We’re a few weeks past the Google I/O talks, but Google has since posted all of their developer conference talks on Youtube. The full schedule is easy to navigate.
It’s not just for hard core Chrome and Android developers either; there’s a lot of what appear to be solid talks that I’ll check out this week: using new HTML5 elements, tools and frameworks for speedy web development, cross device web design, and advanced design for engineers.
Really interesting account from The Verge of how the two founders of Sierra’s adventure classic Space Quest series spent their careers. It’s a must read for any gamer like me who spent a lot of time on their computer in the early 90s blasting through a lot of Sierra games.
UX designer Juraj Ivan takes a look at what’s new for visuals with iOS 6. Not too happy with some of what’s coming, especially the “new” linen and more forecefully colored navigation bar.
Rob Fahey, Gamesindustry International:
Zynga is no different – but it thought it was, and some investors believed it. Zynga is a games company. It’s important for it to keep its back catalogue healthy and thriving, but ultimately, if it wants to grow, it has to generate hits. Farmville is back catalogue – a comfortable set of laurels to rest on, and nothing other. Zynga, like any other media company, is only as good as its last release, and only as bankable as the strength of its forward release schedule. There is a sense that the company and its investors thought that the social graph and F2P business could change that reality, but they were utterly deluded in this.
I wouldn’t be too saddened about these guys taking a fall.
Over the weekend I added a major update to Bare Tumblr, a simple, stripped down template for creating new Tumblr themes. It’s got the HTML 5 Boilerplate at its core, in addition to calls to Modernizr and built in sections for media queries.
This latest update bumps the HTML and CSS to version 3 of the HTML 5 Boilerplate, in addition to a bunch of small semantic fixes on the HTML side. If you dig building Tumblr sites or themes and want a solid vanilla place to start, check out the code on Github.
I’ve recently been diving into Steam games on the latest Humble Indie Bundle. But early on I had a big problem with control input via the standard Mac keyboard. Especially in games that rely on quick, arcade-like movements (e.g. Super Meat Boy), the keyboard isn’t precise enough and ill equipped to handle the bangs and keypresses of an average gaming run.
Enter the Mac app Joystick Mapper. For $5 on the Mac App Store I plugged in a PS3 Dualshock 3 controller via USB, mapped several buttons and directions to some keyboard and mouse commands, and I was ready to go. It makes a huge difference. Highly recommended.
Staff over at The A.V. Club discuss the plot devices and mistakes that take you out of a film’s story. I chuckled at this choice by Marah Eakin:
Mine’s super-petty, but here it is: I hate when a character drinks from or carelessly wields a clearly empty “hot” coffee cup in a movie or TV show. Most people would just be a little annoyed by this, but it makes me question the whole production. Couldn’t they bother to put some water in those cups? And if they aren’t paying attention to even middling details like that, then what else did they ignore? Are the characters developed? Are the sets how they should be? Did they edit the whole thing together well?
Been enjoying this long-form feature over at Polygon giving perspective on where gaming is heading. It’s subdivided by major focus, with one major piece released each day this week. So far I’ve read about AAA games, indies, mobile, and how the demographic of gamers has changed.
It’s long, but if you have to cut down what you’re after, start with Russ Pitts’ piece on the AAA side of the industry. It’s scary breaking down Activision and Ubisoft’s numbers.
Tim Grierson, writing for The A.V. Club:
Now he’s back with “Magic Mike,” which I think is a revelation in how it shows McConaughey playing with his persona and twisting it…buff and tan, McConaughey’s Dallas isn’t as young as his boy-toy dancers, and you can feel that conflict inside this aging man-child, who isn’t quite ready to admit that his time in the spotlight is fading. Like McConaughey’s characters in “Lincoln Lawyer” and “Bernie,” Dallas wants the attention, and in all three performances there’s a poignancy to that desire because none of them can see how faintly ridiculous their lives are.
Seriously, McConaughey was the best part of Magic Mike. He kept the film grounded and it was a blast seeing him jump into his part so readily. Hopefully, as author Grierson surmises, McConaughey will continue to evolve and take bigger risks.
I love Blu-rays. They’ve got great visual quality and serve as a counterpoint to the high prices, loud audiences and endless ads at mainstream theaters. But Blu-rays are dying in the rental market with à la carte streaming taking its place, a more limited and often inferior substitute.
I’m aware that a defense of any disc media can appear shortsighted as tech shifts to mobile and the cloud. Streams clearly have several big advantages, most notably their convenience. But for the cinephile in me, Blu-rays for now are an unparalleled experience. There’s fewer artifacts or compression and no visual stutter from a bump in your internet connection. Almost every Blu-ray soundtrack delivers 5.1 surround. Also Blu-ray color depth and saturation trounces the content I stream from Amazon and iTunes.
Yet Blu-rays feel virtually inaccessible for rental. Netflix queue times are laughably bad; I’m averaging about two months from the time a new release movie is available for download or Blu-ray purchase, and when I get it from Netflix. I live in New York, a worldwide film hub, yet most local video options are long gone. Nearby self-service boxes from Blockbuster and Redbox have little selection.
This no-win situation is probably exactly what studios want: pony up $20 or more for an outright Blu-ray buy or suffer inferior quality (and no special features) at $5 for a 24-hour download rental. We deserve better.
Unfortunately, there’s no signs of the trend changing course. The studios set the rules. Distribution patterns for physical media take forever to change. If anything I’d expect more unskippable trailers and less content on rental Blu-rays to make the situation even worse.
So Blu-ray as a rental format appears dead, but movie streams and downloads don’t have to suffer the same fate. Hollywood has the chance to prevent a lot of problems (while cutting piracy) with a few changes in its download and streaming content:
Provide higher end streaming options that offer less compression and more special feature tie-ins. When I have to play a guessing game or run Google searches to find out if your “1080p HD” version is butchered by artifacts or other shortcuts, I’m out the door. Even at a slightly higher cost, I’d happily pay a $1 or $2 premium for an enhanced stream.
All films get 5.1 surround where available. It’s true if you listen from your laptop or mobile device, this doesn’t change much. But home theater packages have bumped up their quality in recent years at lower price points. Surround tracks can make a huge difference, and not just with blockbuster action films (e.g. the atmospheric surround touches in “Mulholland Drive” are pretty masterful.)
Cut the price of HD back catalog titles by at least $1 or $2. Why is the classic comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles only a buck less than a new release on iTunes? I know the “one simple price” mantra is popular for Blockbuster and the iTunes music store. But this is a very different market; a movie rental stream is a watch once, low investment impulse buy (just look at the popularity of Netflix’s instant streaming.) Tap into that by keeping the back catalog priced low.
Online delivery is clearly film’s future. Yet that medium, much like we’ve seen with music, has the ability to disrupt the Hollywood studio system. It won’t kill it, because they still hold most of the content (i.e. why the same few studios have ruled films for decades.) This, combined with growing frustration by consumers on increasing content restrictions along with pirated torrents being easier to access, can significantly harm Hollywood. If the studios don’t adapt and change, the market will force them to.