Gamecraft

A little bit of History, Introduction

2008-07-07T08:40:00.004-04:00

All things considered, I guess a lost week is none too significant.

Going to a new accountant, we have recently (up to the present) been going through seven and a half years of corporate paperwork, which reminds us of how long that has been and how much has happened during that time. That extends back to when our association with Goodsol Development involved piecemeal artwork and no programming, and the word "terrorism" was not uttered in every news broadcast.

Thinking back, though, it is somewhat surprising to realize that this company had so many years of history before 2001, with so many projects and stories having already occurred by that time. My personal programming history goes back 30 years (later this year). The history of my company reaches back more than 26 years, and we have been full time for 13.5 years. The corporation itself has been around since March 1996, and we have outlasted almost every employer I previously had, not to mention the vast majority of companies in the game industry.

This has been my full-time employment since I resigned from Spectrum HoloByte in December 1994, which was over 700 weeks ago, so a "lost" week here or there, representing less than 0.15% of this time, is probably not a disaster.

As we all (should) know, though, one cannot make up for a slipped schedule solely by working harder, especially when a deadline has already passed, so we realistically redefine our schedule and continue to work intelligently and diligently.

Next: Part I: The Founding...

The Week that Wasn't

2008-07-01T13:00:00.002-04:00

Good Riddance to the past 7 days.

Have you ever had one of those days where you seem to be going in several directions, always doing something, but then at the end of the day find yourself unable to pinpoint what you actually accomplished? Have you ever had it extended to a full week? Well, now I have.

This was supposed to be a very productive week, with most of the family out of town, but what started out promising resulted in a whole bunch of... I am not really sure.

Perhaps it was the spam. I received more than 21000 spam messages in only 10 hours. (I stopped tracking it after that point.)

Perhaps it was the slipping deadline. I have been feeling an unhealthy amount of stress lately, which is not exactly conducive to productivity.

Perhaps it was the partially fallen tree. We finally had all the dangerous parts removed, but there is a reason that the sounds of chainsaws and heavy machinery (just outside the office window) are not featured on relaxation tapes.

Perhaps it was the uncertainty. Several things in which I am involved (often peripherally) have had crises arise (some real, and some manufactured), including one that is affecting several thousand of my dollars.

Perhaps it was the damn telephone. Every professional person (lawyer, accountant, etc.) we have had contact with in the last few months, and then some, chose last week to telephone. Throw in five more important calls, some technical support for extended family, and a healthy dose of telemarketers, and I am ready to throw out these phones.

Perhaps it was the lack of my usual support "staff". The post office box did not empty itself, and the bank failed to anticipate and handle my financial needs alone. Meals required effort on my part.

Perhaps it was my commitment to quality. It seemed like every time I had something almost completed, there was a niggling little issue that required a minor change, and another, and then another... I cannot abide shoddy code. Of course, this is one thing I do not intend to change.

Whatever it was (probably a combination of everything above and more), last week was a wash. I am drawing a thick vertical line right here after the month of June. From this point, I simply move forward.

One crisis at a time...

Summertime...

2008-06-22T01:28:00.003-04:00

... and the doing is busy...

As of last Friday, at about 7:59pm local time, we have either started summer or, as I prefer to view things, moved into the second half of summer. In any case, we have entered into a period where business, and life in general, tends to be a little slower.

If only.

Although I would dearly love to take some much needed time away, our projects are just coming to fruition during the next month or so, leaving precious little time for relaxation. It is getting fairly exciting around here, not only due to products taking shape, and the introduction of new development platforms, but because of the extracurriculars of the seasons.

At our "Delton office", Winter took out not one, but both toilets, and the plumbing underneath the kitchen sink. Spring saw the demise of the front steps (which makes moving new ceramic fixtures rather interesting). [The high scrap metal prices also led to the disappearance of my ice racing car around the same time.]

The first part of summer saw fit to drop a huge tree limb outside the back steps at the main office, after being redirected through contact with the roof above my head. This lead to "emergency" removal of the larger, cracked limb that threatened the desk at which I currently sit. [Because of all the storm damage in our area, this actually took nearly two weeks to start, and we still have to wait another week for the rest of the (now unbalanced) tree to be dismantled.]

Nevertheless, despite the distractions, morale and development progress are quite good here. We officially doubled our staff to get some part time and piecemeal help for advancing a project that has been planned/stalled here for many years. We hope to launch a new web site on August 1st.

Before then, however, there is another project for Goodsol Development that should be announced fairly soon as we prepare to begin beta testing. This will be our first launch of a product on both Windows and Mac platforms in rapid succession. (In truth, it could be a simultaneous release, but because of the marketing required to accompany each SKU, one will probably proceed the other a bit.)

Three and a half platforms are in action at once. We are doing some PHP/MySQL development, C++ (native) development for Windows, C++/Carbon development for Mac OS X, plus a minuscule amount of using XNA Game Studio 2.0 (Windows and Xbox 360) when I can find a spare minute.

The fish may be jumpin', but I wouldn't know...

Jack Thompson on the Express Train to Disbarment

2008-06-07T18:42:00.003-04:00

Schadenfreude!

On Wednesday, the Florida Bar requested that publicity mutt and raging loony, Jack Thompson, be disbarred for at least 10 years. This follows disciplinary proceedings (similar to a trial) late last year in which he was found guilty of 27 acts of professional misconduct, including "knowingly making a false statement of material fact or law to a tribunal" and "engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation".

For many years, this [censored] has manufactured controversy about video games and put himself at the forefront. Unburdened by facts or even relevant knowledge of the games in question, he has blamed video games for what seems like every violent act in this country in the last decade or more. I note that NPR recently [Talk of the Nation, May 1st] dismissed him quickly when he admitted that he had not played the game (Grand Theft Auto IV) he so vociferously denounced (though Fox News reportedly still uses him as an "expert").

For some excellent and in depth coverage, visit GamePolitics.com's Bar Trial Series.

The final disbarment decision will be made by the Florida Supreme Court on or around September 2.

The Kiltinator

2008-06-06T00:18:00.006-04:00

East Lansing High School Theater program is en route to Edinburgh.

While I have been hip deep in development, the youngest member of our family has been working toward some success of his own. He and his fellow performers have put together an amusing video which tells it all (and then some):

"In the summer of 2007, East Lansing High School's Theater Department won the incredible honor of representing the State of Michigan at the 2008 Edinburgh (Scotland) Fringe Festival..."

The Kiltinator
[YouTube - running time: 9:47]

Enjoy!

(For your convenience, here is the link at the end of the video: www.elderly.com/fringe)

Happy Memorial Day

2008-05-26T10:20:00.003-04:00

or Happy Spring Bank Holiday if you are in the UK.

Today is the unofficial start of the Summer vacation season here in the United States, and a big day for having gatherings with friends and family. We do have some good friends coming for a visit, and the whole (immediate) family here, so we have that second part covered (for the day). As far as vacations are concerned, though, it looks like we will be so busy for the next few weeks, at least, that getting away from the office will be unlikely. The time when vacations are most needed are often the same times that one is least able to afford either the time or money (or both) to take them.

The weather is just about perfect today, although thunderstorms are forecast for the afternoon and evening (which is par for the course for Summer in Michigan). Unfortunately, I begin today hobbling about due to a badly bruised left knee suffered in a soccer game last Thursday. The swelling and pain are subsiding a bit, so I do not think that anything actually broke. (I played most of the second half after the injury, only realizing the extent of the problem after the game ended.)

I have a large pile of technical notes, plus some anticipated announcements, ready for this blog. Similar to the vacation paradox, the point when one finds the most useful material is the time when one is being productive, rather than taking the time to actually compose blog posts.

Will work on that...

That New Computer Smell

2008-05-19T17:07:00.004-04:00

or, Information Overload on Overdrive.

A couple of weeks ago, I got the first brand new primary development system I have bought in many years. Don't get me wrong: I have purchased a large number of systems over the years as laptops, servers, secondary (Mac) development systems, and office/test machines. Through the years, though, the trusty dual-processor system that sits on (well, next to) the desk in my office has remained stable. Its last major upgrade was nearly six years ago, when I maxed out the processing capability of the motherboard. (There have certainly been several video card, hard drive, and disc burner upgrades in the interim.)

According to the PassMark CPU Benchmark Charts, the new system (quad core) processor should be approximately 10 times the combined speed of the processors in the older system. I could have assembled a crazy system that would be more than thrice this speed, but instead decided to opt for a pre-built computer from a major supplier, as I could not (right now) justify the extra time it would take to physically put together the hardware. Installing all of my development software would be time-consuming enough.

Speaking of software installation, I had planned to take several days to really get the new development environment tweaked to my satisfaction. The most basic functionality, the operating system, gave me the most difficulty, although it is probably due to one or more driver issues rather than the OS itself. I had to clock the processor below specification to keep any of multiple Windows installations (XP, Vista, and Vista 64) from blue-screening, although I restored the speed after installation and the system has been rock solid ever since. (That is "solid" as in does not crash, though Vista exhibits several reproducible bugs.)

The thing upon which I had not planned was the backlash of extra work and interruptions that come from taking a few days off to configure a new system. Wow! My last week really needed a time defragmenter, as it seems that I could never get more than 15 minutes on any single task before another issue demanded my attention. The fact that my projects build from 3.5 to 5 times as fast never really came into play.

Now that (almost) everything is working as I prefer, and with the trusty system just a double ScrollLock away, I should be able to take full advantage of the promised extra productivity... I hope.

Anniversary of first internet E-mail Spam

2008-05-03T12:48:00.003-04:00

or, Never trust any Spam over 30 years old.

On (or about) May 3, 1978, a representative of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), THUERK at DEC-MARLBORO, sent an Unsolicited Commercial E-mail (UCE), a.k.a., Spam message, though neither term had been coined yet. The message was an invitation to view a demonstration of new DEC hardware at a couple of locations in California, and it was sent to nearly every address on the West Coast.

There was, of course, a huge backlash against the message. Interestingly, not only were there objections to the commercial content of the message, but in the days of connection speeds being measured in baud and kilobytes/second, the size of the message header was a significant load on resources.

This event predates my first hands-on personal computer experience by several months, and it also predates the birth of many people now in the game industry. It is a shame that we still do not have a solution to the problem (which has reached levels as high as 4 spams per second for extended periods on our server here). Unfortunately, most attempts to stem the flow, however well-intentioned, tend to simply make delivery of legitimate messages less reliable.

The time is ripe for a sender pays (recipient earns) system. At an average of upwards of 3000 spams per day, that could be a nice bit of residual income for us.

Fifteen Years Old!

2008-04-30T03:26:00.002-04:00

Today is the birthday of the World Wide Web (as we know it).

On April 30, 1993, CERN released their World Wide Web software, including a text client, a simple server, and a library of common code, into the public domain. The original proposal was published two and a half years earlier, on November 12, 1990, but once the protocols and source code for a working system were freely available for use, the foundations of the WWW were in place.

This action, along with the High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991, initiated by (then) Senator Al Gore, led directly to the development of Mosaic, the graphical web browser that ignited the web, later in 1993. It is astounding how far this technology has come in just a decade and a half, particularly having made the leap from an obscure network tool into a primary source of information for the masses.

Wow!

Rites of Spring

2008-04-17T02:02:00.002-04:00

Sunshine and warmer temperatures cause me to venture forth.

For the last few months, I have been focusing on development of a new product and game engine, simultaneously, and I have spent most of the past month indoors. That was not really a problem as the bitter cold changed into grey skies and rain, with moderate cold. Now, however, the temperatures are getting into the 60s and 70s and the sky is mostly sunny, so it is high time to get out of the office for a bit.

On Saturday [April 19], IGDA Detroit will be having a "social meeting" at Penguicon in Troy (near Detroit). The party begins at 5:00pm in an unspecified room on the third floor. I have no particular desire to go to the con itself (so I won't), but I look forward to talking with other game developers from our area and elsewhere. For more information about the IGDA gathering, visit this link.

For anybody in the East Lansing area, there is also a benefit auction for the East Lansing High School Theater Program, which has been selected to participate in the 2008 Festival Fringe in Edinburgh, Scotland. The auction takes place tomorrow, Friday, April 18; click here to find more information, including a list of items up for bid. If anybody would like to donate directly, contact me (seelhoff@sophsoft.com) and I will provide instructions for doing so.

Finally, and very unfortunately, I have to acknowledge that a friend of mine (in an unrelated field) passed away early last week, so...

Here's to you, Wayne. You will be greatly missed.

Five years

2008-03-19T00:01:00.000-04:00

[Moment of Silence]

We need more Squares

2008-03-11T01:16:00.027-04:00

It is time for "squares" to honor IP rights proudly.

During my life, I have heard many people referred to as "squares" because they chose not to participate in some activity, whether it be drinking, smoking, or promiscuous sex. I have been on both sides of that intended epithet, and it is much harder to stick to ones choices than to go along with the crowd. In my youthful experience, "everyone is doing it" was the key argument in such situations.

Fast forward several years into the future. Drinking can lead to alcoholism and drunk driving, and "Drink responsibly" is the new mantra and mandate. Smoking causes addiction and early death, not to mention an offensive smell, and people are now generally encouraged to quit (and congratulated for doing so). Sex, practiced irresponsibly, can lead to unwanted pregnancy and/or STDs, and now many people take pride in their choice of either abstinence or a monogamous relationship.

Now it seems that copyright violations, in the form of pirated software and illegal music and video files, are another foolish act that "everyone", especially the young, are being encouraged by peers to do.

It is high time that we "squares" stand up and start turning the tide against these unethical, immoral, and illegal practices. I am confident that nearly everybody who reads this blog understands the importance of creative people such as game developers, artists, and musicians getting properly paid for their work. Nevertheless, I will still make the point that if creators are not compensated fairly because their work is being stolen, then there will soon be a decrease in software, video games, music, movies, and other art, to the detriment of society.

I realize that people are not often willing or able to think about abstract concepts such as the "detriment of society", so perhaps the fear of the logical extent of what it happening already will sway them. Groups such as the RIAA (according to Google, "Trade group that claims to represent the US recording industry." [emphasis mine]) are becoming more radical and aggressive with lawsuits and technological means of locking content and spying (yes, spying) on their own customers. We are rapidly moving to a point where, in order to watch a movie at home, play a computer game, or listen to a song, we have to completely give up our privacy (not to mention our credit card numbers) and still endure painful DRM procedures. Yet the problem grows worse.

Instead of encouraging such antagonistic means, it is imperative on all of us (thoughtful, intelligent people) to be vocal about how uncool it is to steal others' creative work by making digital copies without paying. If one makes a living, or has any intent to ever make money, in a creative field, then one cannot condone copyright violations in any area. With some reverse peer pressure from the millions of people in creative fields, it is possible to give digital theft the social stigma it deserves.

Are you all with me?

[Note: This posting was delayed for days due to a technological failure.]

SharewareRadio.com Interview

2008-02-25T12:47:00.002-05:00

A voice interview I did last summer has now been published.

During SIC 2007, Mike Dulin interviewed me for his SharewareRadio.com program. Last week, my interview was the one included in the weekly broadcast [Thursday Feburary 21, 2008]. The full program [MP3 - 16.6M] can be downloaded (or opened directly) from the front page for the next few days. In case you miss the current window, the interview should be available in the archives.

The general topics of conversation were my background (briefly), game development, and the ASP (Association of Shareware Professionals).

Enjoy!

HNT: Inspire stuggling employees (part 3)

2008-02-13T23:59:00.004-05:00

This is the last part (for now) of How Not To inspire struggling employees.

[The past two posts provide context for this.]

The situation: Unlike the previous situations, at this point I was making enough money to pay my bills on time, albeit without really getting ahead. I had worked my way up from Software Engineer to Vice President of Programming and, again, was the highest positioned employee, #2 to the owner/President. The company was not particularly strong, financially, but I had finished a multimedia presentation product that had the possibility, if managed and marketed correctly, to make a large splash in a fledgling industry (in 1992). I had high hopes of actually earning a comfortable living for once. Until...

The incident: My boss, for reasons still unknown to me, confided that he would be "perfectly happy to earn $40K per year." In fact, he went on to proclaim that if a benefactor would grant him that much each year, he will close down the company and just live on that.

That was his goal. Of course, this is one of those guys who grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth, so I suppose it was admirably modest, but the fact that he barely wanted to earn more than I expected on my next raise was disconcerting. More so was the fact that he was only committed to the company from which I was earning my living until something easier came along (like inheriting family money, perhaps).

The lessons: If the owner of the company has aspirations for the long term that are lower than your own for the next year or so, it is time to look elsewhere. Should you find that your boss has no particular commitment to the work that you (collectively) do, get ready to leave. When your boss has an extramarital affair with one of your coworkers and it starts affecting your job, depart as soon as possible. (No, wait... That last one is a different story.)

[link to part 1]
[link to part 2]

HNT: Inspire stuggling employees (part 2)

2008-02-12T00:11:00.004-05:00

This is the second (middle) part of How Not To inspire struggling employees.

[Please see my previous post for background.]

The situation: I had a programming position at an independent game development company. Scratch that. I had the programming position (remaining), and in an attempt to get our game finished, I had (very foolishly) taken a pay cut down to minimum wage, albeit with the possibility of overtime up to 80 hours. In order to make ends meet, I then had to work 80 hours every week. Since I (and my pregnant wife) lived 30 miles away, I often had to sleep in the office to save both time and gas money. This took a toll on my health, my finances, and my marriage (and needless to say, I would never do that again).

The incident: One of the (two) bosses told me one day that his personal bank account had dipped below $10,000 and continued, "I get nervous when it gets that low."

There I was, working the equivalent of two full time jobs, yet still only able to afford gas to see my wife (who was unable to work due to a difficult pregnancy) some nights, and of course stressed beyond belief. So my boss thinks that he will get better productivity by commiserating about having "money problems" while demonstrating a complete lack of understanding of my situation. Hmm...

The lessons: Never accept a pay cut to finish a project, especially if you are a critical developer (unless, of course, you can afford it and stand to profit handsomely when the product is completed). Working 80 hours per week on a sustained basis is counterproductive. If you are an employer, make sure that your developers can at least afford basic necessities, and certainly do not detail how you are at a whole different economic level (if applicable).

[link to part 1]
[link to part 3]

HNT: Inspire stuggling employees (part 1)

2008-02-11T14:17:00.012-05:00

This is the first part (of 3) about How Not To inspire struggling employees.

In my early career, I had a number of jobs which, for various reasons, paid less than they should have, resulting in financial struggles for me and my family. There were three particular incidents, at different companies, which exemplify very poor understanding of the situation and demonstrate a boss utterly failing to instill any sense of confidence or hope for any improvement.

It should be noted that I chose to leave each of these companies, and all of them went out of business fairly soon thereafter. I present them in chronological order, starting (appropriately) with the first:

The situation: I had a dual position which involved both management and development responsibilities, in different areas of the business (service/repairs and consulting, respectively). I accepted lower weekly pay in exchange for an annual bonus plan that seemed good at the time. Alas, the bonus was not paid on time (and actually took almost a year to receive, in pieces, until I took an "in kind" payment two weeks before the next, larger, annual bonus was due). More relevant, though, is that I worked may way up to being the senior employee, #3 in the company behind the two owners, finding to my chagrin that meant my paychecks were more likely to be late, and usually by a full pay period.

The incident: The boss presented me with my W-2 for the previous year and proclaimed, seemingly with some misplaced pride (or something): "Look! I only made $200 more than you did last year."

Let's see... The company owes me a couple of weeks of past wages, most of my annual "bonus", and I am having great difficulty making ends meet as a single person living in an efficiency apartment with minimal expenses. To quote a line from one of my favorite sitcoms, Coupling (the hilarious British one, of course), "What part of your brain thought that was a good thing to say?"

The lessons: If a paycheck is late (more than once) or a promised bonus is not paid, it is time to find another job. If the owner of the company has to live on ramen noodles, yet the checks are late anyway, find a different job now.

[link to part 2]
[link to part 3]

Comments? Yes, please.

2008-02-09T18:32:00.001-05:00

It looks like my new web server was rejecting blog comments.

I think that I have fixed the problem for past entries, but this post is a test to confirm that I have resolved this permission problem going forward.

Please make nonsensical comments to let me know that it is working.

Thanks.

[Note: This is my second try.]
[OK, third attempt now...]
[Fourth attempt....]
[Fifth attempt!]

Rats!

2008-02-07T23:36:00.000-05:00

Today begins the Year of the Rat.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Greetings, Fellow Groundhogs

2008-02-02T16:39:00.000-05:00

The new year finally begins in earnest.

With 2007 in the rear view mirror (and, of course, closer than it appears), I am ready to make great progress throughout 2008. As promised in the previous post, I emerge with the woodchucks to be seen on this day, and likewise, I started out the day in a hole. Nevertheless, I am definitely looking forward to the near future.

We have a big game development project, ultimately representing several products on (at least) a couple of platforms, that is taking much of my time now. The first testing version will be ready shortly, with a couple of releases (for Windows and Mac) scheduled as soon as everything is solid and "bug free". There are also several more to follow in the first part of this year.

Also, as the ASP Chairman of the Board, I am excited that the Association of Shareware Professionals has all of its 2008 leadership in place now, and with the quality of our team, I am expecting that we will be making great improvements this year, including with the ASP Indie Games SIG (Special Interest Group). Similarly, our chapter of the International Game Developers Association, IGDA Detroit, is ready to make big strides forward.

Remember, we gain an extra day this month, and even my late beginning gives me a head start of five days over the Chinese. [Chinese New Year is Thursday, February 7.]

Happy New Year 2008!

2008-01-02T17:04:00.000-05:00

Thanks for the great memories, 2007!

On this first working day of 2008, I want to wish everybody a Happy New Year!

Additionally, I will take this opportunity to hope everybody (in the US, anyway) has a good Martin Luther King, Jr. Day [January 21]. Big things are cooking here, but it looks like activity on this blog will be slow or non-existent until Groundhog Day, when I, too, will come out of "hibernation". Until then...

Numeric year update was successfully installed. Rebooting now.

Where are Wii?

2007-12-29T11:06:00.000-05:00

Another season of artificial shortages comes to an end.

For the second year in a row, Nintendo has managed to create completely artificial shortages of their Wii console to increase demand. There were questions in 2006, within the first few months of the Wii release, about whether this was a legitimate production issue, but more than a year later, it is fairly obvious that Nintendo is manufacturing scarcity alongside the hardware.

As far as the actual process of building the consoles is concerned, it is not as if they should be experiencing any delays due to, say, protecting the environment. Recently, Nintendo got the very first zero rating given to any company by Greenpeace in their Guide to Greener Electronics. That is quite an accomplishment; as the actual report on Nintendo [PDF] states, "The company scores zero on all criteria, allowing infinite room for future improvement."

Nevertheless, whether by stumbling into the problem last year and then merely replicating it in 2007 or by marketing design from the outset, this "Cabbage Patch Console" approach appears to be working. Dozens of adults lined up at our local Best Buy at 8:00am last Sunday morning, in winter advisory conditions including wind gusts up to 50 MPH, to get tickets to allow them to purchase one of the 120 units available. These ticketholders then waited in line again, some for hours, waiting for the opportunity to actually make the purchase. All of this just yards from where the technically superior XBox 360 and Playstation 3 consoles sat in piles as if stuck on the Island of Misfit Toys.

Fortunately, Santa Claus managed to bring a Nintendo Wii for our family this Christmas season without standing in any such ridiculous lines, but his method remains a closely kept secret. For my part, I find that the Wii controllers are well designed for certain types of games (Wii Sports Bowling in particular), but for other games they seem an awkward fit (think shoehorn). The fact that most games require players to stand, rather than sit down, to play has both positive and negative aspects.

On my first attempt, my Wii Fitness Age matched my actual chronological age exactly; I will have to work on that.

Podcast: Detroit Creative Talent

2007-12-27T17:28:00.000-05:00

I was interviewed for a podcast that has now been posted.

About a week ago, Rich Elswick (of Moya Entertainment) interviewed me for Detroit Creative Talent, which (as the name suggests) promotes creative talent in and around the Detroit area. Michigan boasts a strong pool of such talent in areas such as game development, multimedia production, film and broadcast media, and this site works to highlight some of the individuals creating product here.

The podcast of my interview is now available from the Detroit Creative Talent web site. [MP3 size: 55.4M, Running time: 1:00:30.]

Solution: Climb Mode

2007-12-21T00:51:00.000-05:00

Here is our solution to online statistics manipulation.

As mentioned in my previous post, Problem: Statistics Manipulation, we have some players who manipulate their online statistics for solitaire games using a variety of methods. Equally, we have players complaining in the Goodsol Solitaire Forum about this practice and asking for something to be done. Worse, some players have stopped participating and reporting statistics due to the unreliability.

In an attempt to address this issue, and generally make our games more fun for our customers, we designed a new mode of gameplay called (for now) Climb Mode.

In Climb Mode, a user plays the deals for a particular game in strictly numerical order, starting with deal #1. This eliminates the ability to cherry-pick or replay deals to inflate victory percentages. At the same time, it assures that all players are compared on results from exactly the same deals. (This mode actually removes several features, such as Select Game, Previous Game, and New [random] Game.) Further, the game options are always fixed, so easier (or harder) variants are not available.

To address the question of which types of gameplay is preferred, we created a cumulative scoring system, where the score on a certain game is the total of all scores for deals played. This allows players (like me) to play for the maximum number of victories, hence scoring the most points per deal, to compete fairly with other players who play as many games as possible, rather than replaying each trying for a victory. Once one moves on from a game (by either winning or using Next Game), one cannot go back.

All games are timed in Climb Mode, and average time per deal is reported along with the total score. Ties in score are decided in favor of the player with the lower average time. Unlike in standard mode, the timer does not reset when restarting a deal, so one can replay as often as desired, but the extra attempts are reflected in the overall game time. (I have several deals in Free Klondike where I eventually won, but only after the timer maxed out at 99:59.9.)

Of course, the implementation of Climb Mode does not completely remove the possibility of cheating, as somebody who is truly determined could still potentially manipulate the results. However, we operate from the philosophy that anybody who goes through that much trouble to cheat in a friendly competition has bigger issues. In practice, since only paying customers are allowed to submit online scores, this has never been a problem, and the situation is certainly better than before.

Note that we decided to first implement the above changes in Pretty Good MahJongg rather than Pretty Good Solitaire. Now that the system has proven itself over the last few years in Pretty Good MahJongg, will Climb Mode be implemented in the next version of PGS? As the Magic 8 Ball says, "Signs point to yes."

Problem: Statistics Manipulation

2007-12-12T00:47:00.000-05:00

One solitaire game problem can be online statistics manipulation.

[Editor's note: This blog post was written more than a year ago, but only posted now.]

One of the common complaints on the Goodsol support forum is that the online statistics are skewed in some way. To be sure, there are some exploits that can be used in the flagship product, Pretty Good Solitaire, to manipulate the statistics in ones favor. In particular, one can select any deal (of 2147483647 available deals per game), so selecting known wins helps. Also, the starting position can be examined and, if no moves are made, abandoned without adversely affecting ones victory percentage. For the truly vain, unswayed by monotony, one can even play the same game repeatedly to boost their score.

Game secret: Due to the shuffling algorithm used, by design, the very last deal (i.e., game #2147483647) produces an unshuffled deck, which sometimes makes a victory easier. Veteran players who are really desperate to win a particular Solitaire game sometimes use this deal number in an attempt to get above 0%.

In addition to manipulating statistics via cherry-picking deals, there are a few other complaints. Some of the games have rules that make winning easier (or harder), so the statistics do not always compare like with like. Similarly, some players attempt to get high victory percentages, restarting a game repeatedly until it can be won (if possible), while others value the number of victories and play many more games to do that. Which is better: 100 straight victories in 100 games (100%), or 200 victories in 1000 games (20%)? That is a philosophical question.

We decided to seek a better approach for the online statistics to address some of the expressed concerns. My next blog post will discuss our solution to this issue.

Goodbye, CompUSA!

2007-12-11T14:15:00.000-05:00

A major computer retailer ceases operations.

Last Friday, it was announced that computer retailer CompUSA will close all of its 103 stores, which includes a store just down the road (about a mile) from here. This decision comes on the heels of our Director of Operations declaring that she will no longer purchase anything for our company from there due to systematic failure of customer service at these stores.

In analyzing the situation, I think that the only surprise in this announcement is that CompUSA managed to stay in business (here, anyway) as long as they did. There are three fundamental errors that this business made to lose our business:

First, the service to customers in the retail stores was reliably "last rate". On our final visit there, we had four red shirts standing around debating nothing of substance, and not dealing with customers, while the one cashier on a lane went to the back of the store to find something, leaving a line of customers, credit cards in hand, waiting indefinitely. This was not merely a regular occurrence, but the usual situation.
Second, most of the advertised "deals" involved mail-in rebates, unnecessarily. Frankly, rebates are a scam, especially when instant savings offered elsewhere ostensibly give the same end result. We had a policy in place not to consider rebates when calculating costs, which resulted in far fewer purchases there.
Third, CompUSA is a spammer, using (fraudulent) third-party mailing lists. I know this because they regularly mail one of our honeypot email addresses that has never been added to any mailing list (and, in fact, never even existed until spammers started pummeling it with UCE). It was certainly not double opt-in.

After doing my basic analysis, the first web news article I found about this, CompUSA To Close Up Shop, has comments which show that others had similar experiences, tending to indicate that the failures were truly corporate, not merely bad management at our local store. Although it is generally better to have more choice, I say "Good riddance to CompUSA!"

For local purchase of hardware, we strongly recommend Digilink Computers. They are always helpful when we have to buy computer components, usually in an emergency situation. (Yes, this includes the new server on which this blog is hosted.) My only complaint is that they are no longer open on Sundays, which sometimes requires us to go elsewhere.

The second choice in this area is Best Buy, which is much larger, but is oriented toward general consumers, so individual components (e.g., processors, fans, or empty cases) are either not available at all or only in severely limited selection. (Digilink has a sales case with various motherboards on display; do not look for that at Best Buy.)

Let me end this post with an open invitation to Fry's Electronics to open a store in this area. The closest Fry's to our location is almost 250 miles down I-69 to Indianapolis, not exactly convenient. However, I know of a perfect computer retail location nearby that will be available and vacant within a month or so...