Tag Archives: games industry

Fairway Solitaire… and the power of Penny Arcade

July 15, 2008 – 8:56 am

I’ve known about the ‘power of Penny Arcade’ for years now - in fact, I’ve watched it grow. The ‘power’ in case you were wondering, is basically their ability to get a mass of consumers to go after one thing; usually a game. Obviously, that’s a power often wielded to get people to buy their own stuff (and why not) but often it’s used to push people towards products they might not have otherwise heard about.

When it’s aimed towards a web site, often The Power can crush web servers that are unprepared. People used to talk about ‘getting slashdotted’ (ie, getting linked to by Slashdot - or just /. if you’re an ubernerd), and then ‘Boing-Boinged’ but when you get hit by Penny Arcade, you get wanged. (Their term.) Read More »

By Rockjaw | Posted in Gamey, Links of Others, Work-related | Also tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Bartle vs blogosphere and, er, me

June 28, 2008 – 9:21 am

I’ll get back to the grovelling “Sorry I haven’t posted a lot recently, I’ve been busy” stuff in a second, but if I don’t say something about this, it’ll totally leave my head.

You may or may not know that Richard Bartle has been blog topic du jour a lot recently, all stemming from an interview he did with Massively in which he said:

“I’ve already played Warhammer [Online]. It was called World of Warcraft. “

Which apparently, is the Quote That Was Heard Around The World. Assuming your world consists of nothing except reading MMOG-focused blogs and then getting very upset that either:

(a) your new favourite (unreleased) MMOG is being ‘dissed’ or

(b) your old favourite (out right now and doing very well) MMOG is, er, also being ‘dissed’ or

(c) Someone has an opinion on either game.

A few days ago I might have tried to weigh in on the reaction to Richard’s comments, but better people have beaten me to it - read this very good summary by Alec Meer over at Rock Paper Shotgun if you want a good overall view (and read the comments too).

All I really wanted to say is, I’ve met Richard Bartle a couple of times, and very nice he is too.

Now, considering Richard seems to be ‘doing a Derek‘ and appearing at every blog that mentions his name, I should probably qualify even that statement. (And yes Richard, the Derek Smart reference is a joke.) Read More »

By Rockjaw | Posted in Work-related | Also tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Want to write about games?

June 18, 2008 – 11:23 pm

This would be a damn good start.

Videogaming 247 - which exploded out of nowhere earlier this year and has almost effortlessly become my favourite gaming news site, bar none - is looking for writers.

You won’t get paid. You will get edited, but you will be edited by one of the All-Time Great Editors - Pat “I made C&VG cool” Garratt. (And quite frankly? We need more really good editors on gaming news sites, please.)

Most important of all, you’ll get published credits on a Very Good Site that’ll look fantastic on your CV.

If anyone out there reading this wants to get into the games industry or just wants to write about games like an obsessive nutjob (a la Garratt, who’s the kind of obsessive nutjob the industry needs much, much more of) then get your ass over to the site and apply pronto.

If nothing else, head over there to see if you would pass Pat’s 14-question ‘applicant test’ with flying colours or not.

By Rockjaw | Posted in Breaking In, Work-related | Also tagged | Comments (1)

20 most influential people in MMOs, huh?

May 29, 2008 – 5:59 pm

I couldn’t possibly comment on this list from Beckett, who publish a print magazine (how quaint!) called Massive Online Gamer (I assume that’s not a cutting reference to one’s weight). It is apparently, a list of the 20 most influential people in the MMO industry. Like I said, I can’t comment.

But you can.

Discuss…. Read More »

By Rockjaw | Posted in Links of Others, Work-related | Also tagged | Comments (2)

Iron Man and a grand theft of your time

May 5, 2008 – 10:02 am

I found it interesting to read more than a few worried comments last week from movie commentators and analysts that Grand Theft Auto IV might actually affect the box office performance of Iron Man, given that GTA IV came out a few days ahead of Iron Man’s release, and that both of them are ostensibly aimed at the same audience.

With a nice round $100m opening weekend for Marvel’s first self-financed blockbuster, it’s fair to say that those predictions were absolutely bogus, although I never thought for a minute that GTA IV would do Iron Man any damage - and nor did the vice chairman of the studio releasing Iron Man, either:

”It’s crazy to think that young males can’t carve out two hours for Iron Man. It’s going to be a great week to be a young guy.”

Or even, erm, a not-so-young guy; this week has been a riot of new entertainment for me, between queuing for GTA IV outside Woolworths on Tuesday (Yep, there was a queue!) and sitting with my over-excited colleagues during Iron Man’s opening night. The idea that any of us were going to miss Iron Man to sit at home and play GTA IV was insane, even though I’m pretty sure every single one of us who saw the movie that night went home and played GTA IV afterwards. Read More »

By Rockjaw | Posted in Gamey, Work-related | Also tagged , , , , | Comments (4)

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