Gamecraft

A blog all about the craft of making games.

Archive for the ‘Business’ category

I Got Mine

April 3rd, 2010

The Apple iPad arrives, right on time.

At 11:14 this morning [Saturday, April 3, 2010], our Apple iPad was delivered to our office door.

This is the first piece of hardware that I can recall ever pre-ordering, and I actually placed the order within the first minute that it was possible. Since the iPad was announced, I have read lots of skepticism about its value and usefulness, and I am resistant to hype. (In fact, I often avoid things that are probably quite good simply because of the hype attached; for example, I have thus far refused to see Avatar.) With the iPad, though, I could immediately comprehend its potential, especially for games and particularly for the kind of games that I enjoy creating and playing.

While awaiting a delivery, whether it be books, music, or hardware, I tend to almost obsessively check the package tracking. In the case of this highly anticipated product release (witness the latest episode of Modern Family), I was apparently not alone. Despite several different rumors to explain the odd tracking data from UPS, many of which ended with a conclusion about shipments being delayed, the actual explanation is likely to be much simpler. My guess: Because there were 200,000 units being shipped from China, they were originally packaged in huge lots destined for each distribution point (in our case, Louisville, Kentucky) and not scanned individually until they arrived there. (I seriously doubt my iPad flew nonstop from Guangzhou to the Bluegrass State.)

Interestingly, I happened to be awake at around 5:33am, having just watched an exciting (and wet) Formula One qualifying session live from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The wind was apparently coming from the right direction, and I heard the airplane carrying my shipment fly almost directly overhead. The “arrival scan” was 22 minutes later, though it actually took two more trucks, and a couple more scans, before it arrived here. (The iPad Dock is still in transit, via a different carrier with distribution in a different, albeit neighboring, state.)

Anyway, there will certainly be a proper review in the future, but right now I feel that it is time to get started playing around with our latest software platform.

The most surprising aspect so far was that Apple had UPS require identification in order to receive delivery of the iPad package. The only “problem” so far is that I did not get to use my alternative title, “iSad” (had it not arrived).

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Posted in Business, News

Tags: hardware iPad platform

Productivity Boost

April 1st, 2010

Prolific Development Through Isolation

Over the past several weeks, I have been working very hard on a number of exciting new projects, all of which are making great progress. In the process, though, I have managed to neglect and get a couple of weeks behind on my email, while essentially ignoring all other forms of inbound communication.

The result is that my productivity has increased greatly, while only missing one important piece of information. Therefore, I have decided to make these changes to my workload permanent. As of today:

I will shut down our email server. It receives, literally, thousands of messages daily, of which 99.9% is spam; even messages addressed only to my legitimate email addresses are more than 96% spam. Besides, the old hardware is locking up on a regular basis anyway.
I will remove telephone service from the office. Our two voice lines are used almost exclusively for answering telemarketing calls, and our fax line is disconnected most of the time due to the high volume of spam faxes.
I will bring an end to our social media experiment. In the time that I have been focusing on programming, I have not checked Facebook at all and do not feel that I missed anything. I feel likewise about Twitter, which I have never checked.
I will no longer spend any more than one hour per year writing joke posts for this blog. It is really too nice outside to be in here right now.
I will create a private contact page on our web site exclusively for those who pay us money. Those wishing to pay us money can initiate contact via blog comments.
I will keep the post office box, despite the junk mail, as it is a direct means for us to receive money. One can avoid the online back and forth by just attaching a check to your message and sending it to our business address.

I can feel my productivity on the rise already!

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Posted in Business

Tags: humor productivity

Compartmentalization

January 8th, 2010

Separating business matters from personal issues

Recently, I received the first newsletter of the year from (friend and former colleague) Steve Pavlina. For those of you who do not already know about Steve Pavlina, he founded Dexterity Games (now defunct) and published Dweep, an award-winning puzzle game. He was also the President of the Association of Shareware Professionals and was inducted into the ASP Hall of Fame in 2005. After this success, he left the game industry to pursue a career in motivational speaking and personal development, writing the book, Personal Development for Smart People.

Anyway, the meat of the newsletter, nestled in between the various sales pitches and recommendations from which he earns his living, was a section entitled, “Living by Your Own Rules“. This intrigued me, as it seemed to correspond nicely with my personal plans for 2010, so I read on. However, I quickly discovered that his ideas did not mesh with my own in this case. It had little to do with the actual content of his writings, but his radical ideas of sharing his personal life (specifically, his sexual preferences and desires) in the place in which he does his business.

Specifically, Steve made a blog post with his 2010 goals in which he reveals his personal goal of pursuing “Alternative Relationship Styles” and goes into detail (for which you will need to read his post). I have no problem whatsoever with his choice to pursue this lifestyle, but I do question the wisdom of presenting this in a forum in which he currently (by his own numbers) sells six figures a month; it seems risky to the point of potential self-destruction. More to the point, I wonder what benefit to his business (not to mention personal reputation) he seeks to gain from this pursuit. (I do see a great benefit in finding compatible sexual partners, though.)

Steve is good at taking things to the extreme, completing college in only three semesters, ramping up his healthy eating through vegetarianism to a vegan diet and finally raw foods, and now personal openness to a radical degree. He calls this last part “courage”, which it certainly takes, but I am not sure that courage is always the best choice. Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean suggests that the opposite of cowardice is rashness, and this might apply here. The more common idiom is, “All things in moderation, and moderation in all things.”

Personally, I think that it is still wise to compartmentalize to some degree, especially keeping business issues separate from (potentially) controversial personal issues, such as politics, religion, and sexuality. Discussing the particulars of these in a business context has the potential of alienating people with little chance of significant gain. I do not have a problem seasoning my business posts with personal items, and I definitely have business friends with whom I share more, but any proclivities I may (or may not ) have should remain discrete.

Ultimately, I guess that I am intrigued at Steve’s attempt to alter societal norms, and I wish him the best of luck, but I am also glad that it is he, rather than I, who is taking the risk of falling flat on his face. (Ridicule I could handle; starvation, not so much.)