 |
|
 |
 |
It has been many years since I was in school, and even when I was in school I mostly just doodled, cracked jokes, and dreamed up creative ways to cut class and go play Bubble Bobble.
So when I realized that I needed to start getting certifications to prove to the world, and especially our clients, that I actually knew stuff... Well, the prospect was pretty damn scary. Still, last December I bought a book and settled down to studying for my Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Developer exam. It was a bleak day when I walked out of that first exam with the realization that one book and a positive attitude just wouldn't cut it. What I needed was more practical experience with Flash.
So I started digging through flash and trying to make use of everything I could, I opened up everyone else's source I could find and started answering questions in forums... Especially the questions I didn;t know the answers to. That was the best study tool of all. Open up the forums over at FlashKit, GotoAndPlay, or Actionscript.org and then start reading the questions that other people have posted. If you don't know the answer to the question, spend some time figuring it out. Even if you don't eventually hit upon the answer, it's still good practice.
Well, after all that I finally got the balls to go back and re-take the exam today. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the class clown is now a certified Macromedia professional.
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
"And the LORD plagued the people, because they made the calf, which Aaron made."
- Exodus 32:35
I know, I know... Two posts in a day. Still, I couldn't help myself. Although I'm not a religious man by nature, recent developments have gotten me thinking about the wrath of God. Assuming that God exists, which is possible, then as our online worlds get more and more complex are we risking His wrath? While yesterday I might have said no, today is a brand new day.
I submit into evidence the recent plague that has seethed into existence in the World of Warcraft. Basically, to sum it up, the developers at Blizzard created a monster who could infect players with a spell that would drain their lives. The spell could spread from player to player, wiping out a party in a very short span of time. It was assumed that the players would either kill the monster and recover, or they would die in that lonely dungeon. They assumed wrong. People started popping up in town infected with an affliction known as "Corrupted Blood". Soon even the non-player characters in town were infected. Players fled the cities, hoping to escape the dawn of this red plague. The game masters tried to quarantine the infected areas to no avail.
If you want, there is some media associated with this story over at Bit-Tech. But it does raise the question, if there is a God, how does he feel about us creating entire universes of our own, populated with pixellated people who worship false idols.
Hell, even if you set God aside in this issue there is still the question of whether online worlds are evolving into viable digital ecosystems. If we start giving digital creatures the ability to reproduce, and the desire to stay alive, how long before they start adapting on their own? I know that it seems like a long way off, but then again, a plague tearing apart virtual citizens without it being planned by its developers seemed pretty far off yesterday...
|
|
|
|
|
|
With the launch of the new generation of consoles just around the corner I have been wondering a lot about where the next generation of titles will take us. As is so often the case, the screenshots that are being released are amazing, fantastic, and utterly mundane, all at the same time. Today I saw a couple of the screenshots for Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter over at Matt Sarrel's site, and it looks beautiful, but after several decades of gaming, I have come to expect huge graphic leaps. Even though I appreciate that the next generation of consoles are going to probably blow me away, I'm starting to wonder which of the console makers is going to wise up first and realize that there is a huge untapped market that costs them very little and allows for huge potential revenue.
The market I'm talking about it the casual games market. Right now a lot of people are making good money in casual games, and the number of talented developers grows daily. In fact, I highly recommend you read the article "Casual Fortunes" over at Escapist Magazine, it really sheds new light on the booming casual games market.
Instead of spending money to find ways to encourage and nurture this market, all of the big three seem to be intent on squashing it. Take for example the recent release of the 2.0 upgrade for the PSP. This upgrade introduced some great new features such as a web browser, the ability to share photos, custom backgrounds, and the like. It also completely reworked the security so that no homebrew titles would work on the system. Now, I fully understand that the primary reason for this is that they don't want you playing Bionic Commando on your PSP, or any other emulated game for that matter, but the fact still remains that the security update killed the good with the bad. It seems to me that if Sony could work out a system by which casual games could be delivered to your PSP it wouldn't cut into the sales of the big titles at all. I can honestly say that while I will research a game purchase in the $70 range, I won't think twice about dropping $10 or $15 on a game that I barely know anything about.
If I were Sony I'd be looking at making a version of the Macromedia Flash player that ran like a dream on the PSP. I'd then create a games portal like MiniClip and pay budding young developers peanuts for their games while rolling around in fat sacks of ill-gotten loot. Oh, and also, if I were Sony, I'd buy myself a monkey and then hire someone to clean up after it. Lets face it, while I'm being Sony I should do something for me.
Okay, I got a little off track there. Basically "peanuts" for a game is still big money for an independent developer. For example, if I take 50% of the revenue from an Indie game, and it sells 20,000 copies at $10 a piece, I'm still making a hundred thousand dollars for me, Sony, and the developer gets the same fat paycheque for a game that may only have taken two months to develop. Hell, with PayPal supporting micropayments now, you could sell the whole game for $2 and you'd probably get 100,000 out there in no time. You'd make the exact same money, but more people would get to enjoy your game, and isn't that what it's really all about? Ummmm, isn't it?
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
 |
