The Bloj

Facebook TOS

Posted on November 26th, 2007 by Chris.
Categories: Business/The Software Industry, Chris, TOS Collection, UI Design.

http://www.facebook.com/terms.php

There are 6000 words and 70+ paragraphs. How many Facebook users do you think actually know the legal terms they accept when they join the site?

Quote:

PLEASE READ THESE TERMS OF USE CAREFULLY AS THEY CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS, REMEDIES AND OBLIGATIONS. THESE INCLUDE VARIOUS LIMITATIONS AND EXCLUSIONS, AND A DISPUTE RESOLUTION CLAUSE THAT GOVERNS HOW DISPUTES WILL BE RESOLVED.

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My new RPG

Posted on November 22nd, 2007 by Chris.
Categories: Chris, Games, Programming.

 I wrote this a while ago, posted without revision. I think I would change it now, so you’re still a programmer, but you have a sword and stuff.

For fun, I’m creating a role playing game. But in this game, you won’t be a sword fighter. You’ll be a programmer.

Working for a company making a role playing game.

Basically you’ll get to play a number of classes: sales, marketing, product management, engineer. With each, you’ll be able to upgrade the same skills, but some of them will go up quicker than others. (Though it’s true that in Morrowind, this sort of excessive flexibility was criticized for not giving a player a good focus, I’ll make sure that your role is more dictated by your job than your skills).

The first criticism you might have–this is total garbage. Why would you play a game that doesn’t involve killing anyone? I think I can provide an appropriate response in the form of this. Everquest also has crafting, where you put together items to produce a greater whole. We’ll expand on this concept.

The difficulty will be how to make this a challenge like in real life. I think this is a matter of pitting people against each other or together with each other, so we can leverage human AI instead of coding our own, first of all. Then we have to make the RPG a useful creative experience. One thing that we might do is have competing organizations, and a customer base. Basically, you’ll have customers if you have good sales, but you’ll have to work together with good engineers, because engineers can produce useful gadgets. Oh, and you won’t be able to do it all; upgrading some skills will push the others down automatically.

Anyways, the prototype will be based on the following:

• Sales: You need to be able to sell things well, which may not involve being realistic. It also involves being a good communicator, and finding contacts.
• Product Management: You need to be able to manage timelines and put things together. This involves being organized, and being able to empathize with two groups. The more you empathize with engineering the faster and better things may get produced, but the more you empathize with the customer the more likely they’ll be to approve of the product.
• Engineering: Basically, the better you are the better you are. I think Gas will know more about this.
• Testing

OK, so my new game is gonna be about music.

1 comment.

An idea is not an egg

Posted on November 21st, 2007 by Chris.
Categories: Business/The Software Industry, Chris, General/Misc., Ideas, Liu's Reviews, Product Design.

An Idea is Not an Egg: You Don’t Just Sit On it Until it Hatches

A smart idea sounds great when it’s in your head. Even before it’s made, we can imagine how great it will be–there would be no iPod, no PC, and no Super Mario Bros. without imagination.

But just because you can already see the finished idea, don’t think that the steps in between “smart idea” and “transformed future” are insignificant. They eat most smart ideas before they hatch.

The next time you hear that someone “stole” someone else’s idea, look at the in between first, and ask: how much of that–the business strategy, the way the product was built–was really stolen?

(more…)

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Why I like the Nintendo Revolution

Posted on November 20th, 2007 by Tim.
Categories: Games, General/Misc., Tim.

This is something I wrote a long time ago (December 19th, 2005) and never hit the “publish” button.

Everyone is excited about the newest generation of consoles. Microsoft is going all out with XBox 360, and Playstation 3 will doubtless be amazing. The underdog, in this generation of consoles, will be the Nintendo Revolution. Or will it?

XBox 360 costs $399 (The core system doesnt exist, so dont talk to me about that). Rumor has it that PS3 will cost upwards of $499 (Although I think a price point of $399 will make it much more competitive with XBox). And how much does the Revolution cost? Probably around $150. It’s no secret that Nintendo doesn’t want to compete with Sony or Microsoft. Who can blame them? Nintendo follows no one’s rules but their own. Nintendo is not getting sucked into the console arm’s race for the most spectacular graphics. It’s fairly likely that the Nintendo Revolution will have graphics only marginally better than the original XBox.

I still put my money on Nintendo. In fact, I don’t know for sure whether PS3 will win over 360, or vice versa, but I do know that Nintendo Revolution will do just fine, regardless of what happens to the other consoles.

Nintendo has always been an innovator. This has been the key to their success, and has also been the cause of many laughable failures. They have a philsophy that seems to be willing to try anything. Products such as Virtual Boy, Nintendo DS

I can’t decide if I was psychic, good at picking up industry activity, or if this was obvious. To this day, it’s hard to find a Wii because every console is sold out.

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