Watching

Stuff about TV or movies.

Numbers

 Posted by (Visited 10755 times)  Game talk, Music, Reading, Watching  Tagged with: , , , ,
Jun 262008
 
  • Number of users in Habbo Hotel worldwide: 20,000,000
  • “Hottest” book in the US last year according to Time Magazine: 1,500,000+. (A Thousand Splendid Suns)
  • Best-selling graphic novel in the US last year: 80,000. (Naruto)
  • Digital sales of a hit song: 2,100,000 (Leona Lewis, “Bleeding Love”)
  • Average downloads of a downloadable Rock Band track: 100,000
  • Viewers of the #1 show on US TV (including DVR): 28,800,000 (American Idol)
  • Viewers of the #150 show on US TV: 2,400,000 (Gossip Girl)
  • Users of World of Warcraft in North America: 2,500,000
  • Monthly uniques for Gaia Online: 2,000,000+
  • Total number of movie tickets sold in the US in one year: 1,400,000,000
  • Estimated tickets sold to the new Indiana Jones movie in five weeks: 42,290,849 (using 2007 average US ticket price and grosses to date).

Just some figures that caught my eye while browsing a few different publications…

ATOF in Game Informer’s top ten game books

 Posted by (Visited 9560 times)  Game talk, Reading, Watching, Writing  Tagged with: ,
May 212008
 

I got an email about this recently, but haven’t seen it myself. Apparently Game Informer picked the top ten books on gaming, and A Theory of Fun is on the list at #9. Perfect timing of course, given that it’s out of print and I get three inquiries a week on how to get ahold of a copy. Working on it…

David Kushner, author of the excellent Masters of Doom (which I have the galleys of somewhere around here, and which came in at #1) managed to type in the full list. I’ll have to see if I can find a copy of the article.

Edit: here’s the article.A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster. In this book, Koster aims a bit higher than the normal historical analysis of the game industry. Instead, the former chief executive officer of Sony Online Entertainment aims to define just what terms like “game” and “fun” actually mean. His answers are fascinating and a must-read for anyone concerned with the art of video games, but what’s more impressive is that Koster – an eccentric and highly skilled writer – actually manages to make this high-brow discussion accessible and, yes, even fun to read. Through an often hilarious mix of academic discussion, first-person anecdotes, and hand-drawn cartoons, Koster brings the reader closer to understanding what role games of all sorts play in human life and what we mean when we say something is “fun.” All in all, it’s a fascinating and unique book that should be required reading at the world’s many video game college programs.

Sweeney

 Posted by (Visited 6955 times)  Art, Watching  Tagged with: ,
May 172008
 

Sweeney Todd disposes of Pikachu

We watched Sweeney Todd tonight. The kids had my tablet PC in the room, so I grabbed it and doodled a bit. Then they got ahold of it. It was a bad end for one Pokemon who got the closest shave of his life, and perhaps ended up in a meat pie.

Was a bit disappointed that “More Meat Pies!” wasn’t in there. Or this lyric, which has stuck in my head ever since some of our friends in college staged this musical as their senior project.

Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd

He served a dark and a vengeful god

He shaved the faces of gentlemen

Who never thereafter were heard from again

We’d been telling the kids for weeks about those two bits, singing them over and over…

So, why can the kids watch this with us, but not GTA? Good question. Perhaps because Rockstar just isn’t Sondheim for me yet.

A la carting games

 Posted by (Visited 7224 times)  Game talk, Watching  Tagged with: , , ,
May 092008
 

At work, our biz dev guy forwarded around this highly interesting article about the future of paid video content on the Net: The Ala Carting of Video on the Net – Will it lead to disaster?

He commented that this had relevance for games — something about which I agree completely. I strongly suggest reading the full article, but here’s a brief sampling (which I gather is quoting a report from Bernstein Research):

On the web, early evidence suggests that consumers will tune out – click away – if they are forced to watch more than 30 seconds or so of advertising up front, and maybe another 90 seconds of advertising over the next thirty minutes. Hulu.com, for example, which has already been lionized by many as the future of TV, serves two minutes of advertising for every 22 minutes of programming(i.e. the programming duration of a typical half hour show from television). Assuming identical CPMs for web video and TV, and after accounting for lost affiliate fees, a 30 minute program on the web with two minutes of advertising yields approximately 1/8th as much revenue per viewer.

Are content producers prepared to reduce production costs…by 88%?

Continue reading »

American Idol is weird this year

 Posted by (Visited 6445 times)  Music, Watching
Apr 242008
 

Yes, of course I watch it.

Idol has always rewarded performers who built an emotional connection over good singers; that’s why people like Syesha Mercado are doomed to exit earlier than they should. But this year is downright strange, with not one but two folkies among the finalists. I don’t think that Brooke White or Jason Castro will win (one of the Davids will) but the fact that they are doing so well is interesting in what is says about pop culture. Along with the rise of new female singer-songwriters, this makes me wonder if we’re due for another shift away from glossy pop.

Another ‘Idol’ finalist booted from competition – CNN.com

As music goes, so goes quite a lot of pop culture. Movies also seem to be caught in the grip of an intent towards honest emotion lately, even in raunch comedies. Wonder what that means for games.

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