Game Developer and Skeptic

This gamasutra opinion article summarizes my wariness of Zynga games (Farmville) and why I don’t play them.  They surely make money, but it comes at a cost that I wouldn’t pay myself when it comes to game development.

My holiday season was spent mostly with my parents and other relatives.  At the start of my vacation a snow storm hit Maryland with about 20+ inches of snow and caused some cancellations/delays of flights at BWI.  Thankfully my flight was scheduled the day after the storm so my flight was able to arrive on time.  I’m not particularly interested nor harbor any ill towards snow but my sister was unable to see the stuff last year and was generally happy about it.  The night of the 25th a good long rain managed to wipe nearly all evidence of the stuff the next morning.  Later on my family found out that my sister wished for a white christmas so we concluded that we will all blame her from now on for the lake in the front yard.

Christmas:

Day After:

Click here to see more images.

A recent Gamasutra article left me wondering what Sony is actually thinking when it comes to their light up sex toy motion controller.  A few weeks ago I got a PS3 Slim so I’m all for anything Sony can do to bring more sales to the platform and in turn more games but this looks like they are just crossing the line into dumb-dumb teritory.  I can somewhat see the reason to make the distinction if they are allowing developers to make software for the device but it still won’t do anything by itself; it needs the PS3 to function.  This is like calling a donkey a cow just because you can milk it.  I’m sorry Sony, you can paint a bunch of black spots on your donkey and call it a cow all you want but to me your cow still looks like a donkey.

I am thrilled that developers and publishers have decided to more evenly distribute their release schedule over this year by releasing several titles during the summer months.  Maybe it’s from economic pressures but this is a much welcome change.  Having to save several hundred dollars to get all the games I want in addition to the money needed to provide presents for my friends and family just because everyone release their hyped game all at the same time was not a pleasant scenario.   Not to mention that such a scenario is not conductive to sales as many could only afford one out of the group.

Anyway, the next interesting release (at least interesting to me) is Batman: Arkham Asylum.  Unfortunately I don’t have a Playstation 3 so I’ll miss out on the fun playing as Joker.

The past two months have been really busy for me, but now at least one of the tasks I set myself to has been completed. I have finally published a website detailing my works.  I would of completed the site first before starting this blog even if it wasn’t for the fact that blogs are so easy to setup. I finished enough content earlier today yesterday (it’s past midnight where I am) to suit my needs for now yet the site still needs some more work, especially the banner. Unfortunately all this work on the site has made me too tired to discuss the industry for the moment so just visit my site until my next post.