Life and videogames

The Cloud... Are we there yet?

2011-07-08T04:16:00.000-07:00

I recently watched an episode of the game overthinker and he voiced my sentiments about the cloud pretty well(1). I like the idea of the cloud, but I would not push for a software which is in the cloud. While I am blessed that I am connected to the cloud 24/7, I still can't help but wonder about those who are disconnected. Note that this number is actually huge, we just don't notice it because almost everyone we know is also connected. Take Philippines (I am Filipino, so please don't mind that I am using my country as an example) as an example, there are 5.9 Million internet users, and the population of the Philippines is 91.9 Million. That translates to 6.42% of internet penetration (2,3) . How would the other 93.58% would cope up if people keep pushing for the cloud?

I think the problem lies with the fact that software developers, are really excited with the cloud and thus design more and more things for the cloud, but the price of an internet connection is not going down fast enough, thus forming a huge disconnect. I am only mentioning the cost of being connected. If you factor in security technologies being able to keep up with the cloud, then we can really say that we are not there yet. Remember the PSN hack?

And as the Game Overthinker said, going to the cloud now is like moving into a house without any water or electricity, it will be exciting at first, but as soon as night time falls and you realize you dont have lights, it will get old pretty quickly.

What do you think? Please comment. I would really like to hear other people's views.

References:

1. http://screwattack.com/videos/TGO-Episode-53-Things-Learned-In-The-Dark
2. http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met_y=it_net_user&idim=country:PHL&dl=en&hl=en&q=internet+penetration+in+the+philippines#ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=it_net_user&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:PHL:USA&tdim=true&hl=en&dl=en
3. http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met_y=it_net_user&idim=country:PHL&dl=en&hl=en&q=internet+penetration+in+the+philippines#ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=it_net_user&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:PHL:USA&tdim=true&hl=en&dl=en

Life Lessons I learned from playing videogames

2009-07-06T10:14:00.001-07:00

In honor of Facebook's 25. Here's 25 valuable life lessons I learned from videogames.

1. Its not about the points you earn, but the dedication and hardwork you put in.
2. Sometimes the princess is in another castle (this doesn't necessarily pertain to love).
3. You don't get to save the world if you're apathetic.
4. Its all about pattern recognition,...
5. ...but you still have to watch out for that curve ball.
6. Final is never the end.
7. Timing is probably the most important skill.
8. You will make mistakes the first time, what is important is you try again.
9. You will never progress once you lose your temper.
10. Bad luck occurs, when it does be sure to try again.
11. Luck is a skill.
12. All it takes is an unreliable member to kill off a party.
13. Be humble. There will always be someone better than you.
14. If its too easy, its not worth your time.
15. Save often.
16. Save your money (GP), there might be a better sword at the next town.
17. Never pass up an opportunity to rest.
18. Its not about the size of the sword, its the person using it.
19. Smoking can reveal infrared sensors but it kills you.
20. Love your children, if you don't they might throw you from a cliff.
21. Respect your elders, they might throw you off a volcano.
22. Talk to people, and listen to what they have to say. You never know how much insight they could give.
23. If its too hard you'll get frustrated, if its too easy you'll get bored, but the right balance will be a blast.
24. Purposely go out of your way, you'll have fun leveling up.
25. All your time and effort is wasted if you don't save the world.

Best Marriage Proposal... EVER!

2009-02-15T09:11:00.000-08:00

I'm a geek. I love playing videogames so much that it has become part of my normal life. For instance, in high school, I submitted a research paper on the effect of videogames. I took up computer science thinking that one day I'll be making a videogame. I am now taking my MBA and the trend hasn't changed. I have submitted a marketing paper on Nintendo's Blue Ocean (see blog entry below). I have given a value chain analysis on the videogaming industry. I have written a business plan on creating a Wii channel. And every once in a while, I participate in class using a videogame company and its strategy.

In addition to my love for games, I am a hopeless romantic. For my girlfriend's birthday I made a Wii music video of me and my friends singing, "Every Breath You Take", but this blog entry isn't about me.

It's about the guy who has taken videogaming to a level that I have never imagined. The turning point in his life and he was able to do it with video games. I worship this guy!

Enjoy the video

The unsung heroes of videogames

2009-01-12T11:39:00.000-08:00

How many times have you hummed that Zelda tune? How many times has that Final Fantasy (pick your number) battle theme been stuck in your head? For you hardcores, how many CD's of videogame soundtracks do you own?

How many gamers have you heard buy a game solely for their music (Rock Band, Guitar Hero or all those other music games doesn't count)? After that count the number of times you have heard a gamer said, I bought this because the graphics was so cool. I bet you would get an infinite ratio. Yet try to measure how long you would last playing a game with the music and sound turned off. I bet you wouldn't last 20 mins. Count the number of times that you can imagine Mario without your brain playing that first few notes of level 1-1. I would say never. Music is just as part of the game as graphics and yet it doesn't seem to get recognized as much.

I have a simple analogy for this phenomenon. Imagine a brownie, your favorite brand, then put your favorite ice cream flavor on that brownie. By itself, the brownie has satisfied you, but the ice cream just made it special. That is what music is to videogames. It is the ice cream on your brownie ala mode. It's the egg on your chicken noodle soup. It's what makes a good game outstanding.

I would like to honor all those unsung heroes of the videogames, the music composers, (instrument) players, and everybody that makes the music for videogames. Thank you for making our games special.

Where do you draw the line?

2009-01-10T18:09:00.001-08:00

I have just used my Nintendo DS to cook ginger pork. Surprisingly, it was good. This is the first time I have cooked a new meal by myself. I recently bought (*cough* downloaded *cough*) the Personal Trainer: Cooking for the NDS. My question is, "Is this a videogame?" It loads onto the NDS (a handheld videogame console). However I didn't play with it. I did have fun preparing, cooking and eating the food. What is the line between videogames and non-games?

There has been a growing divide between hardcore and casual gamers. One of the tricks hardcores use is labeling a title a non-game. Brain Age? Non-game! Halo 3? Now that's a game. What's the difference? Sure one of them lets you stab another player, while the other lets you take a stab at a math problem. But the core usage is the same. It is to have fun. Some people do not have fun with math, I should remind you that some people do not have fun stabbing somebody.

Drawing lines usually occur when the market expands. I myself have draw lines. This occurred when the RPG market expanded. At first I distinguished myself as an RPG player. When FF7 came out, RPG became mainstream. I have felt that I lost my special status, so I drew the line between hardcore RPG players and casual RPG players. The line usually was RPG players who loved and played RPG's before FF7 and those who play RPG's because of FF7. What did the line do in reality? It just divided the RPG market into labels, but both of them basically had the same traits. Both enjoyed RPG's. Both enjoyed investing long hours for the story. Some loved level grinding, some don't. Some like random encounters, some don't. It was basically the same group, with one minor difference one group was introduced to RPG's before FF7 and the other group after FF7.

FF7 was certainly not the best RPG (in my book at least), but its effects was so enormous that it left the RPG market better off in ways no other RPG has done. First of, FF7 made it attractive for other companies to venture making an RPG. It also meant that there was profit in bringing an RPG to western shores. Now it wasn't a question of WHETHER it would be translated, but WHEN would it be translated. It has even changed the other genres as well. Now almost every game has RPG elements in it. Why? Because FF7 has taught all these new RPG players how to understand concepts of leveling or equipment or other stuff alike, and have begin to look for these elements on other games. Bottom line, the market expansion brought about by FF7 was the best thing that happened to the market.

Today the videogame market has expanded so fast (thanks to that playing card company), that gamers have lost their special status. Suddenly, it is not as special to play video games because my grandma in the nursing home is playing wii bowling. So their initial reaction, just like me before is to draw the line. Draw the line at which titles are games which are not. Which gamers are hardcore and which are casuals. In the end, however, it will basically be the same group, and the effects of this market expansion will leave the gaming world so much better.

So while the other hardcores are drawing lines which are not really relevant. I'm going to cook my next new meal with my NDS. How does braised beef with vegetables sound?

Drowning in Nintendo’s Blue Ocean

2008-11-21T03:35:00.000-08:00

The Console Wars

E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) 2005, the sixth generation console war was coming to a close with a clear winner. Sony’s PS2 out sold its competitors (Nintendo’s Game cube and Microsoft’s Xbox) almost by 6 units to 1[1]. Whenever a console war ended and a new one began, the newer consoles always had better technical specifications than the older consoles. Companies were now presenting their next generation systems for the upcoming war. Everybody was expecting “bigger and badder” machines after seeing the sixth generation consoles offered. Sony and Microsoft did not disappoint. Nintendo, on the other hand, had mixed reactions at best.

Sony announced the Cell processor to power its PS3 which was clocked at 3.2 GHz[2]. They also equipped the PS3 with a BluRay disk drive. Sony also partnered with N-vidia to help create the graphics card for the PS3[3]. Microsoft by the same token impressed the crowds with its Xenon processor from its Xbox 360 clocked at 3.2 GHz as well[4]. Microsoft also partnered with ATI to create its graphics unit[5]. Microsoft also had plans to have an HD-DVD add-on for its console. Even by looking at the controller (the input device used) of the console said much about the console. The controller of PS3 and Xbox 360 had 1 digital directional pad, 2 analogs sticks 4 face buttons, and 4 shoulder buttons. This controller complexity has been known to turn off new gamers as the learning curve is usually steep. The games available for these two consoles clearly targeted the hard core gamers, with its mature themes and high level of complexity.

Nintendo went a totally different direction. Nintendo’s Wii was only equipped with the Broadway processor clocked at 729 MHz[6]. Instead of using newer optical disk drives it used the existing technology (DVD). People felt that the Wii was more of an upgraded Gamecube instead of a new console. Even the controller of the Wii was far more different than its competitors. It had 1 digital directional pad, 1 huge button and 1 shoulder button, and it was held like a remote control. In addition to this, Nintendo was known to create games targeted towards the younger generation.

Today the Wii is so popular that retailers are literally saying that customers are buying it as soon as we put them on stock. Nintendo has already commented on the shortages that were due to the fact that even at full capacity their plants cannot keep up with the demand. The Wii has sold over 29.62 million units worldwide, while the Xbox 360 has sold 19 million units and PS3 has sold 14 million units[7]. Some analysts have already declared the Wii as the winner of the seventh generation console war. The success of Nintendo was largely attributed to the marketing strategy called the Blue Ocean strategy.

The Colors of the Ocean

The red ocean is the market as we know it. Companies compete with each other for a share of the market. It can be likened armies fighting over a piece of land. As each army establishes his territory there will be less and less land to fight over. By the same token as companies fight over market share and establish their positions, there will be less and less disposable incomes to fight over[8].

The blue ocean, however, is the unknown market space. It is likened to sailing the big blue ocean to find land instead of fighting over the existing land. Just like the pursuit of discovering new land, the rewards and the risks are substantial. The blue ocean is not really a new concept. Known market spaces today were unknown years ago[9].

Blue ocean strategy is essentially, creating new uncontested market spaces. In this space, competition is irrelevant. The company creates and captures new demand. This results in large profits and / or speedy growth[10].

How Nintendo drowned its competition

One can say that Microsoft had chosen to directly compete with Sony. It is not sure who used who as the benchmark, but the fact remains that both consoles ended up with very similar technical specifications. They assumed that faster machines could produce higher quality graphics, and which would result to best selling games. They added more and more features trying to outdo the other which in turn jacked up their costs. Both of them were in fact selling their console at a loss. They were hoping that they would earn the revenue from the games. Microsoft and Sony have clearly chosen to divide the red ocean.

While the industry was expecting for technological innovations for the new consoles, Nintendo used existing technology. The Wii’s controller, called the Wiimote (since it looks like a remote control), may look like it contains a lot of new technologies built in. The accelerometers and gyroscopes in the device have already existed for quite some time (mostly used in planes). The innovation present was the fact that these two was used in games to detect motion and thus provided gamers a different experience. This displayed the first characteristic of the strategy. Blue oceans are seldom created through technological innovations[11]. It is created by innovations with the use of existing technology.

Nintendo understood that people (gamers and non-gamers) played videogames to have fun. They knew that a console was defined by its games (and not its processing power and other technical stuff). They also knew that people rated games based on its fun-factor. For this reason, Nintendo did what they did best. They created fun games to support their console. This showed the second characteristic of the strategy. Blue oceans are created within the red oceans and not beyond[12]. This means it is created by the use of the company’s core competency.

It was clearly visible that Nintendo was not competing with Sony and Microsoft. While they were researching for ways to increase the processor power, Nintendo again used existing technology. While their controllers were becoming more and more complicated, Nintendo simplified things with the Wiimote. This showed the third characteristic of the strategy. Do not use the competitors as benchmarks[13].

Sony and Microsoft were differentiating themselves by putting new technological features on their consoles (BluRay, HD-DVD, etc). This adds to their costs and supposedly adds to the value of the console. Nintendo, on the other hand, is using existing low cost technologies. They are actually getting a gross profit of about $100 for every Wii sold. Despite the fact of using low costs, they have added value to their system. They have forever changed the gaming industry by changing the whole experience of playing a game. This shows the fourth characteristic of the strategy (and probably the most important one). Blue oceans break the value / cost trade-off. Adding value doesn’t necessarily mean adding costs[14].

Creating your own Blue Ocean

Creating blue oceans is all about breaking the rules. The first rule that you have to break is the “value / cost trade off” rule. Additional costs do not necessarily translate to additional value to your customers, and additional value to your customers does not necessarily translate to additional costs. Who says there should be a trade off anyway? The second rule to break is the confines of your market. Do not view the market as defined by others. Create your own market. Not even the sky should be the limit. The next rule to break is “using the competition as the benchmark” rule. You do not have to keep up with your competition. You are on own market now. The competition is irrelevant. What you need to do is to understand your customers and to understand yourself. Ask yourself: What is my core competence? What does my market want? How can I provide my core competence to my market? When answering these questions, you must break the last rule, which is “technological innovation is the key” rule. It is never about technological innovation. Use existing technologies. You will be surprised by the combination of existing technologies seem like giant leaps of innovation.

Blue oceans have always existed. Their discovery was usually accidental. Understanding the blue ocean, and knowing how to create one will almost always drive up your profitability. So let your competitors divide the red ocean. Let them have the bigger slice of the pie. You will be on the blue ocean, eating your whole pie.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Console_wars#Worldwide_sales_figures_5
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(microprocessor)#Console_video_games
[3] http://www.gamespot.com/news/6129001.html?tag=result;title;1
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenon_(processor)
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenos
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii#Technical_specifications
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Console_wars#Worldwide_sales_figures_6
[8] Kim, W. Chan and Mauborgne, Renee. Blue Ocean Strategy. (Harvard Business Review, Oct. 2004) 4
[9] Kim and Mauborgne 3.
[10] Kim and Mauborgne. 1.
[11] Kim and Mauborgne. 4-6.
[12] Kim and Mauborgne. 6.
[13] Kim and Mauborgne. 6.
[14] Kim and Mauborgne. 7.

I'm a hardcore gamer and I'm pissed

2008-11-19T07:36:00.000-08:00

I consider myself a hardcore gamer. I hate it someone claims to be a hardcore gamer, and uses that authority to bash a game without fully understanding it.

I started gaming when i was around 6, and I'm 26 now. In that 20 years I have seen the changing trends of the industry, the winners and losers of each of the console war since 8-bit era. I have played hundreds of games. Maybe even finished 70% of them. But I don't consider this as my credentials for being a hard core gamer.

Being a hardcore gamer isn't about the number of hours that you play, your level in WoW, how many heads you've PWNED, how many head shots you've done, or how many combos you know how to perform. Being a hardcore gamer is about enjoying video games too much that it has become an integral part of your life.

Videogames are so integrated in my life that I have actually made real world decisions because of videogames. When I was in highschool, I wrote my research paper about the effects of videogames. In picking a course for college, I chose BS Computer Science, thinking that I will become a videogame programmer. Recently I made a Wii Music video for my girlfriend for her birthday (which she enjoyed by the way).

This comes to the game I want to discuss, Wii Music. I'm going to say it right now, Wii Music is by far one of the best games I have played (not the best, but one of the best). My criteria for this judgement is two things 1) innovation, and 2) fun factor.

I can hear the screams of the "hard cores" right now, "Innovation?!! That game looks more backward than a PS1 game." Innovation is not about its graphics or sounds. It is about bringing something new. FF7 was innovative, it was new for me to see a final fantasy unfold in a 3d world. Secret of Mana was innovative, it was the first RPG that I could play with my brothers. Super Mario Bros. was innovative. It was the first time I saw a videogame (for some people this would be, this is the first time I saw a person and not just a block as my character). Wii Music? Sure, have you seen any other game that lets you create your own music? Sadly innovation in games have become scarce. Can you remember a game with in the last 2 years that offered something genuinely new?

Wii Music is not a rock band rip off or a guitar hero wannabe, or a poor man's bemani game. Sure it will feel like it at times, the core mechanic is the same, do something at the correct time to produce music, but you will soon realize that you are not bound by this core mechanic. You are free to add notes or remove notes as you desire. In so doing you do something the other rythm game will never let you do. You create your own music. It may sound good, or it may sound horrible, but one thing is for certain, that music was created by you and no one else. This I think is the major difference of Wii Music over other rythm games. Don't get me wrong, I love guitar freaks, guitar hero, drum mania, DDR, and hopefully Rock band when I have enough money to buy the whole set. For me this major difference is what makes Wii Music fun.

Funfactor, this criteria is a subjective as it can be, and I will concede that not everybody will enjoy Wii Music. But truth of the matter is, I am having fun with Wii Music for the following reasons 1) I get to create my own music, 2) I get to understand the different combinations of insturments and its effects on the music (did you know that a flute and a piano sounds beautiful?), most of all 3) I am slowly understanding music and its intricacies. (I recently realized that rests was as powerful as the notes themselves).

My message is simple. Do not bash a game without understanding it. Give the game a chance, if you don't enjoy its core mechanics then maybe its not for you. If it is unplayable for whatever reason, then go, bash the game all you like. As hardcore gamers, we have a responsibility to understand the game, and provide accurate analysis for our fellow gamers.