Will cloud gaming kill social games?

 Posted by (Visited 12133 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: , , ,
Aug 172010
 

“Cloud gaming could completely change how the video games industry works,” [EEDAR CEO Greg Short] said. “Why would you play FarmVille when you can play World of Warcraft on the same machine?”

via EEDAR: Cloud gaming could kill Farmville | Games Industry | MCV.

No, Greg. Let’s not confuse a delivery mechanism for an audience. A huge part of the audience that likes social games doesn’t like World of Warcraft. I know this is shocking and bizarre to hear, so let me reiterate it. They don’t like the games you do.

It is true that cloud gaming offers higher levels of presentation right now. What it doesn’t offer is the right sort of content for the mass market audience.

Could you deliver a social game that has broad appeal via cloud gaming service? Sure. You could have done it via a Playstation 3 too. But nobody did it because of the audience mismatch. And the cloud gaming services’ prime selling point is that they deliver high-end graphics.

We are already seeing social gaming move onto mobile devices that have plenty of power to deliver fancier graphics. And when we do, we see that it isn’t the graphics that make the difference. It’s the gameplay. And the fact is that overall, and granting that there is plenty of evolution to come, social games have the right gameplay for the mass market.

Art game “My Divorce”

 Posted by (Visited 8192 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: ,
Aug 162010
 

It’s a response to Rod Humble’s The Marriage. It seems to have a bit more of a specific “moral” than Rod’s game, according to the author:

My experience (and intention) shows that the game can only be won by constantly focusing on the “children”, often at some sacrifice to the parents.

— My Divorce: A computer game by Brett Douville

The game is directly inspired by The Marriage, using basically the same art treatment, similar controls, and so on.

[via @bbrathwaite]

A few interesting links

 Posted by (Visited 9076 times)  Game talk, Mailbag  Tagged with: ,
Aug 162010
 

Just got back from vacation! I had a lovely time. I also had some interesting stuff sent to me, which has piled up in the mailbox. So here’s a couple of interesting links.

The editors hope to attract a wide range of writing to Metaverse Creativity, including ideas about artificial-intelligence systems, landscaping, zoological and biological creations, and even virtual-world fashion design. Second Life’s relations to psychology, law, and technology are another focus. Plans for MC‘s first issue include a piece on how technological prostheses—beginning with the telescope—have altered human perceptions. Another article explains what neuroscience reveals about the benefits of the kinds of brain plasticity that simulation in virtual worlds can enhance, while a third edges up demurely on love in Second Life with a take on virtual-world adaptations of Korean romantic puppetry.

Avatars as Editors – PageView – The Chronicle of Higher Education.

If I can meet my kickstarter goal of $5000, phase 1 of my trip will commence. Starting in Korea, where I currently reside, I will fly to Vietnam, and explore Southeast Asia via land travel (bus, train, walking) over a period of 4-5 months: Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar.

I will then venture into China, and make my way towards the coast, where I will depart for Japan sometime in the Spring, in time for the planting season, where I will most likely spend some time volunteering on organic farms. I’m scheduling about 6 months for the whole trip…

If I can meet my $5000 kickstarter goal, that should cover most of my expenses through Southeast Asia, Japan and China. I would like to make at least two games for each country I visit, so we’re looking at probably 10-15 games. There’s no cookie-cutter mold for the games, though, so it will also depend on the size and scope of each individual game.

The Sunday Poem: Boston Photographs

 Posted by (Visited 8771 times)  The Sunday Poem
Aug 082010
 

Boston Photographs

There is a street in Boston where the gas lamps have been burning
For a hundred forty years; where lamplighters no longer walk
The cycle of the twenty four, since globule mantles left to glow
Were cheaper than the labor spent in dimming gas in rain and snow.

The gravestones at the Granary are sunk in mud, or shattered sheets.
The midnight ride of Paul Revere is heaps of rocks, is piles
of pennies, and a rain soaked flag or two. The Burying Ground
is older still, and the thousands share five hundred weathered stones.

A Custom House is a hotel. A macaroni bursts in yellow sculpture
Beside a Market square. A Brutalist town hall juts jaws beside
Stark glass memorials and Boston’s oldest pub. They said, “You can’t
Hear city sounds from inside Boston Common!” but they lied.

Look! — homes upon a fisher wharf, held up by mussels and stout wood,
The Charles for a cellar door and a neighbor in a sloop.
With California earthquake eyes, the pilings underneath the wharf
That hold the condominiums high are trembling on the edge of hope.

We watch the tide; the rise, the fall, the six foot gap from tall to small.
The fixity of history, the folly of infinity, the way the town believes itself
The sailing ship, the catamaran, the hackneys and velocipedes,
The ferry, horses, cabs and cars, the moving van, and the rumbling T,

Four hundred years all held as close as simultaneity.
Mistaken hills hold monuments to battles fought elsewhere,
And staid New England poets paint their copperplated iambs
In pixels on a screen, declaiming beats from Faneuil Hall.

I cast these Boston photographs to what they once called ether,
Where they may last as long as tiny mantles glow.
They are the fixity of touristry, the river banks we made by hand,
Are monuments as long as networks grow, as long as human power flows;
Are structures standing strong upon the sand.

Playing with the iPad

 Posted by (Visited 15738 times)  Art, Game talk, Misc, Music, Reading, Watching  Tagged with:
Jul 182010
 

I have an iPad, as of about a week ago. I have now had the chance to try it out on a trip, as well as general home use, and I think this sort of form factor is probably the future of computing for most folks. It’s clearly early days still for slates like this, but you can see the path from here, and it is an interesting one, with variations depending on who needs to use the tablet. In the meantime, with some trickery, it can do most of what I would need to replace a laptop. Basically, I am now carrying it everywhere, and on my trip I booted up my laptop exactly once, and it was to create and display a presentation — I didn’t have a VGA adapter yet, so I couldn’t project from the iPad.

I have already spent over $100 on apps for it, and thought I would share some of my thoughts. I tend to favor free and cheap apps, actually, so the below is me trying to be a skinflint and failing!

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