lives though; The echo of the asteroids shrinking in the original is cute and also neat from a balance point of view. Your first life, you’re far more likely to get hit, but can do more damage. By your third life, you are playing differently and are harder to hit, extending your gameplay more.
Today I see that Bloglines readers are once again back in numbers. I assume that whatever was messing up the feed for most of them ever since I upgraded to WordPress 2 has fixed itself somehow (even though when I went to Bloglines, I never saw anything wrong).
So, welcome back. You have lots to catch up on, starting around here.
For better or worse, the consensus developing among gamers is definitely that microtransactions are a bad thing. Witness The microtransaction song, from Shacknews. And today I read in a thread on Joystiq or Kotaku (no, I can’t tell them apart, and don’t lynch me over it!) the cute summary that “Companies and gamers like different things about microtransactions. We like that we can buy things fast. They like that they can put everything under restrictive licenses, sell you incomplete games, force you to overspend buying points in blocks, and ding you over and over for stuff that should have been free.”
It’s going to be hard to fight that perception.
