dwlt.thinksOutLoud

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-8-22)

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:03:13 +0100

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-8-22):

PopCap on Games You Happen To Play on Facebook

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:41:03 +0100

(aka what others might, on occasion, refer to as ‘social games’)

Nice write-up on a talk Jason Kapalka from PopCap gave at GDC Europe, centred around their experience of Bejeweled Blitz.

Key points:

Those contests they run around the games don’t make any difference to player numbers.
Bejeweled 2 just on iPhone has sold over 4,000,000 copies.
Resetting the high-score table (of which there is only one) once a week is better than once every two weeks.
Most games on Facebook are “kind of evil”, since they’re trying “any way to trick you into posting something on your wall that’s not really even of interest to you, let alone your friends.”

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-8-15)

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 13:13:13 +0100

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-8-15):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

A Game Is A Game Is A Game

Thu, 12 Aug 2010 23:09:48 +0100

Kieron Gillen, interviewed by Blitz1Up:

I’ve touched on some of that up-thread in that we see it all part of the same fabric. The Facebook games are the same thing as the hyper-indie-art game are the same thing as whatever costs 400 trillion pounds. It’s all games and we want to help encourage people to think of it as such.

Sounds like a familiar refrain ;-) Anyway, it’s a great read, but this is the line that jumped out:

The games press is very good at [telling you more about things you already know about and are interested in] and awful at [telling you about things you know nothing about whatsoever].

This was brought home earlier this evening where it seemed like everyone was talking about Bioshock Infinite. That’s all fine and well if you like that kind of thing, but I don’t like that kind of thing.

I’ve discussed with people before about how games doesn’t seem to have it’s Pitchfork or Stereogum, and I know games have all those platform fragmentation issues going on, but unfortunately that’s how most review sites are split. Problem is I have 10 platforms for playing games in line of sight from me right now, and I’m totally open to suggestion on which to play at any given time.

I want a site that can recommend me a game from the Xbox Indie channel in the same breath as one for my iPhone at the same time as one for Facebook mere moments after telling me to check out a DS game and oh you should download this thing for your PC too.

Maybe it exists and I just haven’t found it yet [NB Please tell me if you have found such a place]. Or maybe it doesn’t and you’ll have to go build it for me. Thanks in advance.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-8-8)

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 12:43:10 +0100

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-8-8):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

"Edwin Land, inventor of the Polaroid camera, once said that his method of design was to start with a..."

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:36:09 +0100

“Edwin Land, inventor of the Polaroid camera, once said that his method of design was to start with a vision of what you want and then, one by one, remove the technical obstacles until you have it. I think that’s what Steve Jobs does. He starts with a vision rather than a list of features.”

- Master Planner: Fred Brooks Shows How to Design Anything | Magazine (via)

Regarding Lonelysandwich

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 09:13:35 +0100

merlin:

Adam had spoiled me on the idea that sweating the details at the right points does more than just incrementally improve the quality of the product; it actually means creating a substantially different and better artifact. It means you’re trying, and it shows.

Read More

5 Things I'm Thinking Right Now

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 23:09:16 +0100

Following on from Alice and Kim and Dan, here are the five things I’m thinking right now:

The funding models for games are all there; the problem comes at the other end with actually getting something out there. Clearly this is partially about the platforms and forced scarcity, but as another example there’s no equivalent of the film festival circuit. And even if there was, the publishers are so scared of taking a risk on anything they’re never going to find the games equivalent of Blair Witch Project (insert your favourite low-budget/huge-earning here).
To anyone who thinks that Android is somehow “better” for developers, you’ve clearly blanked out/weren’t around for the first ten years of mobile games development.
There’s so much for the games industry to learn from the TV, film, radio, music or restaurant industries that it hurts my brain. If you think otherwise, I say you’re looking in the wrong places.
Nintendo do so many things so, so well, that it makes the things they do badly that much more annoying.
To paraphrase Greg Costikyan from a GDC rant a few years back, THE WORLD IS NOT A GIANT FUNNEL DESIGNED TO POUR MONEY INTO YOUR WALLET. Get over it.

You’ll notice none of those things involve food, but that’s more of an underlying constant thought rather than a specific one.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-7-4)

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 23:42:34 +0100

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-7-4):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

"In a sense, the process reflects Miyamoto’s lifelong design approach – the importance of..."

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 16:26:55 +0100

“In a sense, the process reflects Miyamoto’s lifelong design approach – the importance of interface and function over visuals – but it’s interesting that this has evolved into a process in which graphics don’t even play a conceptual role until very late in the schedule.”

- Keith Stuart at Guardian Gamesblog, reporting on E3 2010

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-6-6)

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 13:33:03 +0100

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-6-6):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-5-30)

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 08:02:49 +0100

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-5-30):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-5-23)

Mon, 24 May 2010 18:17:07 +0100

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-5-23):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-5-16)

Mon, 17 May 2010 17:58:59 +0100

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-5-16):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-5-9)

Tue, 11 May 2010 13:16:48 +0100

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-5-9):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

"Rapidly improving design permeates every branch of manufacture … To keep abreast with foreign..."

Wed, 05 May 2010 09:30:47 +0100

“Rapidly improving design permeates every branch of manufacture … To keep abreast with foreign nations… we must ourselves produce and invest.”

- John Muir, Lord Provost of Glasgow, 1890

On Leaving Denki

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 22:17:00 +0100

Yesterday was officially my last day at Denki :-(

At least I won’t have the world’s most preposterous commute anymore: four hours a day in total. Little wonder I got so much reading done. And I won’t miss the guy who joined the commute at Perth, whistling like an idiot. An idiot that doesn’t know any tunes to whistle.

What I will miss is working everyday with people who give a damn, who have a sense of purpose, ambition and no little talent. I learned a huge amount in my 18 months at Denki, all of which will serve me well in the future.

When I joined Denki, it became pretty clear pretty quickly that there was something even more special than I suspected happening. That something was channelled into Quarrel, a game I am incredibly proud to be associated with. It kills me to think it might be a while before most of the people reading this get a chance to play it.

But you will get to play it, I’m certain. I don’t know where or how or when, but it’ll happen.

What’s next for me? Right now, the only thing certain is that I’ll continue to be Denki’s #1 Fan - I love what they’re doing next (you will too), and I have huge respect for everyone I worked with there.

Other than that, several things are bubbling under. My main hope is that whatever it turns out to be, I’ll once again be working with great colleagues, people I can learn from and be inspired by.

Stay tuned.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-4-4)

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 14:15:35 +0100

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-4-4):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-3-28)

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 13:19:52 +0100

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-3-28):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-3-21)

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 14:42:32 +0000

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-3-21):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz