Monthly Archives: October 2006

Nintendo was an exhibitor at Life@50+, an event sponsored by the American Association of Retired People (AARP). Love it. An

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Posted on October 31, 2006 by David J Edery

Scheduled Bonuses vs. Other Morale Boosters

Posted on October 30, 2006 by David J Edery| 6 Comments

I’m subscribed to a producers’ mail list that recently hosted a discussion about the pros and cons of milestone-related monetary bonuses for employees. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there were a broad variety of opinions. I thought it might be interesting to share some quotes (plus my own thoughts, of course!)

There appeared to be consensus on the long-term ineffectivness of this type of bonus. A number of well-known research studies [example] have had similar conclusions. All the more interesting, then, that this form of compensation remains widely in-use (not just in the video game industry, but many others as well.) Comments from the list:

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Posted in Business (in general), Design / Production

User Registration?

Posted on October 27, 2006 by David J Edery| 5 Comments

Quick note to explain the username/password fields that now appear at the top of this blog. They only serve one purpose at present — to enable you to permanently bypass the gibberish-generator when adding a comment to my posts (and also, to prevent your comments from erroneously being quarantined by my secondary spam filter.) Many of you have complained about the gibberish thing, so I implemented this (rather than capitulate to the spammers… I’m way too stubborn for that.)

Anyway, there’s absolutely no pressure to register; you can keep commenting the old way and that’s perfectly fine with me. And if you do register, I won’t spam you, sell your email address to catalog companies, or anything similarly nefarious. I might ridicule your username (Mr. “MonkeyLuv4u”), but only in private.

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Posted in Personal Stuff

Internet communities (such as YouTube and MySpace) propel Weird Al Yankovic to his first top 10 album in 30 years. This is my new favorite example of the power of online, grassroots buzz. :-) Interesting GoPets Interview. Good quote: “In … Continue reading →

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Posted on October 26, 2006 by David J Edery

The first iteration of the GDC 2007 schedule was just announced, and it looks like I’m on it (twice!) Check it out.  :-) PC Gaming in an Age of Connected Consoles Speaker: David Edery (Worldwide Games Portfolio Planner, Xbox Live … Continue reading →

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Posted on October 25, 2006 by David J Edery

Retro gaming continues its resurgence; Konami’s classics are headed to the Nintendo DS. In Second Life, user-created content is trouncing corporate-created content (popularity-wise). Another set of console sales predictions (this time by IDG). IMO, the picture will be a heck … Continue reading →

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Posted on October 24, 2006 by David J Edery

Joys of Homeownership

Posted on October 23, 2006 by David J Edery| 4 Comments

I really wanted to write another article about games and the wisdom of crowds this weekend. Instead, I spent some time hacking the limbs off overgrown trees in my otherwise spectacular backyard, which I just acquired (along with the house in front of the backyard.) The house is nice, too, but I can’t do anything with it until the floors are ripped up to accommodate my wife’s taste in hardwood, and the walls are painted to obscure the previous owner’s fascination with florescent green and blue stripes. (To be fair, they had kids, which I’m told can trigger natural but horrific lapses in aesthetic judgment. It’s all part of the same biological mechanism that prevents parents from realizing that their children are ugly, singing woefully off-key, and/or kicking the back of my chair during a movie.)

But I digress. My backyard rocks (see the photo below for indisputable proof). My article on the wisdom of crowds, on the other hand, does not rock, because it does not exist, and probably will not exist until I have imposed my will to a sufficient extent upon the hapless vegetation that inhabits my new domain. [Insert maniacal cackle here.]

I am considering the purchase of more power tools. Life is good.

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Posted in Personal Stuff

A perspective on the strength of Chinese local casual game platforms, and the variations in consumer demand. In2Games develops a “more accurate” and “universal” (i.e. USB) motion-sensitive game controller. Very interesting, but probably futile unless a major platform or publisher … Continue reading →

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Posted on October 21, 2006 by David J Edery

Sharing the Wealth

Posted on October 19, 2006 by David J Edery| 2 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, Henry raised a key issue in the global discourse on user-generated content. That issue: should users benefit financially from content they have created with industry-provided tools (or shared via industry-provided distribution systems?) Here’s a good quote from the post:

If consumers are helping to generate the intellectual property and helping to market the product, shouldn’t they receive some economic return on their participation? Lund says no — that this would fundamentally change their relationship to the company…

I made a few comments on Henry’s post which I’d like to echo here. To the point: I think it’s clear that economic returns, while not always the best (or even appropriate) creative incentive, are not inherently contrary to the spirit of user-generated content. In some cases, financial incentives may even grease the wheels of UGC.

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Posted in User-Generated Content

Activision and Valve have agreed to distribute Call of Duty, COD 2, COD United Offensive and Gun via Steam. An interesting vote of confidence in the service. Clint Hocking raves about the Wii’s SDK (specifically, the part that enables designers … Continue reading →

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Posted on October 17, 2006 by David J Edery