D Nye Tumbling

"Activision and its CEO Bobby Kotick were despised all the way to the bank for the coarsening of FPS..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:38:57 +0100

“

Activision and its CEO Bobby Kotick were despised all the way to the bank for the coarsening of FPS culture, and for Kotick’s lack of enthusiasm for actually playing games. At that time, EA were riding a white horse around the field with new IPs like Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge and a passionate gamer CEO in John Riccitiello. Now, Dead Space is an ailing franchise, DICE are making Battlefield and shortly Star Wars games and Riccitiello has left the company.

These things tend to go in cycles.

”

- Surrendering the (Online) Pass: What Next For EA On First Sale? - Forbes

"We have seen two world-changing stories in the week gone by. Andy Greenberg of Forbes reported on..."

Tue, 14 May 2013 15:40:10 +0100

“

We have seen two world-changing stories in the week gone by. Andy Greenberg of Forbes reported on the firing of the Liberator*, Defense Distributed’s imagination-capturing 3D-printed handgun. And on Monday, Samsung announced that it had succeeded in developing an adaptive array transceiver, enabling mobile data transmission at a hair over 1 Gbps over two kilometers (a quite thick hair over a mile).

These two events, seemingly unconnected, nonetheless point to a particular vision of the future – one in which we are streaming ultra high-definition movies to our mobile devices while holding off the overreaching federal government using our 3D printers as a will-powered creative device not unlike Green Lantern’s power ring.

”

- 5G Phones And 3D-Printed Guns: Samsung, Defense Distributed And Our Gernsback Week - Forbes

That Old Time Religion: Steve Jackson's Sorcery - Review - Forbes

Mon, 13 May 2013 17:13:12 +0100

That Old Time Religion: Steve Jackson's Sorcery - Review - Forbes:

You direct the choices of a hero of the peaceful Analand, one of a number of kingdoms which have been passing around the One Ri – sorry, the legendary Crown of Kings. Sadly, this time around the Crown has been stolen by winged agents of the sinister Archmage, and this phenomenal security failure threatens the security of the five kingdoms.

Perfectly logically, the response to this is to send not an army, but one dude with a sword, enough food for a few days and a small number of gold pieces. That dude is you.

You have made some terrible career choices.

"Following on the heels of the entry-level Nokia 105, which immediately supplants the Nokia 1280 but..."

Thu, 09 May 2013 18:56:49 +0100

“Following on the heels of the entry-level Nokia 105, which immediately supplants the Nokia 1280 but stands in a design heritage going back to the much-loved 3280 and beyond, the Asha 501 is possibly what an iPhone might look like when the “i” stands for “India”, rather than “I have money to burn”. In fact, it calls back in many ways to Nokia’s first serious current-generation smartphone concept, the Meego-driven N9.”

- A Smartphone For The South? Nokia Launches Asha 501 With Facebook, EA Games - Forbes

"This highlights just how small the realizable capitalization from Kickstarter actually is: funding..."

Thu, 09 May 2013 13:54:33 +0100

“This highlights just how small the realizable capitalization from Kickstarter actually is: funding from conventional investment sources still easily exceeds the biggest ever Kickstarter-funded project, the Pebble smart watch.”

- OUYA Closes $15 Million Round, Delays Launch To June 25 - Forbes

"Faced with the necessity of Lobo jobbing to Wolverine, and the impossibility of Wolverine beating..."

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 17:43:45 +0100

“Faced with the necessity of Lobo jobbing to Wolverine, and the impossibility of Wolverine beating Lobo in a remotely Newtonian universe, the writers compromised by having the fight take place off stage, obscured by a table, and the manner of Wolverine’s victory not explained. Thus was a young man’s faith destroyed.”

- Inujustice: Gods Among Us - Review - Forbes

"The Maxis properties – The Sims Social and Sim City Social – had little, mechanically, in common..."

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 18:01:43 +0100

“

The Maxis properties – The Sims Social and Sim City Social – had little, mechanically, in common with their originating brands, and were most noticeable for the legal action instigated against Zynga by EA for allegedly copying its assets in its game The Ville.

With The Ville now shifted to maintenance mode, it turns out that the suit, settled in February with both sides covering their own costs, perhaps represented two big dogs fighting over a rather unappetizing steak.

”

- Anti-Social Behavior? EA Closes Sim City, Sims Social, Limits Facebook Exposure - Forbes

Official Grand Theft Auto Radio Playlists on Spotify and iTunes | Rockstar Games

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 15:34:10 +0100

Official Grand Theft Auto Radio Playlists on Spotify and iTunes | Rockstar Games

kaiami: life problems

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 20:01:52 +0100

kaiami:

life problems

kateordie: It started as a tweet, and it became an...

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 19:45:10 +0100

kateordie:

It started as a tweet, and it became an infographic.

Tiny Games: Selling Festival Gaming Through Phones - Forbes

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 17:08:41 +0100

Tiny Games: Selling Festival Gaming Through Phones - Forbes:

The mooted Tiny Games iOS app starts by asking questions – how many players you have, where you are, what props you have access to. Then, it spits out a paragraph of instructions for an appropriate game. It’s a parlor game magic 8-ball in effect, with rulesets contributed by such gaming luminaries as Doug Wilson (Die Gute Fabrik), Jane McGonigal, evil genius Bennett Foddy (QWOP), thatgamecompany’s Robin Hunicke (Journey) and Charles Cecil (Broken Sword).

A potentially endless supply of parlor games may sound like paradise or perdition, depending on one’s tastes, but it’s an interesting idea – and a way for a studio often focused on installation work to create a develop-once, deploy-often experience.

I talked to Alex Fleetwood, founder and director of Hide & Seek, about their first own-branded mobile app. However, to make things a little more interesting, I emailed him questions from a range of locations, requesting a recommendation for a tiny game to play in each one.

I never metagame I didn’t like, clearly.

redelice: Somewhere I want more crossovers of this xD.

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 15:49:08 +0100

redelice:

Somewhere I want more crossovers of this xD.

kellysue: Princess Sparklefists t-shirt up on WeLoveFine!! The...

Sat, 06 Apr 2013 14:45:34 +0100

kellysue:

Princess Sparklefists t-shirt up on WeLoveFine!!

The is the first expansion of the collection I’m curating to benefit GLI.

Thanks for making this possible, Carol Corps!

"One American critic was so angry she chased me to the exit to inform me, ‘This film is a call to..."

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 22:43:47 +0100

““One American critic was so angry she chased me to the exit to inform me, ‘This film is a call to racial violence!’ I thought not. I thought it was a call to empathy, which of all human qualities is the one this past century seemed most to need.””

- Roger Ebert on Do The Right Thing. (via jsmooth995)

"When we said we were going to use Unity for Wasteland, that was not a popular decision. It’s..."

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 18:26:24 +0100

“

When we said we were going to use Unity for Wasteland, that was not a popular decision. It’s everywhere now, but at the time the perception was that it was for small, mobile games. People would want to know how its shaders worked. But I was more focused on the Unity Store, and the ability to not have to reinvent the wheel.

If we want a prop for a gas station, I don’t want to be sitting around drawing the thousandth rock or tree, or the tenth gas station of my career! These things already exist, and we can modify them. If we need a particle effect, or if we need a tool for painting, for these things on which we could have spent months and months and tens of thousands of dollars, we might spend 500 bucks. We get access to a huge code and art base immediately, and stuff that’s streamlined already for the system. So we are able to get things up really really quick. And that’s the biggest difference – that ability to do that. With Wasteland, we are a year in, and it would have taken at least two years to get this far if we had started from scratch.

Nothing replaces iteration. Nothing. There’s no amount of pre-planning in the world that will make up for iteration time. It’s all about getting the game in and working, so you can start iterating and making it better. The faster you get there, the better the game.

”

- Words From The Wasteland: InXile CEO Brian Fargo Talks Tides and Torments - Forbes

"When the summer program hiring opened, my department was allocated a budget of six students. All six..."

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 15:04:14 +0100

“

When the summer program hiring opened, my department was allocated a budget of six students. All six slots were gone within the first day. Every single one of them went to a white, american, male student.

The second day, the guy across the hall from me came with a resume for a student he wanted to hire. This was a guy who I really liked, and really respected greatly. He was not, by any reasonable measure, a bad guy - he was a really good person. Anyway, he had this resume, for yet another guy. I told him the budget was gone, but if he could find a good candidate who was either a woman or minority, that we could hire them.

He exploded, ranting about how we were being sexist, discriminating against men. He just wanted to hire the best candidate for the job! We were demanding that he couldn’t hire the best candidate, he had to hire someone less qualified, in order to satisfy some politically correct bureaucrat!

There was nothing I could do, so eventually he stormed out. Three days later, he came back to my office with another resume. He was practically bouncing off the walls he was so happy. “I found another student to hire. She’s even better than the guy I originally came to you with! She’s absolutely perfect for the job!”.

We hired her. I asked him why he didn’t find her before. He had no answer - he didn’t know why he didn’t find her resume of his first search.

”

- A White Boy’s Observations of Sexism and the Adria Richards Fiasco | Good Math, Bad Math

Sexism in Tech Not a Problem Because of Coal Mining, Redditor Suggests | man boobz

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 11:11:04 +0100

Sexism in Tech Not a Problem Because of Coal Mining, Redditor Suggests | man boobz:

Lulz!

"Booker DeWitt is a man out of his element – a fish 20,000 feet above water. At the beginning of..."

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 18:31:04 +0100

“Booker DeWitt is a man out of his element – a fish 20,000 feet above water. At the beginning of BioShock Infinite, he finds and enters a lighthouse, just like his predecessor in the original BioShock, and in doing so is transported to a new and strange world. As in BioShock, his arrival will set in motion a series of events which will raise deep and serious questions of politics and morality, and result in a lot of people having their faces shot off.”

- The Shock Doctrine - BioShock Infinite (Spoiler-free) Review - Forbes

"Aaran Flynn, GM of BioWare Edmonton and Montreal, said in a tweet that Dragon Age III, scheduled for..."

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 14:13:20 +0000

“Aaran Flynn, GM of BioWare Edmonton and Montreal, said in a tweet that Dragon Age III, scheduled for release in 2013, and the next game in the popular and unpopular Mass Effect series, which will be a role-playing adventure in the grand BioWare style and a lens-flare heavy version of Tetris centered around marriage equality.”

- Dragon Age 3, Next Mass Effect To Use Frostbite 3: Best And Worst News Ever, Obviously - Forbes

"It’s a little strange that this needs to be said, but let’s just get it out there. If you are..."

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 18:41:49 +0000

“It’s a little strange that this needs to be said, but let’s just get it out there. If you are delighted whenever you have the chance to play a sniping-heavy level of a modern-warfare FPS, this game has an added appeal for you. If you do not always choose the hunting rifle in Left 4 Dead, the opposite applies. If, on the other hand, you are actively irritated that people are allowed to use weapons in multiplayer that are not sniper rifles, and want to turn every game of Call of Duty into Enemy at the Gates, this latest offering from Polish developers City Interactive may be for you.”

- Call of Shooty - Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 Review - Forbes