Bullet Points @ timlongo.com

Well between GDC(thanks to all those who came to my lecture – slides incoming), homeownership (for our first time) and having major DSL issues during the move, I’m finally back up and running on the web in our new home. Sorry for the downtime. I have to share some numbers related to my experience with AT&T (which also happens to be the company my father retired from – so I’ll watch my step…hi Dad!)

• 15 days of downtime.
• 7 members of customer service.
• 2 different companies (Apple and AT&T).
• over 10 hours on the phone.
• ~2 hours of just being on hold.
• A new DSL modem ($50).
• ~4 hours of solo troubleshooting.
• 6 (of the 7) customer service reps gave up.

I wouldn’t even know where to start if I were to try to really add up the money spent on dealing with this issue from both my side of things as well as the companies’ side of things. I can only assume that the above list and numbers can’t really make any good sense when it comes to the amount of time and resources that were used to eventually solve the problem. Something somewhere HAS to be wrong. I’ll point one obvious finger at inefficiencies. Or has the pressure for these companies to keep up with the competition caused them to enter into areas they aren’t ready to fully support but have to try to support anyway to stay competitive? Are things over the phone just too complicated? If so, could all this money be spent on better standards and more streamlined User Interfaces where even someone tech savvy like myself can more easily navigate the world of PPPoE (WTF does that even mean, anyway?!). I shudder to think how these phone conversations would go with my grandmother. And Apple products are supposed to be the best around, but they still have a long way to go. And yet, after all that, even if I wanted the freedom to make my own choice and boycott the company that screwed me, I can’t. I’m stuck between a terrible choice in pricing with Comcast or terrible products and service with AT&T. What kind of free market do we really live in, anyway?

This reminds me of a similar utopian view I’ve always dreamt of where we put all of our time and money and resources we currently devote to the automobile industry and instead plug it all into a massive public transportation network. But god forbid we all give up the privacy of our own cars. However, that is another post altogether.

Apparently I didn’t find my breaking point though, because I continued calling and trying to figure it out despite the pain. Did I not learn a lesson of some kind or is this just what we are left with at the end of the day? I’ll step off my soapbox for now, but as I write this post to you over my new DSL connection I’ll curse the dogmatic and complacent monopolies of the world and go back to my hobbit hole.

Yup, once again long over due, but it is finally time to find some closure with the IGDA Leadership Forum. I was waiting for them to post the slides (which can be found here if you are interested) and videos (not up yet) of the talks but I don’t want to wait any longer so this should be my last post on the topic.

3BR (Three Bullet Review)

• HIT: The size of the event (300 ppl) alone was a huge success. Finally, when I meet someone new, I get to see them more than once and actually sit down and chat with them for awhile (unlike GDC or E3).
• HIT: For a first run there were a few good talks that actually made me sit back and think about how to apply some new ideas to my own studio.
• MISS: Unfortunetly, about half of the talks were not really up to snuff and in some cases it was pretty hard to sit there and listen.

Some technical issues aside I’d say it was a success in general for the first one of these Leadership Forums. I’d say there was at least enough value to warrent another one next year. It was great to have such a tight group of people all thinking about the same focused topics and for the most part all around the same level within the industry (thus with many of the same issues to share).

For my own talk, stress aside, I felt pretty good about it but can never be the judge myself. The feedback seemed pretty positive and I actually got a bit of press on Gamasutra and a Live Blogger covered it at the event itself. I also had a great time moderating (got roped into it at the last minute) and speaking with a set of amazing panelists on the “Production Panel” which took questions from the audience. I signed up to do some live blogging for Jamie’s talk and Tim’s talks.

The three keynotes were very good for different reasons and I recommend watching them once the videos come out. Bioware’s keynotes was interesting on the leadership and buisness side of things while Don Daglow’s was the closest I ever came to actually crying during a game industry lecture (go ahead and give me shit for it Brandon). I wasn’t the only one too. Tim’s was just plain Tim and if nothing else it was humorous.

Jamie Fristrom’s talk as well as his counter-part’s talk from Torpex Games, Bill Dugan, had some great practical perspectives on production and buisness relationships while Mike Capps hit the actual operations side of a studio (using Epic as his example) with great gusto.

I’ll let you do the digging if you want more details. There is plenty of good stuff on the main page for the event. I do hope they organize another one next year as it really does offer something pretty different from the GDC madness.

My first review is up on the Reviews page here!!

It is a theatre review from our trip to Ashland. As I will do for all reviews, the 3BR (or Three Bullet Review) can be found in this post for those not interested in reading the full review. There is much more at the link above though. Hope you enjoy.

If you do have comments on the review, use this post to share them.

The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov
Directed by Libby Appel at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

3BR (Three Bullet Review)

• Great adaptation and focused direction for a “festival” audience.
• Classical technical designs felt authentic and appropriate for the play.
• Though at times a bit too Shakespearean, the performances carried the intentions of the text with ease, keeping in mind the first bullet above.

Time to get some ranting going. I’m done with Mario. A few weeks ago it dawned on me that the little Italian plumber is getting away with murder! Ok, so my admission is that this all really started when I finished ICO and Shadow of the Colossus over about one month. I have posts for both coming someday soon, but count this as a preview because they both drastically changed how I feel about context in games forever (yes a bit melodramatic, I know).

If Mario came out today, despite his sometimes great gameplay, I don’t think anyone would latch on. He has basically been riding his own wave of success from the first few games for years and context be damned, they just throw it all out the window in service to any gameplay justification they want. Yes, the world is supposed to be an cute drug trip of some kind, so any and every character design, level setting or special power fits right in no matter what it is and in any circumstance. So obviously that is a tremendous advantage for any developer. No need to worry about context and fictionalization. But ICO and Shadow were able to deliver much more to me by maintaining a clear vision of all of these aspects throughout both games. Mechanics melded almost perfectly with the fiction and the context of the worlds and the characters and I didn’t need to make that extra leap to ensure I didn’t frown when I saw a plumber wearing a goddamn raccoon suit flying through the air by waggling his ring covered tail. If that shit was tried today with Jax and Daxter or another high profile platformer today we’d hold it against them.

Which brings me to Sly Cooper. I’m not saying that all I can take anymore is an experience like ICO that brings me into a clearly more mature and thought provoking world to get my fulfillment. I lean toward the Sly Coopers of the world now more than ever where the unified art direction and style of the game guides each and every decision being made about the pieces in play. It is still E for everyone, it still allows a Raccoon to do amazing feats of heroism, it still brings me into an obviously unrealistic cartoon world, but it doesn’t make me jump on the heads of walking mushrooms after I’ve dodged a flying turtle by jumping from a pipe that should relate somehow to me being a plumber but instead it is either a home for man eating plants or a secret passage to a room full of coins in the world with no economy.

I just don’t buy it anymore. You aren’t fooling me Mario and maybe it is time you stop fooling everyone else.