Memorial weekend has slipped by. My folks were visiting from out of town. They asked the usual questions about what I do, and only time will tell if my answers were more satisfying than usual. (I’m think that analogies to retail businesses help.)

We did not play video games.

Given my occupation, why is that the case? Because I don’t currently own any video games that would do a better job of bringing us together (and creating time/space to chat) than old-fashioned, non-digital Scrabble or Blokus. So we played Blokus.

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• Via C3, word that MSNBC has launched Newsbreaker — basically Breakout but with news headlines that appear when you destroy bricks. Initial gut reaction: seems like a gimmick of the less fruitful kind; comprehension of the news has too little to do with the gameplay to make a real impact on the player. But perhaps that’s unfair of me… Newsbreaker has some charm. I’d be curious to see usage stats (and clickthrough stats for the news.)
• Skype launches a casual gaming portal. I wouldn’t underestimate it (before seeing how well they execute.)
• Ubisoft increases its emphasis on casual games, and announces My Life Coach, a DS game that will offer “a personal coach that gives anybody concerned about their well-being the willpower they need to change their habits.”
• Starcraft 2 is coming. You’ve already heard, but I’m mentioning it anyway. Somehow, it would feel wrong not to.
• Via Raph, news that BarbieGirls.com registered half a million users in a few months. Yet another place to buy virtual furniture, clothes, and pets with winnings from simple games.
• Schools in Kyoto test DS English training software on students, with favorable results (i.e. a material improvement in vocabulary.)

Yesterday, the XBLA team posted on Microsoft’s Gamerscore blog for the first time. Our purpose: to ask the community what it wants (games, service features, etc.)

I’ve read about 500 comments, and I’m nowhere near the end of the list. :-)

The feedback is telling. If you’re very interested in XBLA, check it out. Of course, bear in mind that people commenting on Gamerscore are (generally) pretty hardcore. Nevertheless, their opinions definitely matter — they usually buy a lot of games and they generate plenty of buzz for us.

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• The Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab is hiring postdocs and game development staff. Postdocs will be required to fulfill a combination of teaching, management, research and publishing roles. Applicants for staff positions should have at least three years of industry experience as a lead programmer, artist, or designer.
• Via Kim, Street Fighter meets Judeo-Christian biblical figures in Bible Fight on Adultswim.com.
• Jane McGonigal’s World Without Oil ARG launched last week. It is billed as an attempt to explore “what happens when a great economy built entirely on cheap oil begins to run short.”
• Two weeks ago, GameTap announced that it will offer free-to-play games supported by advertising revenue. All the free games I saw listed were non-casual; i.e. arcade retro and titles like Tomb Raider. I wonder if GameTap is doing this primarily in hopes of subsequently upselling the subscription service to free service users? Works for Pogo.
• Interesting survey of (mostly newer) Second Life users. What caught my eye: “Nearly a quarter play as another gender, and as another race, and as a different nationality, while 11% have an avatar of a different political orientation.”
• Via Ben, I’ve discovered SimExchange, a free prediction market that encourages visitors to come together and predict the sales of video games. You can also submit articles, images, and videos for listed games. I love it, but I should add that it’s unclear whether there’s sufficient motivation for users to make meaningful predictions (i.e. they aren’t betting their own real money, which is generally the best motivator.) SimExchange is instead encouraging a playfully-competitive atmosphere, which certainly could help. I suppose we’ll know soon enough!
• The Behemoth, developer of Alien Hominid HD, has a neat marketing idea; they’ve created some great-looking trophies that they’re awarding to leaderboard winners on Xbox Live Arcade! Wish I was good enough to actually earn one.
• One Laptop per Child has announced the first OLPC Game Jam on June 8-10. The three-day event will be hosted by Olin College in Needham, Mass. One hundred game developers, educators, authors, musicians, artists, and writers from across the United States will work round-the-clock to create open source games for education in the span of a weekend.

I have an idea for a web 2.0 game (mmMMMmmm…. buzz words.) It came to me while I was struggling with writer’s block.

“Group storytelling” has been around for a while. The basic idea is: one person starts telling a story, then the next person continues the story in whatever manner they please, with or without regard for the intentions of the first storyteller. I remember telling chain stories in elementary school, and I remember participating in chain stories on message boards (back in the days of modems and BBSs.)

So, imagine Digg.com meets group storytelling. People submit the beginnings of stories. The community votes on the winner. Then people submit subsequent portions of the story, and the community votes on those. Mix, pour, repeat, until the story ends.

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