http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH2wGpEZVgE
Of all the 8-bit greats, Super Mario Bros. has some of the best examples of well used affordances and well designed learning curves, and it does it all without blocks of text or requiring people to actually read the manual.
Level 1-1 or World 1-1? Either way, great video. Go Right.
By themselves, gameplay actions seem fairly meaningless. For example, most first person shooters are essentially just complex three dimensional virtual simulations of the carnival classic: whack-a-mole. We’ve seen it with many different skins and themes: military, zombie, duck hunting, dinosaurs. Something pops up and the player needs to react quickly–strike a moving target before you miss your chance.
Well put. Great piece.
The most surprising (to me) part of Google’s Android TV announcement today was that Sony would be integrating it into their 2015 TV sets. Why in the world would Sony agree to integrate what is obviously a direct competitor to Playstation TV in its own TV sets?
Subsidization? Lack of confidence? A Google play for PlayStation cross-branding? Vice versa?
I don’t think Sony is terribly worried about Android’s role in gaming, especially against Sony’s library of PlayStation back-catalog (though, maybe it should be). At the same time, incorporating other Google services (media and otherwise) will likely serve as a marketing boon for Sony. Nonetheless, it is an odd move.
And if there’s anything I’ve learned by reading the posts of music listeners online for over a decade: they hate when bands make money. I’m only half kidding here, but I can’t think of any other industry where I’ve seen the consumer of a product be downright caustic if the creator is turning even a marginal profit.
Great short read. A small reason for my excitement at Xbox One’s original DRM strategy.
The grievance many Minecraft fans had was simple: although these terms had always been present in Mojang’s Minecraft EULA, they had never been enforced over the three years since the game’s launch. Mojang had always fostered a laissez faire sensibility; it had pushed Minecraft as an open platform, freely customisable by both players and server providers. But now it was tightening the leash. And people were angry.
Never say never. Mojang is in the right. If you are going to build a business under a given set of rules, comply and seek community-fueled change with the first-party for the future. While many will ask for Mojang to target the bad apples, the scale of a piecemeal crackdown would be nigh impossible to complete given the global nature of the greater Minecraft server spread. Their EULA was built with this in mind.
