Most “gamification” achievements I couldn’t care less about (and this is the Dirty Secret of gamification – most consumers don’t care), … but this is one of the few that I do: (and I post this in the full knowledge that it’s possible to game (i.e. cheat) your way to […]
Yearly Archives: 2011
139 posts
IMHO, there are two types of outsourcing in the games industry; one type is much easier for the outsource company to get off the ground, and is therefore much much more common. Two types… Type 1: lowest-hanging fruit Signs: …”we delivered EXACTLY your spec – including the bits we knew […]
…because Apple hates giving customer support, and buried this address deep in their website, in a tiny font where it’s almost impossible to find: contactus.uk@euro.apple.com …and they just screwed-up an order we’d made, but all their emails were sent from fake Apple email addresses (“You have replied to a confirmation-only […]
Apple UK continues to show that they don’t have a clue how to operate a retail operation. We’ve got an app that’s demoing today and tomorrow, and it would help if I had an extra iPhone4 to run it on. So, I try to buy one from the local Apple […]
Here’s an excellent idea: use Kinect to display clothes on people in real-time, inside a fashion retail shop: http://ar-door.com/2011/05/virtualnaya-primerochnaya-dlya-topshop/?lang=en (Scrub to 0:25 – first 30 seconds is moronic marketing-person bumf) This has huge potential: Much much faster than browsing – potential for more positive purchase decisions in less time Less […]
Rebooting again, everything killed thanks to Xcode4, I thought of xkcd’s comic on “compiling”, and a little modification came to mind: Appropriately, working with Xcode3 often suffered from time wasted for the weak compiler to churn through relatively tiny projects. We’ve moved on – Xcode4 has a much better compiler/linker/build […]
(a.k.a.: “how not to advertise on the internet, lesson 101 for Advertising Agencies who have no idea how “advertising” works, or what it exists for”) Tonight, as I tried to show someone a game, it took 12 – twelve! – refreshes of this page before Gamestop would stop replacing a […]
In my experience, most people can grasp one, but not both, these concepts when prototyping a game: “If you fail, there will be dozens more” “failure is ok! That’s what prototyping is for, so go crazy!” Too often, I meet people who go crazy – but only once. It ends […]
I use regexp a lot, very useful, but OS X has weak support for them – Apple’s products rarely support regexp for search/replace. In particular, the latest version of Xcode (Xcode 4) has no support, which is tragic. So … I wrote an app that makes it fast and easy […]
…trip someone over, or … Help them stand? Visiting London, this question comes up a lot. Just now, I was on a train where as we pulled into the station the driver announced that the train on the neighbouring platform was the Express train to same final destination; he encouraged […]
“We are looking for a passionate and experienced individual to help with the design construction and maintenance of a variety of web-based entertainment and social media game service” This being Blitz, the job is of course in Leamington Spa, which rules it out for most people :(. But if you’re […]
…as in: after 5 odd years, on OS X the official uploader still “requires” you to either lose all your data every time it stumbles, or … force-crash it. Which, paradoxically, keeps your data intact. Confused? You should be. e.g. you get 50% through uploading a few hundred photos, and […]
(because sequels always look better in SEO, no?) http://www.achilleseffect.com/2011/03/word-cloud-how-toy-ad-vocabulary-reinforces-gender-stereotypes/ I’ve always wanted to do a “mash-up” of the words used in commercials for so-called boys’ toys. I did a little bit of this in my book, but now, thanks to Wordle, I can present my findings in graphic form. This […]
OS X still has some fragility (or bugs?) in kernel-related code, it would seem. I just had my laptop go to 150% CPU usage … with no apps running. “top” showed that the rogue process was the core kernel process (PID 0) – i.e. only way to stop it is […]
On twitter the other day (but Twitter’s crashing at the moment, so I can’t find the original author). Coincidentally, came up in a private games-industry forum today too, where someone was actually trying to argue it’s a *good thing* that their employer pays below-standard wages for all engineering staff. WTF? […]
Why is it that these days every time a London-based “digital agency” or “mobile agency” gets hold of your email address, they IMMEDIATELY sign you up to their spam mailing list? Even some outside London have started doing this too. YuzaMobile is the most recent example – why do it? […]
If you’re working in web/games/etc, please fill out the short survey on salary, contractor rates, project size, etc Once the survey is closed, the writeup will appear here – feel free to bookmark this page! Until this, this is a HOLDING PAGE POST to workaround a design flaw (and some […]
Did that get your attention? In the last day or so, I’ve seen a barrage of crap on this topic – much of it ACTIVELY destructive (it’ll make your iPhone apps less successful than if you didn’t do it!). I’m not going to hotlink most of them – they don’t […]
And for another useful and not-at-all ridiculous comparison, we have a new studio called People Pilot: Each project team at People Pilot will be comprised of contractors: “It works well for audio, so I’m betting it will work for art and technology too,” says founder Roland Peddie. EDIT: I just […]
Short story: if you try to do *any* iPhone development with a 1st/2nd/3rd gen Pro or Air right now, you may screw-up your laptop – massive overheating. I did. My Air is now almost unusable – thanks, Apple! Apple is currently: Forcing all iOS developers to use Xcode 4, even […]