gewgaw

Do you remember that scene in Time Bandits, where the evil dude takes over one of the dwarves, and gets him to talk about the most faaabulous ohhhhbjeckt in the entiooooore wooowold?

Well, I think I found it.

I got it on Broadway, just north of Argyle/Vietnamtown. The store is mostly heaps of bamboo, embellished cermaic planters, waterfalls and the like – stuff you think might be nice if it weren’t so shiny and decorative. But they also sell these 3D, laser-etched glass paperweights.

I’m sure you can imagine it already: a guy fishing or playing golf, messages (”I love you Mom”), fantasy schlock, and inspirational scenes from nature (frogs in ponds, flowers, birds). Even cooler – your zodiac sign, with a representation in front, and the actual constellation floating behind it.

But why go for something so tame, when you can get a paperweight that packs a patriotic punch?

Only 5 bucks! Now my papers will be safe from the wind AND “terrorists”. What a relief.

I grabbed a cab, because I stayed at the office past the last train, writing. So tired – just wanting to get home and close my eyes for a bit. I’m sure I looked like a zombie, and Raza, my cab driver, was concerned.

“What are your plans tomorrow? Go out? Bar? Have a party?” No, not for me, I explain. I’m almost done. I need to write. “Writing, no. You need to relax! If you don’t relax – it’s no good. You need to have a good time, for your mind. It’s not good for your mind, no relax.”

I agree – about the mind part. Oh man, I’m so fried! It took me almost 2 minutes this morning to remember that the song playing on the radio in Paul’s car was by Organized Konfusion. All the way from “Who Stole My Last Piece of Chicken” to “The Extinction Agenda”… Pharoah, Prince Poetry – how could I forget?

Raza asked me all sorts of questions while driving me home. We talked about sleep, gas prices, the war, my graduation and job prospects. He had a long, crazy mustache and a big smile. “Here. I give you my phone number. No time you say. You alway have to take time. So… If you have time for party, for relax – you call me. No worries, yes?”

I guess it worked, in a way. I left the cab w/o getting any change.

:)

Wow – I couldn’t have planned it better myself!

Jesus, guys! Isn’t this the age of context-sensitive ads?

Full press release on GGA.

PS: Microsoft: you are getting on my last nerve with your ads and promotions. Yeah, yeah, show us again how indie girls giving homecuts and cherubs busting out graffiti are dying to play with your hardware (after all – that sexy female voice with just a hint of an accent … so exotic! What girl can resist?). We all know you don’t give a shit (or have a clue) about the female market. So stop pretending, already! It gives me hives!!!

This is getting depressing.

Is the industry really suffering from a crisis in innovation, as risk-averse publishers cancel promising projects simply because they don’t understand them and talented developers are forced to shut up shop despite having huge potential hits on their hands? Or are these just the harsh realities of a commercial market where the fittest developers survive, and a regular cycle of studios opening and shutting down is to be expected as part of the healthy operation of the industry?

They’re big questions, and ones which cause plenty of arguments among senior industry figures – particularly in the UK, which has seen many of its development studios go under in the last few years. Some claim that this is a creative crisis for the industry; others argue that it’s simply to be expected that a lot of studio start-ups will fail, leaving only the healthiest companies to rise to the top. A cynic might point out that these ideological arguments tend to divide quite cleanly between those who’ve been through a catastrophic studio failure (or two), and those who have sat happily at a successful studio throughout the past years, but there are compelling points to be made on both sides of the debate regardless.

The latest round of navel-gazing has been prompted, of course, by today’s announcement that North London based Elixir Studios is to shut its doors, following the cancellation of its main project by a large, unnamed, but easy to guess US publisher. According to Elixir, their failure can largely be pinned on the fact that they are working on original IP in a market which is incredibly averse to the risk constituted by anything other than sequels or licensed properties. To some extent, it’s a fair point; a quick and admittedly not terribly empirical survey of cancelled projects in the past couple of years shows quite clearly that far more original IP projects are canned than franchise projects.

Critics of the company, however, have been quick to point out that Elixir has published two games in seven years, one of which – Republic – was critically mauled after being built up to levels of hype of which Peter Molyneux would have been proud, while the other, Evil Genius, was a very solid and enjoyable game, but not exactly a massive commercial success. Elixir’s track record of published titles, at least as much as its focus on original IP, won’t have helped its chances of surviving a project cull at a publisher – or so the argument goes.

Elixir unquestionably had some incredibly talented people working for it. Those people will now scatter and join other companies, or will form together to create new studios, some of which may be healthier than the “parent” studio – Elixir itself – was. That’s the sign of a healthy business and creative ecosystem, according to proponents of the second school of thought. On the other hand, there’s no denying the attraction of the old model of strong independent developers who could afford to invest heavily in original IP and commit resources to long-term projects – but judging from the evidence of the last couple of years, this model truly belongs in the past.

In that case, we can expect to see more and more announcements of studios setting up and going bust in the future – a model not dissimilar to the movie and music industries, in fact. However, if studios shutting down are to become an even more regular part of life in the games industry, there’s one lesson they could definitely take from Elixir’s demise. It speaks volumes that many in the industry are amazed at the firm’s decision to shut down cleanly and pay full redundancy to all of its staff. It would be unthinkable in many other industries for this not to happen, but the fact that Elixir’s management have acted in such a professional and laudable manner is actually genuinely surprising in the UK development sector.

There’s no need to point fingers. Plenty are already pointed, and your ear doesn’t have to be too close to the ground to know which companies, and which senior executives, seriously screwed their staff over in their death throes. While the debate may still rage over why Elixir had to die, at least its management team can lock the doors secure in the knowledge that when the time came, they did the right thing by their employees – and hopefully in doing so, have set a trend that will continue next time a UK developer sees the wall rapidly approaching.

Via GamesIndustry.biz.

Chin up, Demis.

I got some stuff from Kozy/Dan today – and there was a surprise!

Aww, you guys are the greatest!!!

Like the young stowaway on a pirate ship, I’m looking for adventure…
have many talents and ideas, work hard, will swab as necessary.
I just need to find the right quest and crew,
which seems to be the hardest part!

From mail re: my ideal job…

Open questions:

1) What is the value, to developers and academics, of joining and staying with the IGDA. Rob has posted some thoughts about his recent membership drop. Is it idealistic to hope that the game development industry can support an organization akin to ACM or AAAI? As the IGDA continues to re-tool its goals and interface with its membership, how can it keep people in the fold, and keep giving back to the community in concrete, valuable ways?

2) When something like this hiring ad shows up on Gamasutra, is it the responsibility of reasonable, gender-positive and sensitive folks to write in (to the site or company) and say, essentially, WTF!? Or can we asume that the beach babe logo is there to deliver a “steer clear” message to such people? How much can we assume about the company, just from this questionable post? Does the fact that they are the geniuses behind the Outlaw series mean that this job would suck? Is it possible that they’re actually super cool, but struggling to make ends? How much slack should we cut them, if in fact, this is the case?

3) What if you have a great idea for a game (or at least, believe you do) but your fear that it will be mangled by publisher/legal entanglements during negotiations for funding is stronger than your will to press forward and see it made? Is it selfish to squash an idea because you… love it too much? Or is loving your ideas the sign of a severely swelled, delusional head?

4) How many cigarettes can you smoke before you’re “smoking” again?

Right before E3 starts, this lady is going to start walking in LA with a video camera, and she’s not going home till she’s walked the entire city.

I wonder if we’ll see her at the convention center?

I’m also wondering if we will get to see some more of what we love? Partly in anticipation (and partly because I promised a friend ), I’ve finally posted Keita’s 2004 postmortem from Game Developer. Ladies and gentleman: The Singular Design of Katamari Damacy.

photo by Seth

Dude.

Let’s all take a moment to bow to Dr. Robert Zubek!

WOOT WOOT!!!

Ok, now we are going to go get drunk!

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Update: Mission Accomplished!

Well, ok – I don’t, really. But someone does, and they are sharing that love for the good of all mankind:

——————————————————————————–
Reply to: anon-63019046@craigslist.org
Date: Wed Mar 09 11:23:52 2005

A list of reasons why I love the CTA:

1. I love all you crazy motherfuckers who ride. Especially the Eastern European guy who occasionally regales the southbound Purple with rambling, paranoid, slightly racist, yet compellingly coherent harangues about international politics. I love you crazy Slavic guy.

2. I love everyone who sings on the CTA, either with headphones or to themself. I made it my New Year’s resolution to encourage singing on the L in any way possible. I love you, transit singers (crazy and otherwise): pay no attention to uptight hipster-wannabes turning up their iPods to ignore you.

3. The other day, a bus driver responded to my thanks not with ‘you’re welcome’ but with a black power fist raised high. And I’m white. I love you Black Panther bus driver.

4. There is a lady who always rides the Foster bus who is OCD. When she has a bad day, she clutches some piece of paper that she uses as a sort of hand condom to protect her from the germs that coat the rails and seats. Her body and face are so tense that it hurts to look at her, and she jumps whenever someone inadvertantly touches her. When the bus is crowded, I sometimes think her head will explode. I love you OCD lady.

5. An Hispanic kid gets on the bus near Ashland. He’s probably 14 or 15. Six of his buddies are always waiting with him for the bus, and when he steps on they all start shouting stuff to embarrass him like ‘I love you’ and ‘Goodnight, honey’. Usually he just ducks his head in shame, but last week he got on and announced to the bus ‘They’re gay.’ I love you awkward teenager.

6. A few weeks ago a young black man started singing Chaka Khan’s “Tell Me Something Good” to himself. Everybody on the train started to go into ‘possible crazy person on the train’ mode. In light of my New Year’s resolution, I made eye contact with him and we smiled at each other. When he finished his song he opened up a canister of cashews and loudly offered them to everyone on the train. I was the only one that accepted. He was not overtly crazy; I think he was just much too cool to be uptight about anything. I love you, generous R&B crooner.

7. There is a heavy-set lady who also rides the Foster bus. She has a fire-red, greasy mullet and about a pound of eye makeup. She wears little converse shoes, a varsity letter jacket, and sweatpants. She always seems happy, and she obviously thinks she is extremely hot (so of course she is). I love you mullet lady.

8. And I love you CTA. For bringing together the pointy-shod, iPod listening, vain bitches and the homeless guys looking for somewhere to sleep. For pairing the pseudo-thug teens with the successful yet totally cowed business men. For being too damn convenient and cheap for people to avoid.

I’ve seen OCD lady (on the Howard el, at the North station, where she had quite a bit of trouble getting out of the turnstile without touching anything, due to a crowd of commuters and some kind of mechanical issue in the unit itself) and Mullet lady (her hair is really red, just like mine, so we have that chemical connection). And yes, when the platform isn’t *too* crowded, I whistle and sing along to my headphones. Can’t help it, dude.

One thing our CTA-lover neglected to mention: The Love Bus. Driver sings love songs, announces streets with gusto, smiles too much and generally makes your day. Look for the big paper heart in the front window – he moves around.

Thanks, Seth!

ps: It is fucking snowing here today.

pps: Oh well.

Jason Lutes asks for advice on indie dev starter kits. Very Interesting!

Now, my turn.

When I graduate, should I cut my hair?

…but I can’t be responsible for what happens after that, right?

Randomly clicking around at Orisinal you’re pretty much bound to find something that your mom would play (the music isn’t great – too bad you can’t just mute the track and keep the feedback sounds). Besides – it will give all those fans of sun-faded colors something to do while waiting for Wanda and Colossus.

Explore a bit at Fam’s site, and you’ll probably dig up a pseudo-organic/physics-y something or other, to share with a geeky gamer friend.

PS: don’t blame me if you forget to do your laundry, finish that email, or go to bed on time because you’re too busy holding the rope…. or… the other rope.

EGW comments are in! A sample (we get them w/o line breaks):

I loved it bit long don’t ever stop the best lecture in gdc, must take for all developers keep it coming, maybe need even more time this is my favorite session at gdc every year! more in 2006 please! thank you for the fascinating speakers! this is the best of the gdc on of my favorite parts of the gdc, though lots of tech difficulty – arg. best session at gdc only reason to come to gdc wow! i was truely amazing and inspiring. i see an experimental game summit in the future. fucking incredible!

On the AV problems – arg indeed. Moving to a new center this year didn’t help. Timing was poor – we didn’t have access to the room for the hour before the session… I could go on, but you’re right, it’s our problem. Next year, we will start on time, I promise!

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In other news: Chris presents some thoughts on violence in games, as does Jason. No surprises here – just in case someone you know doesn’t know it all, already, is all. The way I see it, arguments are like wardrobes: it never hurts to update!

For a modern, groovy-looking take on A-life, see the grid game. But don’t “play” it too long….

Also – Mark’s posted about a super cute flash game over on Satori… definitely not something I should be looking at with my schedule as it is. Please go play it so I don’t have to.

(HINT: you need to hit the space bar on the third level get the kitten to jump from peg to peg)

Finally – if you want to have some real fun, try coding 4 fun. Though honestly – doesn’t that dude look a bit rough trade for coding?

Hrm. I wonder where the girl coders go for fun?

“Take a moment to put it into perspective.”

Thanks, Matt.

:)

THR: What then is your best advice to game developers? Follow your model?

Lanning: [Laughs] You know, we’re really brave and are willing to bite the bullet. We don’t look at our company and go, wow, if we sell it now, we could pocket big bucks. No, we’re saying we set this company up to build brands and create exciting entertainment and we’re not about to stay a slave to this just so we can put some extra money in the bank. So my advice is this: Follow what you love. There are some guys [I'm sure he means "people" - ed] out there who just love game development. And if they stick to it, they’ll probably prosper — if they’re really intelligent and have the discipline and wherewithal to pull it off. This is still a lucrative career. I mean, the quality of life issue is an ongoing one and it really is a problem with no sign of real change on the horizon. But people still make good salaries. However, if you’re a third-party developer who wants to be a content creator and to control the destiny of that content, the game industry is not the place to be right now.

Lorne Lanning speaks to The Hollywood Reporter about the recent change of direction/focus at Oddworld. He’s particularly vocal about publishers and IP rights, EA’s failure to support Stranger’s Wrath, and the influence of sequal/license-itis on creativity in the industry. Ouch.

—–

Now compare Lorne’s comments with David Jaffe’s. Interesting.

… of Sabine and her thesising, furless companion.

Today: several “Exorcist” head twists, stalking the crazy-neighbor-who-always-yells-at-his-mother-and-talks-to-himself, and investigating the yard while the feeding-lady stared at those strange stacks of paper (wouldn’t let me sit on them, either). Also: Narrowly avoided jaws of sandbox crab monster. That thing is so creepy.

Time for a nap.

…of comic/street/gallery artist David Choe. Note the long segment on photography in GTA (3) and comics (7).

I’ve been buying less and less comics since I got out of jail but I still can’t help it, all those dudes you went to high school with that could draw like mother fuckers that used to end up in comics . now they all work at pixar or video game companies. The only people left reading and making comics are people like me who grew up reading this shit, never stopped and now are making them all fucked up so only adults can read them. yes!!!

As the quote here indicates, David is full of opinions and kind of a spazz (aren’t we all?). His art is pretty much the same way – hyper but honest. His 1999 comic Slow Jams has always been a favorite of mine, and his paintings are probably fetching some high prices these days. Apparently, he’ll be showing some new work in NYC next week (which he did in while in a Japanese jail, using soy sauce and urine). It’s a long story… details here. Thanks Jed!

Yesterday on my way to meet Dan, I stopped off at the comic shop to pick up some of my favorites (and find some new gems). I got the latest issue of Berlin and Black Hole – only to realize that I was missing an earlier issue in both books! I went back today to pick them up – and Black Hole #11 was out of stock.

Clearly, this thesis is distracting me from the more important things in life! After patiently collecting all 10 preceeding issues (combing the stacks at Lambiek for special prints and the like) – I flaked out one issue from completion! Last Gasp, here I come…

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One of the things I picked up this trip was Holy Moly. It may look boring – but trust me… kapow!

How to explain? I suppose I’d say it’s a scathing critique of “liberation”, and a commentary on the shackles of appreciation. It depicts a fucked up youth culture filled with imbalanced power relationships, emptyheaded “hedonism”, and the stifling influences of apathy, negativity, and praise. In tiny writing, on one page – a small snail asks the viewer: “What if I’m not considered clever?”

In the pages of Holy Moly, Hayes works in ballpoint pen. As you can see from her site, the results are striking. Her style is curvy but tight – with a lot of emotion despite its controlled lines. You can almost *feel* her pressing the lines into the paper. The text is adolescent in tone – but perceptive… a dense code that smolders with rage and disappointment. I would scan in my favorite pair of panels but it’s much better in context. If you drew as a kid, are a comics nut (or both) – this is a must see.

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And speaking of holy moly – I got a lovely box of fuscia orchids in the mail today. Awww – shucks!

During their trip from California, some of the flowers fell off – which made me sad. Then I remembered that you can save these orphans by floating them in a bowl of water (just like at a resturant!). Three cheers for the ingenuity of plants! And especially orchids. Looking at them I cannot help but marvel.

Though honestly, any flower would have produced this lift – this feeling of specialness. Do the world’s karma a favor: give some flowers (or a flowering plant – even better!) to a special person in your life. They really do make a world of diffference.