Given my work at MIT on Cyclescore (a platform that fused original games with stationary cycling), you can imagine my excitement over Wii Fit. The Wii + Brain Age-style game design seems like a match made in heaven. Having now played Wii Fit, I think I can say with confidence that it absolutely will be a match made in heaven someday soon. Probably v2, but not quite v1. I’m sure I’ll have more to say after using Wii Fit for a month, but here are my first impressions:

The good

A virtual exercise group: in some exercises, there are several Mii avatars around you, participating in the routine. If you’ve created Miis for your friends and family, it will be those Miis exercising around you. I don’t know how long the effect will last, but in my first experience with Wii Fit, I really enjoyed seeing that!

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I just landed in Sweden for the Nordic Game Conference and I’m trying to stay awake for several more hours in order to get my body accustomed to the time difference. So I apologize if this reads incoherently; I’m truly half-asleep right now…

While on the plane here, I finally finished reading Dan Ariely’s new book, Predictably Irrational. Dan was one of my professors at MIT and is an all-around great guy. His book does a wonderful job of explaining how human beings are consistently irrational in many situations (such as when we make purchase decisions), and more importantly, it explores the implications of this irrationality for individuals, businesses, governments, and society at large. I don’t recommend books very often, but this is one that everybody should read. It is business book, self-help guide, and profound social commentary all in one tidy package.

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Ten months and countless hours later, I’ve finished my book. There are still a round (or two?) of edits to be made, but the bulk of the writing is finished. It’ll be in stores in October. I’m looking forward to when I’ll be able to post an Amazon URL here. :-)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I still can’t seem to summon the energy to write a long and thoughtful blog post about, well, anything right now. All I really want to do is work in my garden and hang out with long-neglected friends and family. However, this experience has taught me a few things which I think are relevant to Arcade games (not just books) and which I’d like to share while the memories are still fresh:

From what I’ve gathered, less than 1% of published books turn out to be hits. The odds for a first-time author (who isn’t a big name, like Bill Clinton or Alan Greenspan) are so incredibly low that even if your publisher loves your book, your marketing/sales forecast is unlikely to exceed 20k copies at best. At that level, it simply doesn’t make sense for the publisher to do much in the way of marketing until the book has already proven itself. Even though the Arcade console game space isn’t nearly that tough, there are parallels. After all, because of the economics of the Arcade space today, most publishers aren’t willing to spend more than $100k on marketing their games (and usually far less than that.)

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