Category Archives: News

Community Statement

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Regarding Westboro Baptist Church Protest at East Lansing High School

[The following statement was recently approved by area community and religious leaders in response to an announced protest, scheduled to take place later today, directed at ELHS students, including my son, and their teachers and parents.  It is republished here as a show of support.]

The Greater Lansing Community stands unified in opposition to the message of hate brought to our community by the Westboro Baptist Church. We know that as a community our strength lies in our diversity – religious, ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, race, social, political and more. This diversity is what creates a healthy thriving community. And such communities foster and participate in a market place of ideas.

We understand that the diversity of our community also allows for a diversity of ideas and that is part of our strength.  This also means that we may not all agree on the best way to respond to WBC on Thursday.  We  ask that each participant, in planning their role in the response to WBC, consider that Westboro  is only able to fund these trips by suing the people that respond to their provocations in confrontational or violent ways. If you feel inspired to join our efforts please help the rest of us respond to their hate with more dignity than they are showing us and our youth.

We are appalled that Westboro Baptist Church has decided to direct its vitriol at the students of East Lansing High School. Their hate stands in direct opposition to the values of our community and is an attempt to unfairly bully our youth into silence.

It has been reported the Westboro Baptist Church has targeted these youth because they have done that which we encourage as a community value – they’ve engaged in the civic dialog and expressed a view with which Westboro disagrees. Instead of dialoging with the youth, and participating in the marketplace of ideas, Westboro has instead decided to attack, bully and harass our youth. We stand with our youth and applaud this engagement by them. We value participatory citizenship in which ideas are challenged through dialog over demagoguery and bullying.

Sadly, the Westboro Baptist Church protest serves to remind us that bullying is not isolated to our school hallways, but permeates our culture. We whole-heartedly reject bullying as the violence it is—to individuals, to groups and to the community.

We believe the protest by Westboro Baptist Church shows our elected officials in the legislature that it is past time for them to lead and take action against bullying.

The irony that Westboro Baptist Church has come to divide us as a community, but has instead united us is not lost on this community.

Our faith leaders and community agree that the Westboro Baptist Church does not reflect our understanding of a place of worship. Houses of worship create, build, nurture and support community. Despite our diverse views of God, we are united in our belief that God is a loving creator.

We stand in opposition to Westboro Baptist Church’s intrusion into our community. At the same time, the tapestry of our community in all of its diversity are on full display, and demonstrates why the Greater Lansing Area is an amazing community in which to live, work and play.

Supreme Arguments

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Video Games have their day before the Supreme Court.

On November 2, the case of “Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California, et al., Petitioners v. Entertainment Merchants Association, et al.” (docket # 08-1448) was argued in front of the Supreme Court of the United States.  Oral arguments began at 10:04am and lasted exactly an hour (until 11:04am).  The format was an initial argument by the petitioners (California), followed by a response from the respondents (EMA), and then a rebuttal by the petitioners.  Each side is represented by one (speaking) attorney, and the Justices interrupt them (and each other) at whim with questions and arguments.

As discussed originally in my post, Video Games facing Supreme Court review, the case concerns the law passed in California that would prohibit sales of games with “deviant violence” to anyone under 18 years of age.  The law never went into effect and was ruled unconstitutional by two lower courts before being appealed to the Supreme Court.  Hopefully, as discussed at Meaningful Play 2010, this case will put the legal question to rest once and for all and allow the industry to have an open debate.

Surprisingly, the transcript of the oral arguments in the case (PDF) is actually fairly entertaining to read.  The Justices are nowhere near as dry as one might expect, and there were moments of actual laughter.  The case is also very interesting in the fact that the normal ideological lines of conservative versus liberal seem to break down, so there are no easy predictions as to how individual Justices may vote (and Clarence Thomas did not speak at all).  In fact, press reports differ on which way the Court may be leaning.

Here are a few of my favorite moments from the oral arguments in this case:

“I’m concerned about the producer of the games who has to know what he has to do in order to comply with the law.  […]  But a law that has criminal penalties has to be clear.  And how is the manufacturer to know whether a particular violent game is covered or not?” — Justice Antonin Scalia

“Well, I think what Justice Scalia wants to know is what James Madison thought about video games.” — Justice Samuel Alito

“Would a video game that portrayed a Vulcan as opposed to a human being, being maimed and tortured, would that be covered by the act?” [answer: “No, it wouldn’t…”]  “So if the video producer says this is not a human being, it’s an android computer simulated person, then all they have to do is put a little artificial feature on the creature and they could sell the video game?” [answer: “Under the act, yes…”] — Justice Sonia Sotomayor

For more coverage, you can listen to the story from National Public Radio (or read the NPR transcript) or see the associated stories in the Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times, or read the story on Kotaku for a perspective from the game media.

A ruling on the case in expected by June, 2011.

Meaningful Play 2010, Day 0

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This academic games conference prepares to start.

Today is the night before Meaningful Play 2010 gets underway.  This is an academic conference about, as the tag line says, “designing and studying games that matter.”   It takes place here in East Lansing, Michigan, on the campus of Michigan State University, over the next three days.  The sessions at this conference are less about implementation details (so no SRO technical sessions with Michael Abrash or John Carmack) and more about broader issues, such as how to make games more effective as learning tools, and what makes gameplay meaningful.

The last (and first) edition of this conference was held two years ago, and you can read my detailed information on that conference in my post Meaningful Play 2008, and in the next three entries for Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.  Of course, I will be attending, and reporting from, the conference again this year.  In fact, I have already attended the first associated event (and picked up my badge).

This “pre-conference talk” was Hanging Out, Messing Around and Geeking Out: Connected Learning and Play in a Digital Age, presented by Mimi Ito of the Humanities Research Institute, University of California, Irvine.  In her presentation, she noted and illustrated these three main conflicts between traditional methods of education and learning via new media: originality versus sharing, stock versus flow of information, and top-down versus peer-to-peer.  She discussed and defined “connected learning”, involving three main elements: being interest-driven, involving peer interaction, and tying formal and informal methods together.  As much as I sometimes feel disconnected from the current social technologies, this definition clearly put my own educational experience at the forefront of the connected learning movement.

One piece of the presentation that clearly brought home the issues being discussed was a video, A Vision of Students Today, by Michael Wesch from Kansas State University.  It is particularly noteworthy that this video was created more than 3 years ago; think about how much things have changed even since it was produced.

After the talk (which was actually open to the general public), I skipped the reception for a personal errand, but I did return to (a different location in) East Lansing in time to pick up my badge at registration.  Of course, there was also a bit of swag, too, including a very nice zippered bag with pockets, the obligatory conference t-shirt, and other goodies.  Now I ask you:  How many professional/academic conferences provide a chocolate bar in the swag bag?  Great idea.

I will admit to being pleased to know the conference organizers and have them note that they were glad to have me attend again.  Now I just need to review the schedule book, highlight the interesting sessions and workshops (possibly all of them), and decide which portable electronic device to carry with me, or whether to go “old school” and take notes with a pen and paper.

… and I need to get some sleep.

I stand with Stan

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A comic book legend weighs in on video games.

As we approach the upcoming arguments before the United States Supreme Court concerning video games and the protection of free speech in this country, legendary comic creator Stan Lee has contributed some historical perspective to the issue, finding a direct parallel with attacks upon the comic book industry half a century ago.  That is why Stan Lee supports the Video Game Voters Network.

If you prefer your commentary irreverent, fast-paced, and visual (or even if not), I recommend viewing this video by Zero Punctuation (a.k.a., Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw) explaining the importance of VGVN.

Our Games. Our Rights.

Join Now.

When I testified before the Michigan Senate Judiciary Committee back in 1995 in opposition to proposed game restrictions in Michigan, one Senator (while I was still on the stand) equated the game industry with prostitution and essentially implied that I was a whore. When our government makes judgments that some expressions (such as his) are more worthy of protection than others, such as those reflected in video games (or books, movies, newspapers, etc.), they dishonor the Constitution and a fundamental principle of the United States of America.

By the way, for those who did not follow (or do not remember) the story at that time, Michigan went on to pass the legislation (which was similar to the California law currently under review), it was signed into law, and then it was ruled unconstitutional by a federal court and overturned. In addition to the immense waste of time (not to mention, good will), the State of Michigan was forced to pay an extra $182,349 to game industry groups in restitution for legal fees amassed while opposing this foolhardy bill.

The big legal event is scheduled.

Of course, the really major upcoming issue is Schwarzenegger, Governor of California v. Entertainment Merchants Association (#08-1448) being reviewed by the Supreme Court.  The case is on the docket and arguments are scheduled to be heard on November 2, 2010.  It is supposed to be the first case (of three) presented on that day.

Ultimately, the ruling by the Court could have a substantial impact on the game industry, either by curtailing the repeated attempts by legislators to treat games as an unprotected form of expression and erode the concept of free speech, or (if they rule incorrectly) by opening the door to many more of such restrictions, leading us to war games where soldiers bleed green and mature games being banned from sale altogether.  Fortunately, every court so far has ruled against these kinds of laws, including against this particular law twice previously.

For more information, please see my previous posting, Video Games facing Supreme Court review.

“Why does this matter?  Because if you restrict sales of video games, you’re chipping away at our First Amendment rights to free speech.” — Stan Lee

A cloud is forming

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Changes to this Gamecraft blog are underway.

I am currently in the process of revamping Gamecraft to make it more useful for readers and easier to find the desired content.  I am also trying to improve the marketing and SEO (search engine optimization) for the site in order to bring more visitors, and hopefully the changes will help them become regulars here.

The quest to improve my blog began with a post in the asp.members.marketing newsgroup of the Association of Software Professionals.  Responses from fellow members suggested that there was not problem with the focus or content of the postings, but rather that the organization was not ideal, especially for new visitors.  In particular, it was suggested that I add a “tag cloud” to the side bar, which I have done, and tag my posts appropriately, which process is underway but may take a while (since there are nearly 300 posts to update).

To be honest, I never really considered a tag cloud before, but now I definitely see the benefit, making the topics of the blog available at a glance.  I actually needed to make some CSS modifications to the theme in order for the one here to appear more as a cloud and less like individual lines of alphabetical keywords.  For the moment, certain keywords (e.g., “Mac”) are overrepresented based on recently activities and releases, but it is an improvement.

Other changes included moving the ‘Archives’ column to the far right, so that its length does not displace other groups, moving the ‘Categories’ column up, and adding a ‘Recent Posts’ column.  (At least some of these changes may have been made previously and then lost in a WordPress or theme update.)  In the near future, I am planning an ‘About your host‘ page for those who want to know more about me and my extensive experience, as well as a ‘Best of Gamecraft‘ section with links to some of the most useful and popular articles.

I sincerely invite any suggestions or criticism of the style, content, and organization of the blog, either via comments to this posting, or directly via email to seelhoff@sophsoft.com.  Praise, of course, would be accepted as well.

Pretty Good MahJongg Mac Edition 1.0

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A favorite product is now available on a new platform.

This week, Goodsol Development released Pretty Good MahJongg Mac Edition 1.0, our very first published Apple Mac OS X version of this award-winning title.  Pretty Good MahJongg Mac Edition is a MahJongg solitaire game which has 160 different tile matching layouts, but also 32 original solitaire games played with MahJongg tiles, as well as a custom layout editor (only available in the full/purchased version).

The develoment of Pretty Good MahJongg Mac Edition took longer than originally anticipated, due at least in part to working on three different products for three different platforms simultaneously.  The end result, though is very satisfying, and this Mac Edition has all of the same gameplay features as the Windows version, including downloadable tile sets.  The next major update of PGMJME will bring the number of solitaire games (and tile matching layouts) even with its 8-year-old sibling, but that is in the (not too distant) future.  For the moment, I am looking for the expected 50% productivity gains on the other two major upcoming releases.

You can download a trial version of PGMJME 1.0 from the Mac Edition web site, and you can purchase Pretty Good MahJongg Mac Edition for only $24.95.  (Registered users of the Windows version can find a link for a discount coupon on the Goodsol web forum.)  What a deal!

I challenge anybody to catch me in Free Klondike (one of the original solitaire games in PGMJME, and my favorite) playing in climb mode.

RIP: Mike Dulin (1943-2010)

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A friend and colleague passes away.

Last Wednesday, July 28, 2010, Michael Dennis Dulin died from complications of pulmonary fibrosis; he was 66.  [Here is his Obituary from the Janesville [Wisconsin] Gazette.]

Mike Dulin

Mike Dulin at SIC 2006

Mike Dulin was the founder of SharewareJunkies.com and other related web sites.  Within the shareware industry, he was perhaps better known as a perennially upbeat attendee at industry conferences, an advocate for software entrepreneurs, and the driving force (and voice) behind SharewareRadio.com.  (He interviewed me for his site back in 2007.)  Mike always had a story at the ready, including some amusing anecdotes from his previous career as an air traffic controller at Chicago O’Hare.  He qualified as a true “character” (in the best way), living and working in both Finland and Guatemala, commuting a couple of times each year.

At the time of his death, Mike Dulin was serving as the President of the Association of Software Professionals, a position to which I was instrumental in appointing him back in 2008 (when I was ASP Chairman of the Board).  Mike remained in that role and was still performing his duties for the ASP at the Software Industry Conference less than two weeks before his passing (and I am sorely disappointed that I was not there at SIC 2010).

Rest in Peace, Mike.  You will be missed.

SIA Foibles

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The return of the Software Industry Awards is somewhat flawed.

As I wrote in a previous post, Software/Shareware Industry Awards are back, there were some questions yet to be answered about the Software Industry Awards under their new process and new name.  In particular, I wondered whether a list of nominees, or at least software categories, would be published prior to the conference, being especially concerned about how (or even if) game software would be handled.

Unfortunately, neither names of nominees nor a list of software categories appeared prior to the Software Industry Conference at which they were awarded.  This means that no software developers would attend the “Gala Networking & Awards Dinner” solely in support of nominated products.  Apparently, the overall conference turnout was noticeably smaller than in recent years, too (which is not any sort of indictment, as I prefer smaller, more intimate gatherings).

I did also mention that “all questions should be answered” after SIC, but that was almost not the case, as the official list of SIA nominees and winners has not, to my knowledge, been published outside the Association of Software Professionals (and only within the ASP by unofficial sources).  Aside from publishing the names of the software nominees beforehand, the conference organizers should also be proactive in promoting the results.  (After more than a week, the awards winners should expect to at least be able to link to an official results page.)

The good news is that “GAMES” was one of the categories in which awards were presented (of only eight).  The bad news is the nominees demonstrate a pretty serious misunderstanding of this segment of the industry.  I applauded the positive idea that “the nominators are asked to consider only software and services offered by MicroISVs”, a concept that seems to have been seriously ignored.  (I suppose that poor selections are better than none at all, which is what the educational software industry received.)

The SIA winner in the Games category was “Sam & Max” by Telltale Games.  The problem, of course, is that Telltale is nowhere close to being a MicroISV; they have had (literally) millions of dollars from outside investors, and 67 employees listed on their Our Team page (including an old friend, Tom Byron).  [I could also mention that “Sam & Max” is not a product, but rather a series of more than a dozen different episodes.]  One of the other nominees was “Family Feud” by iWin, which is also far larger than any MicroISV, listed as the #4 casual software retailer in 2009.

Therefore, the winner in spirit is “Fantastic Farm” by Kristanix, which is a fellow ASP member and, according to the web site, consists of only two people, hence a proper MicroISV.  Alas, this kind of victory comes with nothing of value, except perhaps this link to the Fantastic Farm page.

Here are a few more selected SIA results.

The winner in the “GRAPHICS SOFTWARE” category was “SnagIt” by TechSmith, a local company for which I worked briefly.  I was actually the sole programmer on SnagIt way back in 1992-1993, developing (only) version 2.1.  (They are now up to SnagIt 10, so I take zero credit.)

The winner in the “MULTIMEDIA MUSIC/VIDEO SOFTWARE” category was “Blaze Media Pro” by Mystik Media; our company once did some artwork for Blaze Media Pro (also many years ago).

The winner in the “PROGRAMMING TOOLS/UTILITIES” category was “Beyond Compare” by Scooter Software; this is a product that I use almost daily and is extraordinarily useful.  (As a coincidence, I happen to be wearing one of their “What’s the DIFF?” t-shirts at this very moment.)  I also use another nominee in this category, “CSE HTML Validator” by AI Internet Solutions.

Two nominees in the “ISV SERVICES” category also deserve mention: Freelance Works (Martha Seward), who helps promote our games published by Goodsol Development, and Software Promotions (Dave Collins), who use to do similar (but does not handle games anymore).

For those keeping score, the three remaining categories were “BUSINESS APPLICATION, DESKTOP”, “BUSINESS APPLICATION, SaaS”, and “INTERNET TOOLS”, for which I have neither the interest nor the time to write anything clever.

The ASP becomes the ASP

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The ASP is renamed to the Association of Software Professionals.

After 23 years of leadership in (what was known as) the shareware industry, and now following the current trend, the ASP has dropped “Shareware” and officially changed its name to the Association of Software Professionals.

The change has been in the works for a while, but it was officially announced on the ASP blog in an article entitled, Shareware is dead – long live shareware!

A press release about the change can be found on Newswire Today, and proper coverage of the name change was recently published by Dr. Dobbs Editor, Jon Erickson, in a blog posting, Shareware: Thanks for the Memories.

When the ASP was formed back in 1987, it was out to promote the concept of “shareware”, a marketing method (n.b., not a type of software) where a user was able to try software before making a purchase (or not), and also to help independent developers/publishers learn how to use shareware (and other methods) to become successful.

The former goal was achieved long ago, as almost all mass market software now has a trial version available.  (See my Mission Accomplished! posting from a couple of years ago.)  The only skirmish remaining was that over the word “shareware” itself, but the ASP has now de facto ceded that control (for the sake of lasting peace, I suppose).  One only need look at this thread at The Business of Software to observe the rampant ignorance even among (nominal) developers, so I can certainly understand declaring that a losing cause.

The latter goal is actually an ongoing mission, and the ASP (regardless of the name change) remains the single greatest resource for independent software developers and publishers.  At only $100 per year, it is quite possibly the best money we have ever spent for our business.

Software/Shareware Industry Awards are back

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After missing a year, the SIAs return for 2010, slightly renamed.

Recently, the Software [nee Shareware] Industry Conference unveiled a brand new web site design, which is much improved from the previous web site.  Kudos to Sue Pichotta of Alta Web Works for a job well done (and no disrespect for the previous designer, who I also know).

Perhaps lost in this story, though, is the fact that the updated web site quietly announced the return of the Shareware, I mean, Software Industry Awards and a new (hopefully improved) process for awarding them.  According to the Process & Rules page of the site, the awards are now determined by a score of unidentified “software industry insiders”, rather than by the whole of the industry, which should reduce the amount of bizarre results (from either manipulation or voter laziness) at the risk of making them less prestigious, no longer being truly voted by peers.  I do not know who any of these people are, only that I am not one of them and that I hope they appreciate our games.

One definite positive in the new procedure is that “nominators are asked to consider only software and services offered by MicroISVs“.  This means that products like Google Earth and Windows Live Messenger (Microsoft), both 2008 winners, should no longer be eligible, getting the focus back to the independent developers the awards were originally meant to recognize.  (We also go by the title, “the developers formerly known as shareware publishers“.)

The only obvious omission is a list of categories for which the awards will be presented, and specifically, whether any game categories are included (and if so, how many).  The last time games were recognized was 2007, when our own Pretty Good MahJongg won the SIA for Best Non-Action Game.  Hopefully, the list of nominees (and, hence, categories) will be announced prior to the conference; that would almost certainly increase participation in the “Gala Networking & Awards Dinner”, which attendance was reportedly dropping.

In any event, all questions should be answered in Dallas, Texas, where SIC will take place July 15-17, 2010.  Perhaps I will see you there.