So, someecards started doing video cards, and so far they are all staring Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter, to promote their new show on Comedy Central. The Independence Day one is pretty good.
A blog about games and stuff by Mr. skateborden.
June 30, 2009
June 29, 2009
Obsolescence test: Rolando leaving the App Store alongside July 1st sequel launch | Offworld
Ngmoco is removing Rolando from the AppStore after they launch the sequel. BB speculates this is for marketing reasons, sort of the way Disney pulls their classic animated films on and off of the home video market.
We are talking about digital downloads though, so there isn’t really a secondhand market. You can’t get Rolando on ebay or from gamestop once it’s off the market. It will be interesting to see if people start trading hacked/pirated digital copies though. It seems a pretty distinct possibility to me. As someone who legitimately bought a copy of Rolando, I’ll not very happy about not being able to re-download it if I need to.
Can we get some consumer outcry like when Microsoft announced they would pull underperforming games from XBLA?
Update: there was some outcry and ngmoco quickly announced that they are going to do the right thing.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Make them give us tea » Some Thoughts On Crane Wars
Interesting stuff going on over here. RPS writes a negative review of Crane Wars, and pretty much everyone from Flashbang politely defends their game in the comments.
I’ve played Crane Wars a few times, and admittedly didn’t find the controls intuitive, so I can relate to the review. Does this mean the game was poorly designed, or I just didn’t “get it”?
June 23, 2009
Ponyo trailer
Ooh! The trailer for Disney’s english dub of Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film Ponyo. “In theaters August 14.”
(via kottke)
TV 3.0 - Nintento’s ‘Wii-no-Ma’ and new ways of advertising « CyberMedia Blog
Article on Nintendo’s video on demand service for Wii in Japan. Particularly interesting to me is that the service will intially only offer original programming designed for groups to “watch together and communicate with each other” as opposed to individual viewing, and that the advertising will be opt-in: “No advertisement is shown on the screen unless the user actively chooses so.”
The idea is that the advertising will be iteractive and personalized, and thus hopefully compelling and mutually beneficial to the users and the advertiser, who can “adjust their products to the real needs of their customers.” I’d be pretty amazed if they can pull that off, but perhaps the Japanese are less cynical about advertising than Americans like me?
June 17, 2009
I have to say, these Facebook Hijacks that yaldabaoth started are pretty hilarious! I’m not gonna lie, I LOLed. A few times.
I’m pretty fascinated by this whole Tim Langdell situation, which seems to still be unresolved. By unresolved I mean that Edge is still out of the App Store, and Tim Langdell is still a member of the IGDA’s board of directors.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about the best way to catch up is to read Derek Yu’s recap on TIGSource, but basically there is an iPhone game called Edge (an IGF mobile nominee, and well regarded in the App Store when it was available) that was recently pulled from the App Store because MobiGame (the team who made Edge) was threatened by this guy Tim Langdell who (the details are a bit fuzzy) may have published some games in the early 80s under the name EDGE Games and has since aggressively guarded the trademark of the word “edge” for seemingly anything he can get away with.
So this guy appears to be a parasite who threatens and extorts people who try to use his trademark for a common english word. That’s pretty slimy, but not terribly unusual. However, it turns out that this guy is a member of the IGDA board of directors, an organization whose mission is to “advance the careers and enhance the lives of game developers.” It would seem to me (and many others) that Langdell’s business practices are out of line with that mission.
There are a lot of other hilarious and bizzare details of this situation that you really have to see for yourself, particularly some things pulled from Langdell’s website like the “Mirrors a new game from Edge” graphic I’ve included here, and a flash file supposedly advertising space travel with an endorsement from Buzz Aldrin. Oh, and TIGSource forum member have also created an unofficial compo to make games that use the word EDGE as much as possible and include Langdell’s image.
“ I see video games not as addicting time-wasters, but instead as powerful tools for communication and expression through their unique channel, which is interactivity,” noted Rohrer. “Deep interactivity is missing from most digital brand campaigns, and I’m hoping to change that. Tool shares my vision, and I’m fortunate to be working with them.
TRUST: Tool Signs Video Game Visionary Jason Rohrer
Wow, this is strange. Jason Rohrer who is known for his art games like Passage, his voluntarily simple lifestyle, and his devotion to open source and free distribution of his works, has signed with an advertising agency?
If I had to guess, I’d say that his idealistic free distribution scheme hasn’t been bringing in enough dontations to support his lifestyle, but I know he’s also been doing tons of conferences and speaking events, consulting for EA/Steven Spielberg, and released for pay iPhone versions of a couple of his games.
It’ll be interesting to see what comes of this deal. I’m sure Rohrer wouldn’t do it if he had to work on things that went against his values, but that quote above sounds a bit hokey to me… His vision is to bring interactivity to “digital brand campaigns.” Really?
June 16, 2009
Huh. Destroy Build Destroy, a new Discovery Channel style build things/blow things up show (but on Cartoon Network, so much for it being a network for, uh, cartoons) for kids hosted by Andrew W.K. I didn’t see that one coming.
June 11, 2009
GameSetWatch - Forever Weird: Katamari Damacy Tribute Trailer
I don’t really know what’s going on in this video, but I can’t help but enjoy it.
