January 2012
11 posts
Tower/Heights and Zynga - Heist or High Concept? -... →
Hollywood has made the idea of the high concept it own – an explanation in a single sentence what a film pitch is about. So, “Like ‘Titanic’ – but in space”. “Like ‘Bad Boys 2′ meets The’Agony and the Ecstasy’“. “‘Fear Eats the Soul’ meets ‘Harold and Kumar’, with Edward James Olmos as a fun-loving Vietnam Vet”.
A New Hope - Star Wars reshot in Team Fortress 2,... →
Its hard to know who’d sue first. Possibly Greedo.
SOPA, Skyrim and My Little Pony - Infringement is... →
Perhaps uniquely positioned to appreciate what an empty stable looks like, and thus the logic of bolting its door, Hasbro has largely embraced the phenomenon.
Rupert, Jack, Ashton and the perils of Twitter →
The Music's Over - Dr. Dre's Beats Audio and... →
At this point, it’s traditional for snarky Brits like myself to note that Dr Dre is not an actual doctor. However, I think it’s fair to say that, at this point, Mr Andre Young would find it very easy to secure a doctorate causa honorisfrom a wide range of credible institutions. You might not think that this counts, but it’s worth noting that Doctor Doom, nemesis of the Fantastic Four, was...
Risk and Reward: EA -1 EVP, $1 Digital Billion,... →
“Mainstream games do certain emotions very well – excitement, anticipation, and a...”
– Indie Games Finalists Announced - Lessons for the Big Players? - Forbes
Mainstream games do certain emotions very well – excitement, anticipation, and a cycle of frustration and release, controlled by weapon upgrades and checkpoints, that is not wholly unrelated to the action of milking a cow.
10 Games (and some others) for 2012 - Forbes →
I thought it might be interesting to look at some of the games of 2012. This unborn cornucopia can be assessed on potential, significance, oddity, unwiseness or, stepping onto my soapbox for a moment, importance. So, what are the games to watch in 2012, from a partial and probabilistic perspective?
December 2011
17 posts
Avengers, Controllers and Games PR in the Wild... →
The Christoforo case, and what it says about the unformed rules of game PR etiquette
Go Daddy Retracts Support for SOPA - Forbes →
One thing the United States can truly be proud of is the verbal dexterity of its administrators. In the Senate, SOPA’s precursor was the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act – PROTECT IP. Compared with this, and other hits like USA PATRIOT, DREAM and SAFETY, SOPA looks a little uninspired, especially considering its barnstorming alter ego,...
News as a process: How journalism works in the age... →
Batlas Shrugged: Batman, Gotham's Libertarian... →
And, staring at each other across the ideological divide, guns drawn and utility belt at the ready, are the Dark Knight and the [GI] Joes, representing the warring ideologies of right and left in the United States.
No, really.
“These two signifiers are, in fact, the very same twin myths of colonialism. The...”
– Postcolonialism and Science Fiction: An Introduction
Completist's Corner - Dr Greg Zeschuk and Dr Ray... →
Transcript of an interview with the Doctors of BioWare, about The Old Republic and gaming in general.
tumblrbot asked: WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE INANIMATE OBJECT?
grantimatter asked: Women in gaming piece good (I'm forwarding it to a friend in LA who is also a woman and a gamer). But if you can fix it, there's a cap-O missing at the beginning of paragraph 4, page 1. Now to get this red ink-mark off my monitor....
Keeping women out of gaming - the cost of the... →
This was inspired by Mark Sorrell and Margaret Robertson’s recent posts on women in gaming and their treatmnent by men, both of which I thought were really exemplary examples of the form …
“Let us not be hypothetical here. I am somewhat acquainted with a poor black kid...”
– A Muscular Empathy - Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic
A muscular empathy - Ta-Nehisi Coates →
Louis CK drops the DRM, draws in the dollars. →
There are a lot of problems this doesn’t solve - but it’s an interesting angle, and I’ll be interested to see how it goes…
Why Should Britain Pardon Alan Turing? →
Surprised at how strongly I felt about this, once I gave it a moment’s thought…
“Anyway, if your retirement fund lost a decade’s-worth of gains overnight, this...”
– http://myoccupylaarrest.blogspot.com/
“Then came the question that still shocks me to this day: “Do you know Mohammad...”
– http://americanpaki.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/why-i-am-not-protesting-at-occupy/
November 2011
4 posts
PR and Pepper Spray →
How the blundering in the face of the Occupy movement has provided some great lessons on what not to do, and what to do after you’ve done it.
BioWare interview - Muzyka and Zeschuk →
Pro tip: Don’t try to do the “Doctor - doctor - doctor - doctor” routine from Spies Like Us at the start of an interview with the studio heads of BioWare. LEAVE IT TO THE END.
Tablets, Phones and Everything we Know →
Seems like Ubuntu is looking for world domination. In its defence, who wouldn’t, really?
October 2011
12 posts
Origin versus Steam →
When whales fight, shrimp are crushed, as a very wise person once said to me.
Another throw of the dice from Nokia... →
I'm glad everyone likes our poster campaign :)
saucy-sarah:
There’s more:
Students Teaching About Racism in Society is a Student Org at Ohio University. I’m the President, any questions… MESSAGE ME! :)
Britain's first Gigabit Internet FTTH, and the... →
By now obligatory... →
I didn’t have a lot to say about the death of Steve Jobs - or rather, I felt that whatever insight I might have would already have been had and expressed. And, really, who wants to be the one sitting down and trying to think hard about a new angle on someone’s death? That’s exactly the kind of thing journos badmouth PRs for doing.
But it did make me think. About my own youth of...
3 tags
June 2011
3 posts
D Nye Everything: Holsom fun - Duke Nukem... →
The Duke Nukem London launch event - during which I got to thinking about the Olsen twins more than I think anyone has for a long time…
D Nye Everything: Completist's corner: Automating... →
Interviewing American McGee.
May 2011
4 posts
Fable 3 on PC →
Mainly to be contrary, I took time away from LA Noire and the Witcher to review Fable 3, Lionhead’s PC release of their simultaneously hugely open and curiously linear confection.
Fable 3 on PC →
Mainly to be contrary, I took time away from LA Noire and the Witcher to review Fable 3, Lionhead’s PC release of their simultaneously hugely open and oddly linear XBox 360 title of 2010.