08.14.14 |
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Speaking of gaming and diversity, Kotaku’s editor-in-chief wrote a smart piece on the subject recently as well:
The old game-length question stopped perpetually leading to outrage once it had been asked a lot. It only stopped creating blazing headlines once all the true or half-true or false answers had been tried and once we’d all played enough of the games about which it had been asked.
Today, you’ll see the occasional game developer get in trouble with releasing too short a game, but the scandal of game length has mostly settled into the steady-pulsed understanding that some games are long, some games are short, some games are good, some games are bad, not always respectively.
We’re not quite at the same level of understanding of diversity in games, and I wouldn’t expect us to be. The length of a game may involve issues of value and aesthetic quality. Diversity is far more important, and much more complicated. It can affect aesthetics, yes, but it can also affect the people who play games and how we think about the work we’ve expected to entertain or engage us.
Succinctly, Steven argues it’s going to be a messy issue to sort through, but the more we probe on this issue, the stronger gaming will be as an overall industry.
08.13.14 |
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Rowan Kaiser, writing for Indiewire:
The problem faced by woman and minority-starring video games is largely the same as the problem facing traditionally underrepresented groups across all forms of representation: their failures are treated as definitive, and their successes are ignored. Dozens of white man-starring video games have underperformed, but their failures are treated as specific to that game. Every woman-starring game, though, has to bear an unfair burden, just like “Bridesmaids” was treated as a referendum on the very idea of woman-centered ensembles in theaters.
08.12.14 |
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If you love the ultra-fast keyboard launcher Alfred like I do, it’s worth checking out this post to set up your theme to closely mirror the look displayed out of the box in the new OS X Spotlight. I ended up downloading the provided Yosemite theme as is, along with the Blur workflow. My only change was increasing the default text size slightly.
08.11.14 |
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I’ve listened to Dave Rupart for a while on the popular Shop Talk Show and also consider him an innovator in the RWD space with his work at Paravel. I pay attention when he talks about a new direction for design handoffs.
08.08.14 |
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Nathan Rabin, The Dissolve:
It is a testament to how low standards for Seagal movies have fallen, even among his fans, that he gets high marks for the following:
Actually appearing in the film he’s starring in.
Not using a stunt double for walking scenes.
Being on set.
Acting opposite the other actors in the film.
Appearing to do at least some of his own fighting.
Dubbing his own lines.
That might seem like the bare minimum, but Seagal has shimmied under that low, low bar before.
08.07.14 |
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Kill Screen’s Jamin Warren compares the usage of the term “indie” in gaming versus other forms of media. Overall he finds the concept dated and little more than a marketing term at this point. I can’t agree 100 percent; it’s clear that “indie” suffers from overexposure. But there’s a world of difference between the development size of a game like Skyrim compared to a title like Rogue Legacy. The latter, with its tiny budget and development team and independence from big structure, feels absolutely fair to distinguish as “indie”.
A game that falls in the middle – something like Titanfall – by an team of under 100 employees working independently but through a mega-publisher like EA? That’s debatable. But it doesn’t mean the term loses validation entirely.
08.06.14 |
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Game journalist Maddy Myers:
I have no idea how anybody else survives in games journalism. Well, actually, I do know now. It’s that other people just get day jobs. They do what I’ve done. If they’re lucky enough to find one that they can do in addition to journalism without wanting to die all the time. Maybe they just give up and get a full-time job that has nothing to do with journalism at all.
Eventually, if enough people tell you that your work isn’t valuable, you start to believe them. No matter how many high-minded ideals you have about writing having intrinsic value or journalistic ethics or whatever … continuing to hustle while you’re also hungry and depressed is basically impossible. I tried to do it. I failed.
It’s very disheartening reading posts like this. It’s another reminder journalism in almost any entertainment media (film, gaming, tv) is a dying full time occupation, in the process leading to a serious drop in quality and enthusiasm. Just as importantly, it’s a reminder of the amount of harassment and discrimination women often endure in this field, be it as journalists, developers, or even enthusiasts.
08.05.14 |
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CSS Tricks‘ Chris Coyier wrote a nice little post going over some of his favorite Sass mixins. Sass is wonderful and I’d recommend it to anyone, but even for vanilla CSS users, do read his ‘centerer’ code snippet as well. Fairly brilliant way to basically center anything regardless of the outer container size, all with a simple transform property.
08.04.14 |
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Facebook engineer Carlos Bueno, writing a post already heavily passed around tech circles about the Valley/startup insular culture:
The problem is that Silicon Valley has gone completely to the other extreme. We’ve created a make-believe cult of objective meritocracy, a pseudo-scientific mythos to obscure and reinforce the belief that only people who look and talk like us are worth noticing. After making such a show of burning down the bad old rules of business, the new ones we’ve created seem pretty similar.
It’s been over a month since this was published, but Carlos’ post struck a cord with me and is worth revisiting. I suspect it’s going to be one of those posts that I revisit from time to time long from now, especially as I reach more positions to hire and shape the culture of a company.
08.01.14 |
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I’ve documented best practices in the Git version control system for my coworkers often, from meetings to random Google Docs and emails. Yet reading over this post by developer Jean-Philippe Boily, I realize he’s eloquently and succinctly gone through the key principles that matter most. Worth a read for Git newbies.