A Tree Falling in the Forest

I am sitting in a Munich hotel room for the first time in 27 years and the only thing that’s changed is me. On the train from the airport I realized I am old enough to measure time between actions in decades. Not so long ago 27 years was a reasonable age for a person and now it’s the time in between two trips I took as an adult. The area around the tube exit in Marianplatz is the same, the Glockenspiel looms overhead and the crowd is standing in the same place I left them 27 years ago. In Europe, where “old” describes increments of hundreds of years this is normal, but in America, “old” is measured in single digits so it is unusual. Other than a 275 Euro a night difference, even my room is indistinguishable from the youth hostel I stayed in as a newly minted high school graduate. I naively booked the hotel because it had “four seasons” in the name. I say “naïve because I thought four seasons referred to hotel chain when it reality, it can only refer to the number seasons it is...

With so many buggy and unfinished games are falling down on us like pretty snow flakes during the holiday season, only to be shunned by their publishers when the game's only fault is fulfillment of the prophecy established long before their production, I felt it is worthwhile to repost this golden oldie from two and a half years ago. Some things just don't change. . . . . . Games are like children. If you nurture their growth and support them once they leave the nest, they will be happy and support you and bring you joy the rest of your life. If you treat them poorly and stunt their growth, they will enter the world angry, not contribute to society, and like the Menendez boys, quite possibly kill you. In a Dickensian way, Fagin - like publishers are sending games out into the world deformed, immature, socially retarded, and ill equipped to face a cruel world. These emotionally undeveloped game are expected to perform in the real world and send money back to Fagin. Whe...

My posting continues to move at a glacial pace. For a while, there was nothing new to say. Then, all of sudden, the world exploded with new ideas and I had no time to write. I attribute the plethora of new ideas - things other than marketing gaffes, publishers' hosing of developers, the need for independent finance and the folks who are saying they have it or xBox becoming cable - as a reflection of increased sensitivity attributable to too much travel and too little sleep. But bubbles are growing, companies are reacting, and CEOs seem to be turning into either Chicken Little or ostriches with heads in the sand. Some of the new stuff floating around in my head is: - The abandonment of seasoned game designers in favor of metric driven design - catering to metrics let you keep more players, but are those players worth keeping? - The complete lack of game sales data for XBL and PSN - Do the platforms really think they are helping us by cloaking sales in a shroud of mystery? - Th...

Having written about all this stuff already, as we close in on the United States Supreme Court's hearing of arguments in a history making case which will define the future of the game business. The Supreme Court will determine whether the legislation described in this post is Constitutional. While other US Circuits determined games to be Constitutionally protected free speech, the 9th Circuit never has and the Supreme Court will likely determine once and for all whether our work product is protected by the First Amendment. If you read the post, you will see State Senator Yee, who introduced the legislation, unbound by the strictures of reality or truth, was able to create quite a compelling argument in favor of regulation of games sales. Unfortunately, as explained here , the same tactics were used at the Federal level when two congressman misrepresented data relating to sales of games to minors. They used a three year old FTC secret shopper report to show a failure to ...

This blog was originally a place for me to vent. After about a year, I found the same things making me angry, but I already wrote about them. I don't know whether that means I did not have many things to be angry about because all my buttons have been hit, or I am a very angry person and it took me a whole year to get it out. I certainly did not expect to change things - the blog is cathartic, so once it's out I have no compelling need to wright about publishers' mistreatment of developers, bad marketing, myopic product releases, used games, ratings, or parental responsibility - again. But every once in a while something so egregious comes along and, I just can't help being redundant. One of these things Metacritic's continued feigning of objectivity in the face of blatant bias. I wish I could say this particular rant is unique, but it's not. It is just something that set me off before and set me off again. I have written in detail about why Metacriti...

NPD has a problem. Their value is based on accessing and protecting a data set while their access continues to shrink and the data points continue to grow. They like to tell us they are able to track physical game sales, but they do not have access to sales data from our biggest retailers . Until recently they never covered on line and when they did they found their previous reports were wrong. Now they chose to issue a report relating to the console DLC market when they have no access to sales data. I, along with any one who sat in a room with a publisher in the last year, have better information on the DLC market than they printed. Just in case their assessment of only 6% of the market actively downloading did not ring hollow to the publishers currently showing a solid return on DLC, they highlight: "Internet connectivity is an important feature across multiple devices: 60% of e-reader owners cite it as their favorite feature" Excuse me while I call them by thei...

I am not going to go into again, I already did here , here and here , so take my word for it. Selling used games is harmful to game innovation. While publishers are engaged in a arms race against the ever growing number of used game sellers, the industry may be saved by the courts. In Vernor v. Autodesk The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals just ruled a properly worded EULA will preclude resale of software. In the Vernor case, Vernor purchased copies of Autodesk software, did not open it, and resold it on ebay. Vernor contended he was protected by the first sale doctrine because he did not make copies, and did not open the box and become bound by the EULA. The court held otherwise and found Vernor a licensee of the software and therefore bound by the agreement which forbade resale. Games and other software are legally resold under the first sale doctrine. In 1908, when contemplating the resale of printed, coyprighted works like books or music, the U.S. Supreme Court determ...